The Aims atid Scope of a Provincial Museum. 29 



Hence the subjects must be carefully selected so as to give a 

 brief and yet instructive picture of the various processes. At the 

 same time it should be made attractive to the layman. The art 

 of shipbuilding could be illustrated in a similar manner, and he 

 felt sure the great Belfast firms engaged in that industry would 

 do everything in their power to foster such an enterprise. The 

 habits and customs of the primitive tribes which once resided in 

 the district or province in which the provincial museum was 

 situated would form another most worthy object for illustration. 

 The local antiquities, the local zoology, botany, and geology, as 

 well as the local arts and art industries should all have a place 

 reserved to them. Here they had to face the great difficulty of 

 space. Every large museum must divide its collections into two 

 portions — namely, a reserve or study series and an exhibited 

 series. Even in small museums it was found necessary to keep 

 part of the collections strictly for students, and exhibit the 

 remainder. Ample storage accommodation, at any rate, was 

 essential. Then when they came to deal with natural history 

 specimens the curator would be called upon to perform quite a 

 distinct and troublesome set of tasks. One great difference 

 between the work to be done in the art section and the one 

 devoted to natural history objects was that the art specimens 

 came into his hands very nearly in the condition in which they 

 would have to remain. A picture, a vase, a piece of old armour, 

 or a statue, beyond a certain amount of tender care in cleaning 

 and repairing, which was more or less mechanical in its nature, 

 was ready for its place on the museum shelves. This was far 

 from being the case with the greater number of natural objects. 

 Not only did they require special methods of preservation, but 

 very often their value as museum specimens depended entirely 

 on the skill, labour, patience, and knowledge expended upon 

 them. In specimens illustrating biological subjects the highest 

 powers of the museum curator were called forth. A properly 

 mounted animal or a carefully displayed anatomical preparation was 



