430 Reports and Proceedings — The Museums Association* 



South America. New Zealand and South America have 74 genera 

 of plants in common, 11 identical, and 32 closely allied species. 



That earth-movements, on a widely extended scale, have occurred 

 in the South, is evidenced by the very late elevations and subsidences 

 which have taten place in parts of the Andean chain and in 

 Tierra del Fuego, also in Kerguelen Island, Eastern Australia, 

 Tasmania, New Zealand, and the Chatham Islands ; whilst the vast 

 upheaval of the Himalayan range itself is only of newer Tertiary age.^ 



P.S. — Those who are interested in following up the suggestions 

 of this Address and inquiring further as to the special members 

 of the fauna and flora of the Southern lands and their inter- 

 relations, will do well to consult Dr. H. 0. Forbes' paper read before 

 the Eoyal Geographical Society, March 13th, 1893, entitled : 

 " The Chatham Islands : their relation to a former Southern 

 Continent " (Supplementary Papers Royal Geographical Society's 

 Journal, vol. iii, part 4, 1893, pp. 607-637), to which the author 

 desires to acknowledge his indebtedness for many interesting facts 

 recorded by him. — H. W. 



II. — The Meeting of the Museums Association at Aberdeen, 

 July 14-17, 1903. 



The fourteenth annual meeting of this useful body took place 

 during July in Aberdeen, under the presidency of Dr. F. A. Bather. 

 Although the place of meeting was more remote than any yet chosen, 

 the number of members attending was larger than on any previous 

 occasion. The meeting was further noteworthy for the presence of 

 three delegates from foreign museums, while no less than six of the 

 papers read were sent from abroad, also for the fact that a delegate 

 was officially sent from a Government department — the Board of 

 Education. 



The work of geological museums, as such, did not receive much 

 attention ; but the President was doubtless speaking from experience 

 gained in the Geological Department of the British Museum when 

 he suggested that the time had come to go beyond the hitherto 

 recognised division of public collections into a reserve or study 

 series and an exhibited or public series, and to arrange such col- 

 lections in three series, namely, (1) for specialists and researchers, 

 not exhibited but kept under lock and key or in private workrooms ; 

 (2) for students and collectors, exhibited under glass or in special 

 cabinets open to students, but not elaborately mounted, and accessible 

 only on demand ; (3) for the man in the street, selected specimens 

 beautifully mounted so as to make the utmost appeal to the lay 

 public. 



Dr. Anton Fritsch, of the Bohemian Museum, Prague, contributed 

 a study of " The Museum Problem in Europe and America," giving 



1 Dr. "Woodward's address was illustrated by about fifty-eiglit lanteru slides, 

 a great number of which were beautifully painted pictures of birds by Keulemans, 

 kindly lent by Dr. H. 0. Forbes, Director of the Liverpool Museum, and a series of 

 Arctic views and maps kindly lent by the Eoyal Geographical Society, besides 

 •a number prepared expressly for his address by Dr. H. Woodward. 



