CONTRIBUTIONS TO MUSEUM TECHNIQUE 

 I. CATALOGUING MUSEUM SPECIMENS' 



L. B. WALTON 



An essential feature in connection with a museum, is the main- 

 tenance of a careful record or history of the objects forming the 

 various collections, since a specimen deficient in data referring 

 to the locality, date and conditions under which it was obtained, 

 is practically valueless in comparison with one correctly catalogued.^ 



The inadequacy of the systems commonly employed, even in 

 prominent museums of America and Europe,' by which rarely 

 more than a number, name, and locality of uncertain value, are 

 more or less heterogeneously arranged in cumbersome and often 

 inaccessible volumes,* is apparent to any one who has attempted 

 to locate a desired speQmen, or when fortunate enough to ascer- 

 tain the location, to obtain concise information concerning it. 

 This condition of affairs is particularly obvious to the systematist 

 wishing to study the material belonging to a certain group or 

 from a definite area in a museum, for he may indeed be considered 



2 1 have morely given t\x})ressi()n to the principle laid down by Goode in 

 his adniiialih' ]k\\h'v on nmsfuin a(hniiiist ration (Annual Report of the Mu- 

 seums AsMiciaiinti, IV'.-), al-o icpul .li-hr,l in the Annual Report of the Sniith- 



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