6 
employees have, with the greatest difficulty, been kept at 
about the same total as when our income was nearly one 
third larger. It is not to be expected that the public will 
take more than a very limited interest in the Museum, espe- 
cially as in this vicinity there are no less than three Natural 
History establishments, all having very similar aims. With 
the present tendency to specialization, it seems impracticable 
to carry on an immense Natural History collection without a 
staff of specialists far greater in number than any institution 
not backed by government or by an immense endowment can 
ever hope to support. The present organization of the Museum 
is based upon the assumption that its resources will keep pace 
with the increased specialization of its different branches, and 
the attempt has been made to combine the work of assist- 
ants and that of original investigation. That officers’ positions 
cannot be maintained except in connection with the perma- 
nently endowed Professorships of the University, is becoming 
self-evident. No University, even if it be a great centre for 
Natural History, can maintain more than a limited number 
of endowed chairs; and if the professorial duties of their in- 
cumbents be not too arduous, a good amount of original work 
may be expected of them. Still, with the present tendency of 
science, original work cannot be based mainly upon the collec- 
tions of a great museum. The geologist and the zodlogist must 
both supplement their work in the field. With the requirements 
of to-day, collections can only supply materials for investi- 
gations of limited scope; and while undoubtedly many most 
interesting problems require large collections for their solution, 
the more important biological problems of the day require 
materials prepared for special purposes in the laboratories of the 
Universities. It is there that the influence of the teachers will 
be felt in the direction given to the work of their more ad- 
vanced students, and it should be the province of a University 
to foster this work by granting special facilities for it, as well as 
for the publication of these investigations. This the Museum is 
now prepared to do. 
Laboratories for Biology and Geology — in their most ex- 
tended sense — have been erected for the University. They 
have now been occupied for a year, and their capacity for work 
depends entirely upon the means for their equipment placed 
