9 
perishable nature stored in the work-rooms devoted to special 
investigations that the cost of maintaining them may stagger 
the most enthusiastic collector. 
Do the results justify such large expenditures? While we 
recognize the importance of keeping intact the historical col- 
lections, and take it for granted that this function is totally 
distinct from that other function, which museums are supposed 
to perform, of supplying special investigators materials for their 
study, it seems to me, nowadays, unreasonable to expect this of 
any museum. No naturalist who wishes to study fishes, except 
as regards their synonymy, will expect to find in any establish- 
ment, no matter what its resources may be, the necessary mate- 
rials. He will be compelled to travel, to collect in the various 
fish-markets of the world, and to study his material on the spot. 
With the present facilities and the cost of travel, it would be far 
cheaper for an institution to supply the specialist with the neces- 
sary funds for such an investigation, if it be one of value and 
interest, than to go on for years spending in salaries of assist- 
ants, care of collections, interest on the cost of buildings, and 
so forth, sums of money which, if distributed to their ultimate 
object, would astonish the least prudent manager. Such accu- 
mulations of historical material are far too costly. The same 
sums spent in a different direction, in promoting original inves- 
tigations in the field or in the laboratory, and in providing 
means for the publication of such original research, would do 
far more towards the promotion of natural history than our past 
methods of expending our resources. 
There are stored in the cellars of the Museum immense col- 
lections of Fishes and Reptiles which have never been of use to 
any one except the assistants in charge of them. A very large 
part of this material, collected and maintained at great expense, 
ceases after a time to be of value for scientific purposes, and 
every year we are obliged to throw away as absolutely worthless 
a large number of specimens which cannot even be used up as 
students’ material. One of the rooms in the cellar is filled with 
alcoholic Birds and Mammals, and with Vertebrate embryos, ma- 
terial which has become in a great degree useless for the purpose 
for which it was collected. The same may be said of the large 
alcoholic collections of Mollusks and of Crustacea. The latter, 
however, while perhaps not available for study, can hardly be 
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