/7..I.VS Fi)ii i:.\ri:.\s/().\ or Misr.iM i:.: 



zooloji'ical side. In llic !;ittir.;i ucni^rnpliic arr;iiii;('iiiciit is kiiowii as t'aiinis- 

 tic. Tlic \ isitor iiiav liist cincr the life of AtVica and Anstralia, t'ullow into 

 tlif !it'c of Soutlicni Asia, wliicli we know hi^Iorically to Ik' on!v a (Ictaclicd 

 portion of prehistoric African life; he may tlicn pass to the life of Northi-rn 

 Asia whicli \vi!! ln'ini; him to tlic Polar Kcuion. from which he wii! enter 

 naturally the V\\'r of North America and pass soutliward into ('entraland 

 South America. 



There is, howe\ cr, another kind of se(HHMic(> to which other series of 

 halls of the Mn-eum ma\ lie dexoted — namely, the se(|nenee of cNohition. 

 Thus on the ant hropolouica! side the \isitor ma> compare the moi'c primi- 

 tive races of man, iiichidinii^ the ori<iin of man, with the more ci\ ilized races; 

 he may follow the slow steps of progress from our xcry remote ancestors of 

 two hundi-eij thousand years a,u"o throuyh the so-called l*'.olithic staj^es until 

 he reaches Man of the lironze and of the Iron Ages. Similarly lie may 

 trace the first stej)s of natin-e and the suhsecpient stages from the lower 

 into the higher forms of ))iant and animal life. 



The most impressive example of evolutionary sequence will he the series 

 of connecting halls, to which it is hop)t>d the Foiu'th Floor on the east side 

 of the Museum may lie dexoted. Here the \isitor will pass fi-om the dawn 

 of life reaching hack millions of years, and in successive halls traverse the 

 Ages of Molluscs, of l-'ishes, of Amphibians, of Re])tiles, finally reaching the 

 first Age of Mammals, and then the .\ge of Man. In this final hall he ma\- 

 witness the earliest struggle between the primitive tyjx's of paheolithic 

 hunters and the nohle forms of mammalian life which were to he foinid hoth 

 in Furope and North .\merica in the early j)eriod of man. 



There is still a third kind of secjuenee, that of systematic classification, 

 which must he provided for in another series of halls. This is the prevailing 

 system of all oiu' great natural history nmseums of the ])resent day, with the 

 exception of the Agassiz Museum at (amhridge, in which the animals for 

 the most part are arranged geographically. In the seciuenee of classifica- 

 tion, the visitor will find all the animals of a certain kind, fi'om whatever 

 part of tile world they may have heen collected, assemhled for comparative 

 study. Thus for example, he will he ahle to compare with one another all 

 the memhers of the Horse h'amily whether collected in .Vfrica. in Western 

 Europe or in Asia. 



It has proved j)ossihle to ])rovi(le amj)Iy in the develo])mcnt of the 

 .southern half of the great .\merican Muscnm huilding of the future for all 

 three of these various kinds of secpience — geogra])hie, evolutionary and 

 .systematic. The plan, in its general features, will he submitted for the 

 a|)proval of the memhcr> of the ."-Scientific .Staff of the Museum. It has 

 already heen welcomed hy ex])ei'ts from other institutions in this country 



