Io8 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



museums, of which I hope the Hamilton Association Museum will 

 be one, would be but a trifle compared with the thousands spent 

 upon far less efficient modes of educating and elevating the peo- 

 ple. 



I have thus, I fear rather imperfectly, indicated what I con- 

 ,sider should be our aim in the future management of the museum : 

 ist. That our first work should be the collecting, naming, classify- 

 ing and exhibiting of a collection of the objects found in a state of 

 nature in a prescribed area around our city. That adopted by the 

 Biological Section is a circular area, with a radius of twelve miles 

 from the City Hall as a centre. Of course this might be modified 

 so as to make the County of Wentworth the district from which our 

 collections would be made. 2nd. Another series, more general, 

 with a room distinct from the other, as I have indicated, and I 

 would recommend a third room to receive the miscellaneous con- 

 tributibns and donations made to the museum of objects which 

 could not be placed in either of the other two, and of value either 

 as teaching something or having a historical value. 



I think I hear you saying how can we do all this when we are 

 crowded now ? Well, I answer, we can't do it in our present room, 

 with our present space and present means. I have in the course of 

 this paper, at least by implication, shewn where the means for carry- 

 ing on the work must or should come from. 



And now I must draw this, already too long paper to a close 

 by quoting a few paragraphs from others as corroborative of the 

 opinions I have expressed, to show that if what I have stated as my 

 idea of what our museum should be in its aims be a dream that I 

 am not the only dreamer. 



APPENDIX. 



In a committee report made to the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science upon the provincial museums of the united 

 kingdom, it is stated : 



" The special objects of a free rate supported museum in a 

 provincial town should be, ist, To contribute its share to the general 

 scientific statistics of the country by collecting and preserving speci- 

 mens of the natural and artifi ial productions of the district in which 

 it is situated, 



