12 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



general publication of the results and investigations; much less than 

 was formerly done. As a consequence, important scientific manu- 

 scripts have accumulated until the publication of work done has 

 fallen far into arrears. This is a regrettable condition, one hard 

 to justify in view of the uninterrupted activities of the scientific 

 staff, and one which ought to be corrected by provision of adequate 

 printing funds. 



6 The exhibition halls of the State Museum have reached their 

 limit of expansion. Only the vertical walls remain available for 

 increase of exhibits and these are of little use. A progressive 

 scientific museum, with behind it a slowly developing plan for a 

 general museum, would of necessity soon overpass the very limited 

 quarters allotted to it in the Education Building. Could this 

 building be enlarged by carrying it along the Hawk and Elk street 

 fronts, sufficient additional space would be provided to meet the 

 demand of growth for perhaps a generation, doubtless with needed 

 relief to overcrowded departments elsewhere in the building. But 

 it is beyond question that such relief of pressure is not the correct 

 solution of its present and future requirements. The Museum 

 should have its own independent building and equipment. It 

 requires offices, workshops and laboratories, it must have large 

 storage space, corridors and extensive exhibition halls. Until it 

 gets these it will be far from attaining the purpose of the statute 

 or affording the service contemplated by it. The question is not 

 whether such independent museum building is to come, but how 

 soon it will come. The need for it plainly existed when the Education 

 Building was constructed, and this need is all the more felt now 

 by the fact that should the Museum vacate the Education Building 

 soon, great relief would be afforded to the other departments in the 

 building — a relief which might avoid expense in the provision 

 of additional quarters for these departments. The Director of 

 the Museum has, by invitation, appeared before the Roosevelt 

 Memorial Commission created by the Legislature, and presented 

 to them effective reasons for regarding a new State Museum building 

 a suitable memorial to the late Colonel Roosevelt ; not alone for the 

 pressing reasons stated above, but added thereto the additional 

 fact of Colonel Roosevelt's intimate interest in such affairs of public 

 concern as the Museum is engaged with, and his personal contact 

 with it, not only during his term as Governor of the State, but 

 especially by his extraordinary and impressive address made at the 

 formal rededication of the present Museum, which was the last of 

 his great speeches. It is felt that this suggestion is entitled to support 

 and will receive full consideration by the commission. 



