66 General Conchisions. 



The method adopted in Paris, Washington and New York 

 as well as in the Bishop Museum* of making casts from life of 

 natives in their peculiar occupations cannot be too much praised, 

 only it will never do to make the casts from poor wretches travel- 

 ing with some show, or d3'ing of disease in some hospital. It would 

 be desirable for several museums to combine and send to the Pacific 

 a sculptor competent to selecft and cast and color good specimens of 

 the races fast disappearing from their island homes. The Bishop 

 Museum is doing this for the Hawaiian Islands, who will under- 

 take the other groups? 



It was found that very few^ museums had a system of pho- 

 tography; indeed the Museum fiir Volkerkunde at Berlin where 

 the accomplished Dr. von lyuschan is a skilled photographer was 

 the only one prepared to exchange photographs of its contents. 

 And yet this seems a very important adjuncfl to museum work. If 

 all important articles were photographed and the negatives kept 

 and classified as a card catalogue might be. Curators would be saved 

 all farther trouble or risk in disturbing large specimens when ap- 

 plication is made to photograph them. By a S3Stem of exchange of 

 prints students in any one museum could easily see what in the lines 

 of their studies was to be found in other museums far better than any 

 catalogue, however explicit, could inform them. Then as very few 

 ethnological museums have printed catalogues that are more than 

 mere lists, the need of good photographs becomes more imperative. 



The question has often been asked what sizes of plates should 

 be used, and it may be answered that for all useful purposes the 

 sizes in use at the Bishop Museum seem most convenient. The 

 largest plate 8X lo inches is suitable for illustration full page size 

 of ordinary quarto publications and for maps; the next size 5X8 is 

 the best for landscapes, views, groups, full-length figures or por- 

 traits front and profile on one plate, or for three views of any obje(5l 

 (as crania) on the same plate, or for full-page illustration, octavo 



* The casts already made for the Bishop Museum include a Kahuna or native priest in 

 he solemn act of "praying to death"; a powerful man in the prime of life scraping olon^. 

 a young boy and a full grown man pounding poi; a girl of eleven years and an old woman 

 beating kapa. All these are well colored and wear the dress of ancient times. 



