the program crystallized the concept of a collection 

 manager. More interest in loans meant more filling out 

 of loan papers. More specimens coming in meant more 

 accessioning and more label-writing. More visitors meant 

 more moving of material to and from storage. Twenty- 

 five years ago curators handled all such transactions, 

 but today this is not the case. The curators are expected 

 to conduct research programs, and the collections are 

 largely curated by technicians. The scientific visitor who 

 wishes to study particular specimens can probably be 

 accommodated more readily now than at any time in 

 the past. 



No matter what one writes about a collection, the 

 true impact of the specimens is not fully communicable 

 by the written word. There is nothing like seeing row 

 upon row of jars or case upon case of fossils to impress 

 one with the enormous amount of human effort that 

 these specimens represent. Yet vast as the collections 

 are, they are an inadequate sample of the world's di- 

 versity and the endlessly subtle complications it con- 

 tains. It is the study of variation within these collections 

 that is so important. Ripley has written, "The truth 

 exists in objects. . . . They cannot lie. . . . They can be 

 handled, touched, thought about and reflected over, 

 and in so doing convey a sense of truth beyond per- 

 adventure.'" 



The curators do reflect on the objects and to varying 

 degrees do look after collections, but increasingly they 

 are concerned with a particular specialty, rather than 

 a wider group of organisms. However, each curator 

 contributes specimens, adding to the stock of the past. 

 The activities of the present generation of "foragers" 

 have been described in some detail,^ but generally 

 speaking, collections obtained by staff members in the 



past were larger than those being made by present 

 workers: Setzer's operations in trapping small mam- 

 mals were like those of a field marshal; Cooper brought 

 in seventy-two tons of rock to treat with acid; the Indian 

 Ocean Exploration employed dozens of ships. 



Why Collections Grow 



With such large collections already in hand, why go out 

 into the field in search of more? No matter what anyone 

 says, one reason is that to most scientists, field work is 

 more fun than being in the office. Another answer is 

 that one cannot always solve new problems when lim- 

 iting oneself to old collections; additional specimens 

 and data on behavior and mode of occurrence must be 

 obtained to resolve some questions. Also, curators are 

 expected to add to the collections. If the research being 

 pursued by a curator has nothing to do with collections, 

 why should he or she be at the Museum in the first 

 place? Collections will grow until collectors become 

 extinct. New things always turn up. 



The expansion of collections within the Museum is 

 not an issue that many scientists care to belabor. All 

 one can do, is to plead for adequate space and the 

 money to support it. Fortunately, the collections have 

 proven their worth so many times that Congress sees 

 the merit of continuing research, even if this is linked 

 to continuing growth. 



The growth of the collections has been studied.- An- 

 nual reports provided solid information on the number 

 of specimens accessioned each year, and the growth 

 curves turned out to be exponential. On May 1, 1971, 

 in advance of the inventory, the grand total of speci- 

 mens in the seven departments in the Museum of Nat- 

 ural History was supposed to have been 54,215,643." 



The Collections 



203 



