612 



SCIEJSrCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 229 



may perhaps be made use of in determining the 

 height of the meteor above the earth's surface. 



When I first saw the meteor, it was jDassing, I 

 should say, through the constellation Leo Minor. I 

 am confident that it passed a little east of Beta 

 Leonis Majoris, say three degrees, and I think that 

 it passed east of Gamma Virginis, near which it dis- 

 appeared. While passing between these two stars, 

 it emitted two flashes of brighter light, — white or 

 somewhat bluish. Its motion was slow. 



J. R. W. 

 Dorchester, Mass., June 21. 



Museums of ethnology and their classification. 



The article of Dr. Boas, to which you call atten- 

 tion in your note to myself, treats of two distinct 

 subjects : first, the interpretation of similarities ; 

 and, second, the best method of grouping archeologi- 

 eal objects in the museum. In Professor Mason's 

 report the same subjects are discussed. The inter- 

 pretation question has but a very remote connection 

 with the museum question, and as I have already 

 discussed it somewhat at length in the ' Third annual 

 report of the bureau of ethnology,' under the head 

 of ' Activital similarities,' I think I may well neglect 

 that subject in this short communication. 



The functions of a museum are twofold : first, as a 

 repository of materials for the investigator ; second, 

 as an objective exemplification of some system of 

 knowledge pertaining to the subject for which the 

 collection is made, to be used by an instructor with 

 his pupils, and as an exhibition of facts for the pass- 

 ing observer who visits the museum. 



The first piirpose is of prime importance : the his- 

 tory of museum administration abundantly develops 

 this fact, and more and more is its value understood. 

 It is in this manner that great museiims make sub- 

 stantial contributions to science, and increase the 

 knowledge of the world. The successful manage- 

 ment of a museum for this purpose involves the 

 stiidy of museum cases and various other appliances 

 and devices, together with museum records, de- 

 scriptive catalogues, etc. In the performance of this 

 function the methods and appliances of the national 

 museum are of the highest excellence, but it would 

 require a volume to fully set them forth. Professor 

 Baird, one of the greatest organizing minds of the 

 scientific world, has devoted a large part of his life 

 to this subject. 



The secondary use of a museum, mentioned above, 

 somewhat interferes with its primary use ; and be- 

 cause it is secondary it must not be allowed to inter- 

 fere with the more important fimction. In a great 

 museum like that at the national capital, the collec- 

 tions are so vast that the public exhibition of them 

 all is impossible : only a very small per cent can be 

 shown with reasonable expenditure. This being the 

 case, the secondary use interferes with the primary 

 use only to that limited extent. A few selections are 

 made to be shown to the pxTblic : the great mass of 

 material is kept ready to do service for the investi- 

 gator. Therefore, with regard to the arrangement of 

 the materials for the museum for public exhibition, 

 the question is narrowed down to this : first, on 

 what principles shall the selections be made ? and, 

 second, in what order shall they be arranged ? That 

 is, the administrator of the museum is called upon to 

 determine what is the most useful lesson to the gen- 



eral public which his materials can be made to teach. 

 Every investigator will be more or less likely to con- 

 sider his own subject of prime importance, as it is to 

 himself ; and every instructor is, in like manner, 

 likely to consider that his system of instruction is of 

 prime importance. As research progresses, one set 

 of problems after another comes to the front, and 

 is for the time being of chief importance. For 

 such reasons the museum appliances for exhibition 

 should be of an easily adjustable kind. No sound 

 philosophic scholar, be he investigator or instructor, 

 will assert that his own system is complete and final, 

 that any classification or arrangement is iiltimate. It 

 is in view of these facts that the authorities of the 

 national miiseum have devoted their efforts very 

 largely to methods of exhibition, to the consideration 

 of cases, trays, stands for mounting, etc., so as 

 to have the parts interchangeable and easily re- 

 adjusted to new conditions, — new^acts arising from 

 the advance of the science and from the enrichment 

 of the collections ; and it seems to me that many 

 problems involved have been very satisfactorily 

 solved. The actual exhibition portion of the collec- 

 tion in the national museum has not been put into 

 permanent shape. What has been done has been ex- 

 perimental and tentative. The arrangement at one 

 time may be very different from that of another ; 

 and this is rendered easy and inexpensive by reason 

 of the system above described. 



Now, Dr. Boas offers a system or plan for the ar- 

 rangement of the materials which relate to the pre- 

 Columbian peoples of America and their descend- 

 ants. He would have them arranged bj^ tribes. On 

 the discovery of America there were i3robably many 

 more than twenty-five thousand tribes inhabiting 

 the country, each a little band of people organized 

 into a body-politic, and autonomous, at least for 

 all domestic purposes. But probably within the 

 first year, changes were made in some of these bodies- 

 politic : some coalesced by treaty or conquest, others 

 divided through disagreement, individuals from some 

 tribes took ujo their abode and became incorporated 

 with other tribes : and so, by various methods from 

 time to time, all of these bodies-politic were in 

 a flux ; so that a hundred years after the discovery of 

 America it is not probable that there existed any one 

 tribe which could claim to be the pure and simple 

 descendant, without loss, admixture, or change, of 

 any tribe existing at the time of the discovery. 

 These changes have been going on more and more 

 rapidly until the present time, and they are still go- 

 ing on. Most of the tribes best known to history 

 have been absorbed, consolidated, and redivided 

 again and again. Now, this means simply that under 

 primitive and under modern conditions alike there 

 has been no permanent tribal organization, — a 

 body-politic whose history can be followed as that of 

 one people by hereditary descent. A museum col- 

 lected to represent the tribes of America, therefore, 

 to be properly representative, would have to be col- 

 lected as the census of the native inhabitants of 

 India has been taken, all in one day, by an army of 

 collectors. Collected in any other way, it would 

 have no proper significance ; and collected in the 

 manner suggested, it would have very little scientific 

 value. 



But if a classification of the tribes of North 

 America were possible, the archeologic collections 

 actiTally made in the country could not be relegated 

 to them, for the tribes have been forever migrant. 



