THE MUSEUMS. 
The Director of Museums furnishes the Fifty-seventh Annual 
Report upon the conduct and PROGRESS of the Museums. 
I.—GENERAL. 
Since 1896, a period of fourteen years, 88,348 specimens of 
Natural History and 11,371 specimens of Ethnography, totalling 
nearly 100,000 specimens, have been added to the collection, or an 
average of over 7,000 additions per year. 
The following table shows the total number of visitors to the 
Museums during the year, compared with that of the year 1908 :— 
1908. 1909. 
(264 Days.) (261 Days.) 
Total Visitors ... ae ae S. ass 464,443 ae 453,164 
Weekly Average “3 se at Se 8,931 te 8,714 
Daily Average ... as = = oe 1,759 Ses 1,736 
The attendance of school childien under the charge of teachers 
has continued, and the latter have availed themselves of the clause 
in the Education Code whereby time devoted to instruction in 
Museums reckons as school attendance. School teachers make 
frequent use of the Museum theatre to give special lessons to their 
pupils—specimens being brought from the Museum cases for 
illustrating them. 
Twenty-five lectures were delivered by members of the Staff and 
others on Monday evenings in the lecture theatre of the Museums, 
specially dealing with the various collections in the Institution. 
They were illustrated by specimens and by lantern slides. The 
number of visitors to the Museums on these Monday evenings totals 
11,941, of whom a large percentage attend the various lectures. 
