10 
kept in a condition fit for examination in any other way. A 
large part of the collection of Radiates is likewise useless for 
any nice systematic work. The expense and care required for 
the maintenance of a large collection of Insects is well known; 
the incessant care of Dr. Hagen and his Assistant has alone 
kept ours from going to ruin, as so many other entomological 
collections have done, from their mere size. But its increase 
involves now an expenditure the Museum can ill afford. Of 
course, with ample funds and a large number of aids, there is 
no limit to the growth of an entomological department. Our 
ornithological collection and that of mammal skins can be kept 
within a reasonable expenditure from the method of storage 
adopted. The osteological collection, also, when once properly 
prepared, need not be a constant source of expense. The cost 
of maintaining such a collection as is now stored in the Museum 
has been for the past eight years at the rate of $24,000 a year, 
of which nearly $18,000 is for salaries. This is merely for the 
care and maintenance of the collection, and does not include 
the cost of placing any part of it on exhibition, or the cost of 
keeping those rooms open to the public. 
For these reasons I have gone somewhat into detail to point 
out what seems to me to be the true policy of the institution 
for the future,—to reduce its expenditures and staff to the 
strict minimum compatible with the care of collections, and to 
expend its resources in supplying the material, books, and speci- 
mens needed for original investigation by the Professors and 
students of Natural History in the University, to whom the 
Museum should furnish in addition, in part or in whole, the 
means of publication in its Bulletins and Memoirs. While we 
have no cause to regret the publications which have been issued 
in connection with the Museum, yet they do not represent suffi- 
ciently the original work done by the teaching staff of the 
University and their students. In addition, it should grant 
other specialists, properly qualified, all the facilities they may 
desire for the study of the Museum collections, consistent with 
their safety. 
That this prospective analysis is not out of place will appear 
from the fact that, whenever the original plan of the Museum 
building is carried out, it does not provide for more room than 
is likely to be needed by the various laboratories of the special 
