780 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIII. 
Cases should be of uniform pattern (units) if possible. 
Their form will be determined by the lighting of the building. 
If this light is from above, vertical wall and floor cases should 
be used; if from the side, cases with flat or sloping tops. 
Metal framework for the cases has the advantages of tenuity 
and durability. All specimens should be cased, both for pur- 
poses of preservation and attractiveness. No pains or means 
should be spared to make installation rich, neat, and attractive ; 
the most valuable material may be rendered practically worth- 
less for museum purposes by poor installation, and vice versa. 
The indefinite extension of synoptic or systematic collections 
is not a desirable effort for a people’s museum. Such collec- 
tions weary by their monotony and extent without teaching any 
adequate lesson. Group collections formed about some com- 
monly understood idea are more attractive and instructive. 
To make such collections requires more time, thought, and 
care than to string out genera and species, but they are more 
than correspondingly valuable. The economic relations of 
things can, at least, be shown without much effort, but if this 
is done, care should be taken that classification is adhered 
to closely, and the collection kept well balanced. 
Museums should cultivate home fields and aim to represent 
most fully the materials of their own districts in the same 
proportion and for the same reason that local interests and 
acquaintances are larger and more important than those at a 
distance. Thus the best collection of the fossils of the Paris 
basin should be, as it is, in Paris; of the minerals of Cornwall, 
in the British Museum; of Prussian amber, in the Berlin 
Museum. 
As to form and style of labels, there can be little question of 
the superiority of the printed label, made as descriptive as 
possible. Case labels are very desirable, since they serve, like 
the headlines of a newspaper column, to show at a glance the 
character of the contents. In the Continental museums the 
need of labeling seems to be less generally recognized than in 
those of Great Britain and our own country. Specimens often 
have no label, and if they do have labels, they are usually 
simple statements of name and locality written on paper. 
