NATIONAL WORK AT BRITISH MUSEUM BATHER, 627 



the species that proved the point and led to the subsequent investi- 

 gation and remedy. 



It would be possible to go through numbers of inquiries Avith a 

 practical bearing and to show how in each case the solution of the 

 problem depends sooner or later on the correct identification of the 

 species involved. For this identification recourse must be had to a 

 specialist, either employed by a museum or having access to its col- 

 lections. As I write there is a lively correspondence in The Times 

 about the fisheries of Newfoundland. In the midst of much specu- 

 lation and suggestion one solid contribution is made by the assistant 

 in charge of the fishes at the British Museum, namely, an exact list 

 of the flat fishes found in Newfoundland waters. By this the sub- 

 sequent discussion must be controlled. Or, to take a problem of 

 medicine, we all realize by now that the health of individuals, of 

 armies, of nations depends on a correct appreciation of mosquitoes; 

 we know how the application of this knowledge permitted the com- 

 pletion of the Panama Canal and thereby greatly strengthened the 

 position of the United States and the Allies in the present war. 

 But do we all realize the patient collecting, sorting, and discrimi- 

 nation of the numerous genera and species of mosquito that paved 

 the way for the successful attack on the diseases transmitted by 

 them? Do we realize that our army medical officers in the different 

 theatres of war have to learn the species of mosquito against which 

 they are sent to fight and that they come to our great museums to 

 acquire this knowledge? 



Similar proofs of the practical importance of the most refined 

 systematic study might be adduced from every branch of the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms, from their fossil as well as their recent rep- 

 resentatives. The same holds good for the collection and sj^stematic 

 ordering of rocks and minerals. 



Some may think that too much emphasis is here being laid on the 

 practical or economic value of the work — on what is called applied 

 science. They are quite right. It is an attitude that has been forced 

 upon museum officials by the incapacity of so many of our public 

 servants to understand the value of any science that has not an imme- 

 diate practical application. It is true that these people less dimly 

 apprehend the relation of physics and chemistry to industry and engi- 

 neering, for they have the results thrust before them every moment 

 of the day in the telephone, the electric light, the safety match, the 

 motor car, and all those facilities which so marvelously distinguish 

 our modern civilization from that of only a century ago. But they 

 do not have brought to their notice the equally real though less 

 obvious connection between that same civilization and the natural 

 history sciences. Consequently, when protests were raised against 

 handing over the building of the Natural History Museum to another 



