August 23, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



203 



enunciated should be constantly kept in 

 view, even by the least of them. 



C. Collections. 



1. The sources of collections are the fol- 

 lowing: (a) By gift; (b) by purchase ; (c) 

 by exchange ; (d) by collection and explor- 

 ation; (e) by construction; (f) through 

 deposit or temporary loan. 



a. By gift. — Acquisition by gift is a most 

 important source, but very uncertain. If a 

 museum has a plan to which it intends to 

 adhere, a large proportion of the gifts offered 

 to it will be unavailable ; while, on the other 

 hand, only a small proportion of the de- 

 siderata will ever be thus obtained. A 

 museum may properly, by the offer of a 

 large and complete collection illustrating a 

 subject outside of its plan, be induced to ex- 

 pand its scope. In the case of a large bene- 

 faction of this kind, necessitating extensive 

 changes in installation, there must always 

 be careful consideration of the result. It 

 should be borne in mind, however, that the 

 random, thoughtless acceptance of proifered 

 gifts, which in the course of a few years 

 produces results by no means insignificant 

 in. the consumption of space and money 

 for their care, may modify the plan of a 

 museum in a most radical manner. It re- 

 quires quite as much judgment and mental 

 effort on the part of a museum officer to 

 keep out unsuitable objects as to bring in 

 those which are desirable. 



b. By purchase. — Acquisition by purchase 

 is often the only means of obtaining desii'- 

 able objects, particularly so in the case of 

 art rauseums, least so in natural history 

 museums. Money is especially necessary 

 for the filling of gaps in series obtained by 

 gift or otherwise. 



c. By exchange. — Acquisition by exchange 

 is especially advantageous, since it enables 

 a museum to dispose of unavailable dupli- 

 cate material. When exchanges are made 

 with well-conducted museums there is the 



additional advantage that the materials 

 thus obtained have been studied and identi- 

 fied by expert authorities. Little is gained 

 by conducting exchanges in a commercial 

 spirit and in insisting on too exact valua- 

 tions and balancing of equivalents, . es- 

 j)ecially when the parties to the exchange 

 are public institutions. Large museums in 

 dealing with small ones may often advan- 

 tageously give largely and receive compara- 

 tively little in return, since they not only 

 become disembarrassed of useless duplicates 

 not desired by institutions of equal rank, 

 but are also building up sister institu- 

 tions which may in time afford them much 

 more substantial aid. Exchanges with 

 private collectors may well be carried on in 

 the same spirit, since the collector is thus 

 encouraged to gather more material, in the 

 midst of which unexpected treasures may 

 come to hght, and is also aided to build up a 

 private collection which in time will probably 

 fall into the hands of some public museum. 



d. By collecting and exploration. — For all 

 museums save those of art this is usually 

 the most profitable and satisfactory, since 

 by gathering fresh material in unexplored 

 fields, new facts are discovered, science is 

 enriched, and the reputation of the institu- 

 tion improved. Furthermore, material is 

 obtained in such large quantities that there 

 always remains much in the way of dupli- 

 cate specimens valuable for exchange. A 

 museum which carries its activities into un- 

 explored fields secures for itself material 

 which is unique and unobtainable by others, 

 and thus makes itself a centre of interest 

 for the entire world. 



The smallest museum may enrich its col- 

 lections by modest explorations under its 

 own walls; it can do much by simply encour- 

 aging the people in the adjacent region to 

 save what they accidentally encounter in 

 the course of their daily pursuits. Explo- 

 rations of this kind are preeminently the 

 function of local and provincial museums. 



