38 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



THE MUSEUM COLLECTIONS; THEIR CONDITIO* AND DISTRIBUTION 



It is hardly necessary for me to refer to the fact that the 

 scientific collections of the State Museum are extensive and 

 valuable. The interested public is aware that nowhere else is to 

 be found a collection of the natural products of the State so ex- 

 tensive and exhaustive, and its value to the students of science 

 and as a factor in scientific knowledge is momentous. 



The condition of these collections continues to be, as it has 

 been for many years past, very unsatisfactory. More than 20 

 years ago the Legislature of the State, convinced that the 

 Museum had filled the Geological Hall to repletion, provided the 

 State Hall for the reception of the overflow, but we failed to 

 acquire the State Hall except in small part. We find therefore 

 today the scientific collections of the State partly in the old 

 rooms of the Geological Hall, crowding all cases and drawers and 

 filling all available nooks and corners; in the State Hall are up- 

 ward of 5000 drawers of paleontologic specimens and several 

 hundred boxes in the rooms in the basement. The corridors and 

 landings of the fourth floor at the west end of the Capitol contain 

 a part of the very valuable and unique collection of Indian 

 relics, and the basement of the Geological Hall and the store- 

 rooms of the Capitol and malthouse hold large quantities of 

 material which it has been necessary to pack away. One unique 

 specimen weighing upward of 20 tons is stored with the Flint 

 Granite Company at Cemetery station. Under such conditions 

 the public is practically debarred from access to the scientific col- 

 lections of the State. Even the exhibition rooms of Geological 

 Hall with the exception of the mineral room on the first floor and 

 the zoologic exhibit on the fourth floor are badly illuminated and 

 extremely unattractive. 



The facilities for display are archaic. We do not even know 

 our own resources. There are boxes of scientific specimens in 

 our storage quarters which have not been opened in half a cen- 

 tury, although for the most part we have a careful inventory of 

 everything that has been sealed up and put in storage in recent 

 years. 



A considerable part of the room on the second floor of Geologi- 

 cal Hall, formerly used for the exhibition of collections, has been 

 taken for needed office quarters. 



In the State Hall no attempt is made to display any of the ma- 

 terial. The rooms are with one exception badly lighted so that 



