48 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



MINERALOGY 



Exchanges. Pursuing the policy that the large stock of dupli- 

 cates both in the general mineral collection and in the New York 

 State collection should be utilized as a means of acquiring by 

 exchange desirable new material for both collections, a circular 

 letter was issued to a group of private collectors soliciting exchange 

 and stating the needs and standards of both collections. This 

 policy, which will be adhered to in the future developing of this 

 section of the Museum, has already enriched the collections in both 

 exhibited and study specimens. The high standard already set by 

 the exhibited specimens in both collections makes it increasingly 

 difficult to add new material, which, at least in the case of an addi- 

 tion to the general collection, must be subjected to a rigorous com- 

 parison with the displayed suite, and which must prove its right 

 to a place in the exhibited series by displacing a corresponding 

 specimen. 



Guide. The visitors' guide to the mineral collection which 

 was issued in October 1916, and distributed to the public in 

 response to a request, has met a demand amounting to about 100 

 copies a month. It fills a gap in the educational scheme of this sec- 

 tion of the Museum in that it supplies to the visitor whose inter- 

 est has been aroused, popular information of a more detailed char- 

 acter than can be gained from the necessarily brief group labels, 

 and it also opens the way for a more comprehensive study of the 

 collections, using Bulletin 58 as a textbook. In line with this idea, 

 a reference table has been placed in the center of the collections, 

 equipped with several of the mineralogic publications of the 

 Museum, descriptive of the collections. 



Lectures. The extension work of the section of mineralogy 

 has grown in the past year. In addition to the two lectures 

 delivered in the State Museum course, the curator of mineralogy 

 has been called on to deliver the following lectures and addresses : 



" Lettered Signs " before the State Library School. 



" The New State Museum and the Peoples University " before 

 the Peoples Forum of Binghamton, N. Y. 



" Diamonds " before the Chemical Society of the State College 

 for Teachers, Albany. 



" Gems and Gem Minerals " before the Woman's Club of 

 Hudson. 



