O NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



full length of the building, 570 feet, and a width of about 50 feet. 

 In the planning of the Museum, the easternmost of these mezzanine 

 halls was assigned to botany, but the imperative demands of arche- 

 ology have made it necessary to allot this space to the arche- 

 ology division. A large part of the archeology cases which had 

 been placed provisionally in the west mezzanine have been trans- 

 ferred to the east mezzanine and added to the equipment of the 

 cases there and so arranged as to effect an orderly succession of 

 the entire assemblage of cases. In these most of the archeological 

 material, including the greater part of the valuable recent acquisi- 

 tions, has been, in large measure, installed and the work is now in 

 progress. 



After many long and troublesome delays, a contract has finally 

 been entered into for the construction of the Iroquois group cases 

 and for the necessary electric wiring in connection therewith. 

 This contract is in the hands of William Plass & Bro. of New 

 York, and the work is about to begin. This order calls for the 

 construction of 6 very large cases of concrete, steel and glass, to 

 go in the western mezzanine, and until the work is done the 

 Museum will not be in proper condition for opening to the public. 

 It is quite likely that the quality of construction called for in these 

 cases, to be carried out in the Museum halls, will prove a consider- 

 able embarrassment to the orderliness and cleanliness of the collec- 

 tions already installed. This condition, however, has to be met and, 

 once passed, it may be hoped that the Museum will settle down 

 to a permanent state of orderly arrangement. 



Special designs for the Museum collections. The installation 

 of the collections has called not only for the elaboration and effective 

 display of actual natural materials, but has exercised the skill and 

 ingenuity of the staff in the production of designs and restorations 

 which would help to illuminate these collections. Perhaps it is true 

 that the collection of invertebrate fossils has made the most exacting- 

 demands of this kind, because of the difficulties with which the 

 comprehension of the fossil object by the ordinary observer is 

 attended. It has been the purpose, so far as is reasonable and 

 practicable, to make the structure of the extinct forms of life pre- 

 served in the rocks better intelligible by the help of such restorations 

 and other forms of illustration. Attention was called in my last 

 report to a number of these objects, most of which have been pro 

 (hired by the members of the staff, and occasion may here he taken 

 to enumerate the restorations and models of various kinds recently 

 installed for the purpose of serving the end indicated: 



