A NEW MUSEUM TABLET. 
FRANK C. BAKER. 
For the past five years the writer has been experimenting 
upon a durable and convenient museum tablet, which would 
remain perfectly flat when the label and specimens were 
attached, and which would give the largest amount of exhibi- 
tion room with a minimum of label area. Such a tablet has 
been worked out by the writer and a short description of it 
may be of interest to those having the same problem to meet. 
I might say, however, that the idea was first conceived while 
examining the tablets in the American Museum of Natural 
History, New York, upon which are mounted Hall’s types of 
fossils. 
The foundation is No. 20 binder’s board, which has been 
found quite heavy enough for all practical purposes. About 
the edge of this is bound black gummed paper, similar to that 
used for binding lantern slides. The center for the specimens 
and label is next prepared, and for this the writer has selected 
a grade of manilla cardboard identical with that used for herba- 
rium genus covers ; this is of a rich cream color and does not 
fade when exposed to the light, and presents a surface admi- 
‘rably setting off the black, full-faced type used. At a first 
glance a finished tablet appears as though made of ivory. 
This board is cut just enough smaller than the tablet to allow 
a black border of an eighth of an inch. For very light speci- 
mens a black center is used, cut just small enough to allow an 
eighth of an inch of light margin between it and the black 
border of the tablet, and also to leave room for the label which 
is generally 3 x 1 inch. 
In securing a good black the writer was compelled to resort 
to a thin black paper used by paper-box manufacturers, as no 
printer seemed able to print a uniform black, the first ones 
printed being gummy, and the last shading into a gray. The 
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