130 ON THE FORMATION OF LOCAL MUSEUMS. 



the things will be sufficiently cooked ; and a person unacquainted with this 

 South Sea mode of cooking would be surprised to find the food so well done. 

 I consider this to be the best mode of cooking yams and bread fruit, and 

 much superior to our plan of baking and boiling them." — Clieyne's Western 

 Pacific. 



ON THE FORMATION OF LOCAL MUSEUMS. 



BY WILLIAM CURTIS. 



No institution is complete without its museum ; and a collection of 

 specimens, for educational purposes, is easily formed, extensive enough to 

 teach powerfully by means of objects. A museum in a village need not 

 be a very expensive addition to a school or institution. It may be at first 

 only a museum of elementary knowledge, established by the outlay of a 

 few pounds. This, with gradual additions, will soon become valuable, 

 particularly if there be an individual or two in the neighbourhood with 

 sufficient knowledge of natural history to make local collections of plants, 

 birds, insects, geological specimens, &c. Much assistance may be obtained, 

 and a useful interest may be excited, by such persons setting the younger 

 members to work to make collections of natural history — e. g., of zoolog}^, 

 including comparative anatomy, especially osteology ; birds and their eggs ; 

 reptiles and fishes ; land and fresh water shells ; marine shells and other 

 products of the coasts ; insects, and specimens of their architecture ; plants ; 

 minerals ; geological specimens, as fossil organic remains and rocks, plastic 

 materials and stones used for building and other economic purposes. Much 

 may be thus done in almost every district, at a trifling cost for cheap glass 

 cases, but of course more may generally be done in towns than in villages. 



Other suitable objects are local productions of various kinds, local 

 antiquities and raw materials of manufacture. These last, if exhibited in 

 progressive stages, from the natural product to the finished article, would 

 possess great interest in towns remote from the centres of manufacturing 

 industry. 



In most cases, apart from a small collection of primary objects and 

 models, and diagrams for general instruction in the arts and sciences, the 

 museum should be a strictly local one. The members of an institution will 

 take more interest in collections of their own making ; and, with a little 

 guidance to a rational study of the natural sciences, will learn more from 

 a large museum containing a bewildering number of objects. In educa- 

 tional museums, rare and curious specimens are not the most valuable, but 

 those which are most common, and therefore most important. A plant 

 from the coal formation, and a flint from the chalk, may teach valuable 

 lessons in geology. 



It is to be regretted that young men destined to instruct youth, particu- 

 larly in villages and small towns, are not instructed in natural history, 



