THE HANCOCK MUSEUM AND ITS HISTORY XXV 



that there is still room for many improvements. It might 

 almost be said, indeed, that those responsible for the main- 

 tenance and management of the institution are more conscious 

 of what is still to be done than of what has been done already. 

 It was seen in a previous article that on the original installa- 

 tion of the new museum in the eighties the bulk of the 

 collections were only " roughed out " in their positions in the 

 cases, and that the committee of that day having failed to 

 find the means for the necessary work, a considerable part of 

 the collections had had to remain in that condition. This is 

 the reason, for instance, for the comp,aratively backward 

 condition of parts of the zoology room, the collection of rocks, 

 and nearly the whole of the fossil room ; the material is there, 

 but it has not yet been possible to exhibit it to proper 

 advantage. It is true that during the last few years a good 

 deal has been done towards overtaking these heavy arrears of 

 work. The ethnology gallery has been entirely re-organised ; 

 the shells and several other sections in the zoology room have 

 been put into good order ; much work has been expended on 

 the bird room, and improved methods of exhibition and label- 

 ling have been introduced in several other parts of the museum. 

 But the arrears to be made up are still overwhelming. In the 

 fossil room alone there is three or four years' solid work for an 

 expert, and with the present staff this practically cannot be 

 touched. 



It must be borne in mind, too, that the overtaking of these 

 arrears, though under present conditions it appears dis- 

 couragingly distant, is after all only the first step. The 

 collections have been roughed out on a good system, and the 

 first thing is to get them into finished order as they stand. 

 But the developments that would be possible after that are 

 among the most useful and desirable of all. The nature of 

 these contemplated further developments may be gathered to 

 a slight extent from a small beginning that has been made in 

 the fossil room. The large sets of fossils filling the cases in 

 this room cannot be expected to convey an intelligible lesson 

 to the uninstructed visitor, and so a range of small intro- 



