258 Report of a Journey Aroii7id the World. 



geut exhibition of our treasures we have provided halls which in 

 convenience and elegance yield to none. Our extensive publica- 

 tions will perhaps show that we are studying our collections. Let 

 this then be a brief sketch of a typical local museum of ethnology 

 and natural history. 



Now how does such a loeal museum fit into the great work of 

 scientific ethnology and biology? No one knows better than those 

 who have worked in a local museum how constantly it is depend- 

 ent on the general collections of the great museums. We try to 

 track our Hawaiians back to their origin, and we must depend 

 largely on the great collections to show us what analogous imple- 

 ments or methods are brought together from the regions from 

 whence their ancestors may have entered the Pacific. We cannot 

 collect all these for ourselves, both means and space are wanting; 

 we must depend for information upon our colleagues, and in ex- 

 change for this we are trying to do with our collections what may 

 make them useful to others. In proof of this I may point to the 

 list of our publications. Local museums seldom have sufficient 

 funds to send out expeditions for ethnological collecting, but they 

 have advantages over most expeditions of limited time in the possi- 

 bilities a local staff may have in the midst of, and to a certain extent 

 as a part of the people they are investigating ; they are more likely 

 to have the language, way of thinking, and, more important still, 

 the confidence of their subjects. 



It seems then that besides publishing such matter as is in their 

 power, local museums should place such duplicates as may be 

 spared, in the great collections, as they are wanted : this museum 

 has done so in the case of the British Museum. 



The more extensive a special collection is, provided that its 

 specimens are authentic, the better results are likely to follow its 

 study ; and the more general the nature of collections in one place 

 and under one administration, of course the better they are for 

 comparative study. Now the condition of ethnological colledlions 

 even in the museums of Europe is rather chaotic ; in America such 

 collections are almost negligible quantities so far as Polynesian 

 specimens are concerned, and indeed we have not in America any 



strictly ethnological museum of general character like the Museum 



[406] 



