xvi NEED OF COLLECTIONS 247 



be looked for. If we have at present neither the knowledge 

 nor the leisure to examine and describe, we can at least 

 preserve from destruction the materials for our successors 

 to work upon. Photographs, models, anatomical specimens, 

 skeletons or parts of skeletons, with their histories carefully 

 registered, of any of the so-called aboriginal races, now rapidly 

 undergoing extermination or degeneration, will be hereafter 

 of inestimable value. Drawings, descriptions, and measure- 

 ments are also useful, though in a far less degree, as allowance 

 must always be made for imperfections in the methods as 

 well as the capacity of the artist or observer. Such collections 

 must be made upon a far larger scale than has hitherto been 

 attempted, as, owing to the difficulties already pointed out in 

 the classification of man, it is only by large numbers that 

 the errors arising from individual peculiarities or accidental 

 admixture can be obviated, and the prevailing characteristics 

 of a race or group truly ascertained. It is only in an institu- 

 tion commanding the resources of the nation that such a collec- 

 tion can be formed, and it may therefore be confidently hoped 

 that the Trustees of the British Museum will appropriate 

 some portion of the magnificent new building, which has 

 been provided for the accommodation of their natural history 

 collections, to this hitherto neglected branch of the subject. 



I have mentioned two of the needs of anthropology in this 

 country more workers and better collections : there is still 

 a third that of la society or institution in which anthro- 

 pologists can meet and discuss their respective views, with a 

 journal in which the results of their investigations can be 

 laid before the public, and a library in which they can find 

 the books and periodicals necessary for their study. All this 

 ought to be provided by the Anthropological Institute of 

 Great Britain and Ireland, which originated in the amalgama- 

 tion of the old Ethnological and Anthropological Societies. 

 But, as I intimated some time ago, the Institute does not at 

 the present time flourish as it should; its meetings are not 

 so well attended as they might be ; the journal is restricted 

 in its powers of illustration and printing by want of funds ; 

 the library is quite insufficient for the needs of the student. 



This certainly does not arise from any want of good 



