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The most substantial assistance w as rendered by the State Labora- 

 tory of Natural History, then at Normal. Prof. Forbes sent to the 

 museum its chief zoological materials^ — alcoholic specimens of fishes 

 and reptiles, artistic casts of Illinois fishes, mounted birds and -mam- 

 mals — a bufifalo, deer, bear and smaller mammals. 



In the early eighties* the curator selected "a complete series of car- 

 boniferous fossils for the State Museum of Natural History out of the 

 great mass of material brought together in the progress of the geolog- 

 ical survey of the State * * * ." And as the years passed the 

 orderliness and value of the collections were increased by diligent 

 work. 



This improvement, however, availed but little, since in the last years 

 of Prof. Worthen's life, against his protests and during his absence 

 from Springfield, the museum was moved by ordinary laborers who had 

 no more idea of the value of museum materials that Geronimo had of 

 Shakespeare, and who threw things into inextricable confusion. (About 

 1887). 



Of this rnove Dr. Josua Lindahl who was Prof. Worthen's succes- 

 sor writes: 



" * * * You may, however, get some idea of its chaotic condition, when 

 I tell you that the entire collections in the museum rooms had been moved in 

 the last year of Professor Worthen's life, against his protests and in his ab- 

 sence from Springfield, from out of the upper floors down to the main floor of 

 the Capitol by order of some higher authority who engaged a furniture moving 

 concern to remove the whole museum, without the supervision of anybody 

 who had the least idea of how scientific material should be handled. Only in 

 exceptional cases were the labels fixed to' the specimens, and none of these 

 had any numbers written or painted on them. Labels and specimens were 

 therefore shoveled into the drawers and showcases at haphazard, and by no 

 means always so that the labels belonged to any specimens In the same 

 drawer. In the basement the condition was, if possible, still worse. There 

 was no closed room assigned to the storage of the vast amount of valuable 

 material accumulated in the course of about 35 years, but it was piled up in 

 an open portion of the basement, and workmen of various kinds had been 

 using the pile as a dump for rubbish under which I would never have ex- 

 pected such a treasury of valuable material as was finally uncovered there 

 and removed to a separate room with door and lock, which I secured after 

 much arguing. The assistant told me that Professor Worthen felt so grieved 

 over the wreck of collections in the museum rooms, that he could never at- 

 tempt to remedy the havoc. His health was already broken, and after his 

 death, some months later, I found the collections in such a condition as in- 

 dicated. I devoted years of assiduous work to save what could be saved." 



While curator, Worthen published no reports on the condition of the 

 museum. The two bulletins which he brought out. Bulletin No. i 

 (1882) and Bulletin No. 2 (1884) were descriptions of fossils. They 

 were valuable contributions to the palaeontology of Illinois. And he 

 was able to publish Volume VII of the Geological Survey Report 



Bull. No, 2, 111. State Mue. Nat. Hist., p. 3. 



