November 13, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



423 



The ground covered by the building as it stands 

 to-day is five times as great as in 1860. There are 

 no less than eighteen exhibition-rooms, with their 

 corresponding galleries, of which eleven are open 

 to the pubhc. Thirty-two rooms are used for 

 storage and quarters for special students and 

 assistants. There are also a lecture-room twice 

 the size of the former, a curator's room and 

 office, eleven laboratories of biology and geology 

 for college and advanced students, four rooms 

 devoted to the Ubrary, and in the basement, in 

 addition to boiler space, rooms intended as an 

 aquarium and vivariimi and for receiving freight ; 

 making, in all, seventy-one rooms and twelve 

 galleries. These rooms are all comparatively 

 small, mostly 30 by 40 feet, no attempt being made 

 at exhibition-rooms imposing from their size. AU 

 are not yet complete, but the space now devoted 

 to the different classes of the animal kingdom, 

 zoologically arranged, contains all that will be 

 given for pubhc exliibition, no matter how exten- 

 sive the collections may become ; for limited col- 

 lections carefuUy assorted are far more intelligible 

 to the general visitor than larger and more indis- 

 crimiaate ones ; the visitor sees only one thing at 

 a time, and is not bewildered by room after room 

 or case after case of specimens which seem to him 

 to have no meaning. 



In the ' synoptic ' room, centrally placed, a 

 favorite scheme of Professor Agassiz, the visitor 

 will get an excellent idea of the great types of the 

 animal kiagdom, unencumbered by a mass of de- 

 tail. He may pass thence to one of the ' syste- 

 matic ' rooms, of which there are five, devoted 

 one each to mammals, birds, fishes, mollusks, and 

 to radiates and protozoa, with their galleries de- 

 voted to reptiles, iasects, and Crustacea. FoUow- 

 iug these, he will turn to the ' f aunal ' rooms, — one 

 each for North America, South America, Africa, 

 India, Austraha, and Europe-Siberia. To study 

 the birds, for instance, he will visit not only the 

 room devoted to the illustration of their zoological 

 affinities, but the several faunal rooms, where he 

 will find the birds characteristic of each province, 

 repetitions being as far as possible avoided. This 

 plan obviates the crowding together into one space 

 of the whole collection of birds, which merely 

 satiates the visitor, and teaches him httle. Two 

 other rooms, not yet ojjened, will be devoted to the 

 marine faunas, where the geographical and bathy- 

 metric distribution of the animals of the Atlantic 

 and Pacific will be shown. A similar double plan 

 is contemplated for the fossils, to which four ex- 

 hibition-rooms will be devoted. 



The original plan of the museum contemplated 

 a main building 364 feet long by 64 feet wide, with 

 wings 205 feet long and of the same width, built 



as in the accompanying plan, in which the section 

 in vertical lines represents that first constructed ; 

 that in oblique lines, the portion added before the 

 death of Agassiz ; and that in crossed lines, the 



1882. 



additions at two successive periods since. The 

 portion on the right, in broken lines, was given over 

 to the Peabody museum of archeology. At the time 

 of the death of Professor Agassiz, the buildings 

 and collections represented an expenditure of 

 about $200,000, and the invested funds amounted 

 to about $185,000. The invested funds now amount 

 to more than $580,000, while the additions to the 

 building and collections since that time represent 

 an additional expenditure, besides the running 

 expenses of the museum, of more than $500,000, — 

 an amount very largely due to the unstinted gen- 

 erosity and filial devotion of the present dnector. 



Witnessing this enormous growth, Mr. Agassiz 

 looks at the future with no small concern. He 

 would hold fast to what has been gained, but 

 hesitates to commit himself to any further rapid 

 advance in the same direction, beheving that the 

 limits of a university organization for such an 

 institution have already been reached. Wliile it 

 is undoubtedly capable of indefinite expansion in 

 the way of endowments for special professorships 

 and assistants, it is doubtful if it be wise to expect 

 or aim at any expansion beyond that which natu- 

 rally comes from the demands of endowed chairs 

 in a university. Original investigation has always 

 been best promoted in connection with educational 

 institutions ; and museums should grow in con- 

 formity with their demands, and no faster, unless 

 they are to become mere unwieldy and meaning- 

 less accumulations. 



If the material growth of the past is to continue, 

 the resources of the institution, large as they are, 

 will soon be entirely inadequate. An attempt 

 has therefore been made to combine the work of 

 assistants and that of investigation, in order that 

 the resources of the museum may keep pace with 



