1859.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 399 



of the perishable collections, or for the location of the Library. The 

 light is every where defective, especially on the ground floor. The 

 space is already insufficient for the demands made upon it by the 

 existing Museum, (including the Zoological and Geological collections 

 and the Antiquities), by the Library and the Society's Meeting Room. 

 The rooms on the upper floor are even now over-filled, and if a suf- 

 ficient number of cases were set up for the proper display of the 

 existing collections, the space would be blocked up in a most ob- 

 jectionable and inconvenient degree. The cabinets are now exces- 

 sively crowded, many skins are put away, because there is no room 

 for them to be set up, and no possible accommodation exists for any 

 future increase to this part of the museum. The size and position 

 of the available rooms is awkward, not permitting of the proper con- 

 secutive arrangement of the several groups of objects in each de- 

 partment, a point of altogether primary importance in illustration 

 of those branches of knowledge which are emphatically termed 

 Sciences of classification. 



The establishment maintained for the care of the Zoological col- 

 lections has of late years been quite insufficient to meet the demands 

 made upon it for setting up new specimens and for watching or 

 cleaning those already placed in the cabinets. The Mineralogical 

 and Geological collections have lately been deprived of any special 

 custodian, by the removal of the Government Museum of Economic 

 Geology, and the withdrawal of the grant for many years made by 

 the Government to the Society, for the purpose of paying a joint 

 Curator for this department of the Museum. This part of the col- 

 lections urgently requires re-arrangement, but it is not easy to see 

 how it can be accomplished under existing circumstances. The Zoo- 

 logical Curator, Mr. Blvtli, is confessedly incompetent to undertake 

 the duty ; nor indeed, would it be reasonable to expect that any 

 one man, should possess the requisite attainments in all branches of 

 Natural Science, to superintend effectively the scientific arrange- 

 ment or management of the whole Museum ; still less, that with 

 such a salary as that of our present Curator, the services of a man 

 of education can be retained, or his exclusive and entire attention 

 secured to the duties of his office, 



