96 



NATURE 



[September 23, 1915 



Herald Island, failed to turn up. Captain Bartlett 

 crossed Long Sound and with great difficulty reached 

 the Alaskan coast, which he followed eastward to 

 Emma Harbour, whence a whaler took him to St. 

 Michael. From there a relief ship set out to Wrangell 

 Island and brought back the remaining survivors of 

 the Karluk. Three of the party had died on the 

 island, and later search failed to reveal any trace of 

 Dr. Mackay and his party, all of whom probably 

 perished by falling through the ice. 



Meanwhile Stefansson had attempted to retrieve the 

 fortunes of the expedition. After a winter in the 

 Mackenzie delta (1913-14), he set out northward over 

 the ice with seven companions, starting from Martin 

 Point, 140° W., on March 22, 1914. Three weeks 

 later the supporting party turned back, bringing news 

 that Stefansson meant to continue northward for at 

 least another fifteen days. A small vessel, the Polar 

 Bear, searched for them along the coast of Banks 

 Land last year, but found no trace, and it was gener- 

 ally supposed that Stefansson and his party had 

 perished until the news came last week. Travellfng 

 over the ice, and often drifting with it, the party 

 reached 73° N., 140° W. Stefansson then decided to 

 turn eastward, and ninety days after 

 leaving Cape Martin landed on 

 Banks Island, thirty miles south of 

 Cape Alfred. From there he went 

 south to Cape Kellat and met his 

 supply ship. In the winter a four- 

 hundred mile sledge journey to 

 Victoria Island failed to reveal 

 Eskimo. In February this year 

 Stefansson, with three companions, 

 set out northward vid Cape Alfred 

 to Patrick Island, and up its eastern 

 side to Cape McClintock. To the 

 north-east they discovered an exten- 

 sive new land rising to a height of 

 2000 ft. The return journey was 

 along the west coast of Melville 

 Island, across McClure Strait, to 

 the Bay of Mercy, and thence across 

 Banks Island to Cape Kellat. From 

 there Stefansson reached Herschell 

 Island in the Polar Bear. Through- 

 out his travels he lived chiefly on 

 caribou, bears and seals, and 

 suffered no want. He has since 

 returned to Banks Island, and 

 next year intends to explore his new land, and to 

 make a journey over the Beaufort Sea. Surveys were 

 made of the lands visited, and the work of Sir Robert 

 McClure amplified and extended. R. N. R. B. 



THE STANDARDS AND FUNCTIONS OF 



MUSEUMS. 

 Y^UR forefathers regarded museums simply as store- 

 ^ houses for freakish, reminiscent, or merely 

 curious objects, and as the place in which to deposit 

 the various oddments presented by travellers abroad. 

 There was no "purpose" in the display of the objects 

 exhibited, other than that of perchance amusing stray 

 visitors. So far as this country is concerned, the new 

 era of museum management began with the founda- 

 tion of the British Museum at Bloomsbury, when the 

 first attempt was made to eliminate the purely " show- 

 man " element and substitute meaning and purpose in 

 the arrangement of its contents. As compared with 

 the Continental museums, it stands easily first in the 

 character of its endeavours to interest, as well as 

 instruct, the public. But , in this we have serious 

 rivals in the museums of the United States, as may 

 NO. 2395, VOL. 96] 



be gathered from the forty-sixth annual report of tlj^e 

 American Museum of Natural History. In this, and 

 other similar institutions in America, huge sums are 

 spent on large groups of mammals and birds mounted 

 to reproduce the exact environment in which such 

 animals lived. And this illusion is further heightened 

 by skilfully painted backgrounds, executed by artists 

 who accompany the collectors in order that they may 

 reproduce the actual environment in which the speci- 

 mens lived. This, however, is but an extension of the 

 methods of exhibition introduced by the British 

 Museum many years ago. 



In exhibitions designed primarily to instruct rather 

 than to amuse, it is an open question whether our 

 rivals are not over-reaching their ideals — at any rate, 

 in so far as the work of a natural history museum 

 is concerned. Mineralogy, for example, no doubt 

 must find a place here, but large models of a copper 

 mine, such as that reproduced here, and the method 

 of raising ore, would seem to have a more appropriate 

 place in a museum of technology. 



The students' collections of such museums must 

 either be of insignificant proportions, or the staff must 

 be much larger than that attached to museums in 



Copper Queen Mine Model, Department of Geology 

 Museum of Natl 



nd Invertebrate Palscontology. 

 ral History. 



Great Britain, otherwise the curatorial work in con- 

 nection therewith would make it impossible for the 

 staff to devote so large a portion of their time to work 

 which is done, indifferently well, it is true, in this 

 country, under the auspices of the Board of Education, 

 as " Nature-study." That this should be so is unfor- 

 tunate, for, as a means of awakening the intelligence 

 and powers of observation, there is no more efficient 

 aid than the study of natural history, using this term 

 in its widest sense. 



In addition to lectures to children and teachers, 

 special rooms are set apart in American museums for 

 children's collections, while this work is supplemented 

 by travelling museums sent round from school to 

 school by means of motor-vans. Something of this 

 kind could well be imitated in this country. 



The department of public health in the American 

 Museum of Natural History answers to no more than 

 one aspect of the department of economic zoology of 

 the British Museum of Natural . History— that which 

 concerns the organisms injurious to man — for no 

 attempt seems to have been made to bring together 

 a collection of domesticated animals. On the other 

 hand, our rivals are ahead of us in having instituted 



