g6 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



Dr. Arthur Hollick, honorary curator of geology, mineralog3% and 

 paleontology, has continued his rearrangement of the mineral collection 

 and has made some changes in the exhibition series. 



Dr. J. Q. Adams, honorary curator of arts and antiquities, has not, 

 since his recent appointment, found opportunity to reorganize the depart- 

 ment. He has secured for the Association, however, the privilege of 

 hearing two important lectures on art topics by speakers of wide reputation. 



Mr. Alanson Skinner, honorarj^ assistant in archeology and ethnology, 

 has visited the museum from time to time, identifying material and giving 

 information for the preparation of labels. He lectured before the Associa- 

 tion at the March meeting on the subject By Canoe to Hudson Bay. 



Museum Catalog 



A museum catalog is an indispensable adjunct of every public museum. 

 It bears the same relationship to the accession record as the ledger to the 

 daybook in commercial houses, and its object is to furnish a complete 

 list of every specimen in the possession of the Association. Our catalog 

 conforms to the system followed in many other museums ; it consists of 

 two series, the specimen and the species catalog. In the first, differently 

 colored cards are used to indicate the various departments, salmon color 

 being used for zoology, green for botany, blue for geology, yellow for 

 archeology, and buff for arts and antiquities. Each department has 

 its own series of numbers, distinguished by a prefixed letter. Whenever 

 a specimen is added to the collections it is given the next consecutive 

 number in its department; and on the corresponding card is written the 

 name of the species or description of the object, its accession number, 

 date and locality, collector, and any further remarks that may be neces- 

 sary. The highest number will therefore always indicate the total of 

 specimens belonging to that particular class ; and whenever information is 

 desired concerning any particular specimen in the museum, reference can 

 be quickly made to its number in the chronological series. 



The other division of the catalog consists of white cards, with the names 

 of species at the top, and below this a list of all the specimens belonging 

 to that species, with their museum numbers. These cards are alphabetically 

 arranged, with copious cross references, and their use is to show what the 

 museum possesses in any given class of objects. There is also an alpha- 

 betical donor catalog for convenience of reference. 



During the past year the following cards were added to the various 

 catalogs : 



Zoology 289 Representing 311 specimens. 



Geology and Mineralogy 2343 . Representing 4025 -|- " 



Anthropology and Archeology .... 143 Representing 147 " 



Donor catalog 193 Xotal 4483 + " 



Species catalog 565 



Miscellaneous cards 63 



Total cards written 3596 



