July 16, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



95 



fossil animals is likewise a matter of common 

 honesty. Emperors, grand dukes and million- 

 aires may found museums, and they secure 

 recognition for their munificence; but right 

 at hand are the masses of the people who, in 

 the end, foot the bills, and they have also their 

 rights. The declaration that all men are born 

 free and equal was not a more important one 

 and one perhaps not so wholly true as is a 

 principle said to have been uttered by one of 

 our senators during the debate on the pure 

 food law : The buyer has a right to know what 

 he is getting for his money. The principle 

 applies in all walks of life, however much it 

 may fret those who would secure wealth, posi- 

 tion and honors disproportionate to their de- 

 serts. Applying it to museum administration, 

 we may say that the visitor has a right to 

 know whether he is gazing at real bone or at 

 plaster, and the reasons therefor. Moreover, 

 it is futile and mischievous to attempt to hide 

 the nature of the restoring materials. It is 

 sooner or later detected and suspicion is thrown 

 on the whole exhibit. 



It is the practise sometimes to build up a 

 fossil skeleton out of the bones of various in- 

 dividuals. This can not be condemned in all 

 cases, but usually it is dangerous. It may be 

 permitted to make a skeleton of the extinct 

 auk from as many individuals as there are 

 bones. In the case of less well-known animals, 

 represented probably by fewer bones there is 

 likely to result a mixture of species and even 

 of genera. And no hybrids are so fertile as 

 these, inasmuch as they reproduce themselves 

 throughout the world by means of the printing 

 press. And these hybrids are monsters besides, 

 having legs belonging perhaps to two or three 

 distinct animals, the head to another and so 

 on. Of these can we not say with Horace, 

 who was describing' an object made up of 

 members gathered here and there, 



Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici? 



And we may inquire if it advances science 

 to send out over the world figures of an animal 

 whose body belongs probably to one famOy and 

 its head to another? 



Rather than mingle the bones of several 



' " Epis. ad Pisones," I., 5. 



individuals belonging possibly to various spe- 

 cies, it would be better to restore in plaster 

 the various parts, except those of the principal 

 individual, possibly of this also. Labels on 

 the parts of the restored skeleton ought to 

 direct the viewer to the bones, shown near by, 

 on which the restorations have been based. 

 As intimated, if visitors in the museums are 

 not interested in plaster restorations and mod- 

 els it is probably because they believe that 

 these things are products of the unchastened 

 scientific imagination. There appears to be 

 no other good reason why a plaster Megathe- 

 rium should not be relatively as interesting as 

 a plaster Venus of Milo. In these wholly 

 artificial restorations the unknown parts 

 should be as conscientiously indicated to the 

 eye as in other cases. 



And these plaster casts of the great animals 

 that sojourned on the earth in bygone ages 

 present another advantage that seems to be of 

 the highest importance for the advancement 

 of science. For now and anon some one 

 among us, a paleontologist inchoate as yet but 

 confident, the beneficiary of a favorable en- 

 vironment, bestriding his light-legged, straight- 

 legged gypsiferous steed, perhaps Brontodiplo- 

 dococamarosaurus, may gallop safely and mer- 

 rily up the rugged slopes of the Mount of 

 Fame. Oliyek P. Hay 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE ACADEMY OP SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS 



The Academy met at the Academy Building, 

 3817 Olive Street, Monday evening, April 19, 

 1909. 



Dr. Robert J. Terry, of the Washington Uni- 

 versity Medical School, read a paper on " An 

 Observation on the Development of the Vomer." 

 The observations made on the development of the 

 vomer in Caluromys philaucler affects the ques- 

 tion of the homology of the mammalian vomer. 

 Is the single vomer of mammals comparable with 

 the single parasphenoid or the paired vomers of 

 lower forms? Except in man the vomer of mam- 

 mals has been found to arise from a single center. 

 Lately, however, the bone in question has been 

 seen to be accompanied by a parasphenoid ossifi- 

 cation. It seems also to be the case in Caluromys 

 that the origin of the base is paired. 



