December 14, 1893] 



NA TURE 



165 



Kelvin for his address, mentioned that for thirty years he himself 

 sat at the feet of Joule, whom he might therefore claim in some 

 sense as his scientific father. He remained in constant com- 

 munication with Joule up to the day of the philosopher's death. 

 It was a great thing that in a city like IVIanche^er, devoted as 

 it was to industry and commerce, the citizens should be entitled 

 to place in their Town Hall the statues of two such fellow- 

 citizens as Dalton and Joule. Few cities in the world could 

 boast of two greater men. In London, also, they had been doing 

 something to show the appreciation in which not only this 

 country but the world held Joule. A sum of money had been 

 raised and placed in the hands of the Royal Society for the pur- 

 pose of founding a Joule studentship, and on Thursday the 

 Council of the Society resolved that the money should be spent 

 in founding such a scholarship, to be awarded alternately in 

 England and in other countries, for the purpose of encouraging 

 young scientific men to walk in the steps of Manchester's great 

 citizen. The first of those scholarships, of the value of ;^iOO, 

 would be shortly awarded, and he thought he was not going too 

 far when he said it would come to the city in which Joule lived 

 and worked. He might mention that since the foundation of 

 Owens College that institution could claim nine medallists of 

 the Royal Society, and had they lived Prof. Jevons and Prof. 

 Schorlemmer would have been added to the number. It 

 would be seen, therefore, that Manchester had taken up the 

 thread spun by Dalton and Joule, and that there was no reason 

 to fear that their work would not be continued. 



Prof. Osborne Reynolds seconded the resolution, which was 

 adopted. 



On the motion of Mr. Alderman Matk, seconded by Principal 

 Ward, a vote of thanks was given to the Lord Mayor for pre- 

 siding. At the conclusion of the proceedings the Lord Mayor 

 and Lady Mayoress held a reception in the state apartments. 



THE 



ETHNOLOGICAL MUSEUM AT 

 LE YDEN. 



TTis from twenty-five to thirty years ago that the interest in 

 ethnology as a science was awakened. Ethnological 

 objects are no longer considered by scientific men as mere 

 curiosities ; collections of them have ceased to be shops of 

 foreign bric-a-brac. In .\merica and in Europe, museums have 

 arisen, variable in size and importance it is true, but all with the 

 same object in view, viz. the study of man from his handiwork 

 as illustrative of his mental development in various directions, 

 in time as well as in space. 



The realisation of the importance of collecting and studying 

 ethnological material in distant lands has not come too soon. 

 What has been done in this respect within the last twenty-five 

 years surpasses all that has been performed in the centuries 

 before, from the beginning of the circumnavigation of the globe 

 to the early seventies of our century. The result of this has not 

 only been the publication of valuable ethnological monographs 

 and studies, but also the foundation of new, and the further 

 development of existing, museums in Europe and America. 

 Amongst the ethnological collections which have grown con- 

 siderably are those of the National Ethnological Museum at 

 Leyden. A pamphlet by the director. Dr. L. Serrurier, recently 

 published under the very suggestive title of " Museum or Store- 

 house ? " induces me to write the present notice. 



The origin of this museum dates back as far as 1837, the year 

 in which the Dutch Government purchased von Siebold's 

 Japanese collections. This formed the nucleus of the little 

 museum, which gradually increased by means of collections made 

 in the Indian Archipelago by Macklot, Salomon Miiller, von 

 Rosenberg, and other naturalists. In the meanwhile von 

 Siebold had returned to Japan, and the late Dr. Leemans was 

 appointed acting director of the collection in 1859, as a part of 

 the National Museum of Antiquities. A long period of in- 

 activity then ensued until 18S0, when it was decided that the 

 ethnological department should become a separate museum, 

 under the direction of Dr. Serrurier, until then curator of the 

 -Japanese department. 



From that moment the museum sprang into new life. The 

 period of curiosity shop had ceased for ever ; and the institu- 

 tion was developed in the right direction. Many objects were 

 properly identified, check lists and manuscript catalogues 



NO. 1259, VOL. 49] 



corrected and newly made,^ relations with sister institutions 

 established, exchanges made, and valuable objects and col- 

 lections bought. Many residents in the Dutch colonies who 

 hitherto had hardly heard of the existence of an ethnological 

 museum at Leyden, now gladly presented or loaned their 

 private collections to it. Nothing shows more clearly the extra- 

 ordinary growth of these collections than the maps accompany- 

 ing the pamphlet of Dr. Serrurier. On these maps — two of the 

 world, and two of the Indian Archipelago — is indicated the 

 number of groups of objects in the Leyden Museums represent- 

 ing special ethnological regions or areas. These groups refer to a 

 very rational division or classification established by Dr. Serrurier 

 and used in the Leyden Museum. One set of maps shows the 

 condition of the collections in 1881, the other in 1893. ^^ 

 single glance at the maps is sufficient to illustrate the vast dif- 

 ference wrought in those twelve years. Southern Asia, the 

 Orient, Africa, and North America were hardly or not at all 

 represented in 1881, and so were many parts of the Indian 

 Archipelago and South America, but in 1893 'he ethnology 

 of these countries can be studied in the museum by means of 

 valuable an 1 more or less representative collections. In short 

 the collection has decupled in these twelve years, not to speak 

 of the rich and varied anthropological section, entirely the work 

 of the present director. 



It would be only natural to suppose that collections of this 

 importance were exhibited in a special building where they were 

 not only safely stored but also made of interest to the public, as 

 well as for professional men. Nothing is, however, farther from 

 the reality than this supposition. To the amazement of foreign 

 ethnologists, and every friend of science in fact, the Leyden 

 collections are scattered, as Dr. Serrurier summarises, over 

 not less than five different places — ugly, daik, and damp private 

 houses, or other localities, all equally unfit for the conservation 

 of the ethnological material. Thousands of precious objects are 

 stowed away as in a storehouse, where moths and moisture are 

 hard to fight against, and where the danger of fire is so much 

 greater than elsewhere. Should ever a fire destroy these col- 

 lections, the loss would, for the greater part of them, be irrepai- 

 able ; they could not be again collected. In many distant 

 countries, all over the world, the inhabitants have given up their 

 native industries, and are losing rapidly their originality in every 

 respect, the result of their contact with Western civilisation. 



An appendix to Dr. Serrurier's pamphlet, being a number c f 

 testimonies from different travellers and authors as to the 

 disappearance of primitive conditions among fureign races, tends 

 to prove the value of present ethnological collections and the 

 necessity of collecting objects and data without delay, before 

 it will be too late. 



Irrespective, however, of the present buildings the museum 

 collections are not quite what they ought to be, which perhaps 

 is partly due to the fact that they are situated in a small old- 

 fashioned city with a public — University students included — 

 taking very little or no interest in ethnological exhibitions. If 

 the museum were situated in a great city, say Amsterdam or 

 The Hague, things might probably take a turn for the better, 

 but still, as long as there is no special building, a thorough 

 improvement will be impossible. 



There are many things which the Ethnological Museum of 

 Leyden ought to be, and should be, if proper attention v\as 

 paid to it by the Dutch government. For a nation like ihe 

 Dutch, which ranks third as a colonial power, a museum like 

 this could be a sort of a bureau of ethnology, more or les^ 

 similar to that of Washington, and a place where both Uni- 

 versity students and the general public could be taught sounder 

 ideas about races of mankind which they have been used to 

 consider as "savages." 



For years past the director has called the attention of the 

 Dutch government to this state of things. In each of his 

 annual reports Dr. Serrurier has pleaded for the sake of a new 

 and proper building with the ardour and conviction of a man 

 who pleads for the thing to which he devotes his life and talents, 

 but all in vain ; vox clamantis in deserto. 



The present pamphlet of Dr. Serrurier's is a supreme effort 

 to improve this sad state of affairs, a last appeal to the national 



1 A system of cataloguing introduced not lone ago by Dr. Serrurier in the 

 Leydsn Museum, as far as I know not followed in any other ethnological 

 museum, is what might be called the "Note Catalogue." Each otje^t 

 has an inventory number referring to a separate note on a slip of stiff paper, 

 which contains, besides a small photograph of the object in question, a full 

 description of it, and bibliographic induaiions relating to its origur, oc- 

 currence, use, &c. This system facilitatesgreally the suidy cf the objects. 



