1876.] 



SENATE— No. 10. 



13 



our collections must be retained, and we can only hope to 

 make them accessible under the most liberal reo^ulations con- 

 sistent with the safety of the collections. In these rooms the 

 furniture will of course be of the most economical character, 

 adapted to a proper preservation of the collections, and to 

 their ready access. By prompt distribution of the materials 

 received, everything should be at once taken to its place, and 

 the confusion as well as difficulty of keeping track of mate- 

 rials separated by imaginary lines in large rooms entirely 

 obviated. 



The great defect of museums in general is the immense 

 number of articles exhibited, compared with the small space 

 taken to explain what is shown. The visitor stands before 

 a case which may be exquisitely arranged, most carefully la- 

 belled, yet he does not know, and has no means of finding out, 

 why that case is filled as it is ; nothing tells him the purpose 

 for which it is there. The need of general labels, and a small 

 number of specimens properly selected to illustrate the labels, 

 would go far towards making a museum intelligible, not only 

 to the average visitor, but often to the professional naturalist. 

 The instruction which could thus be given without a special 

 guide is certainly very great, and a visit to a museum thus 

 arranged becomes of value, and cannot fail to leave some 

 impression. The advantage, therefore, of comparatively small 

 rooms intended for a special purpose, and for that purpose 

 alone, will overcome at once the objections to be made to 

 laro^e halls where the visitor is lost in the maze of the 

 cases, which, to him, seem placed without purpose, and 

 filled only for the sake of not leaving them empty. Of 

 course, as will be seen from the plans of the Museum, a 

 few large rooms are absolutely necessary for the proper 

 display of the few colossal mammals which must find their 

 way into every museum. The purpose to which a room is 

 devoted should not be known to the officers of the Museum 

 alone ; the room itself is to be as distinctly labelled as a 

 single specimen. There must, then, again be general sub- 

 divisions of cases, properly labelled, and of certain categories 

 in the cases, until we come to the single tablet. Such an 

 arrangement is of course laborious, requires constant atten- 

 tion and alterations to represent the existing and past condi- 



