HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM 
student of this subject. He is ready to plan a hall which shall be 
devoted to the great surface phenomena of the earth, to the mountains, 
the rivers, the glaciers, the snow peaks, the volcanoes, the valleys, the 
canons and all the other wonderful features of the earth's surface 
which be may displayed through photographs and through models. 
Geography. The beginning which has been made by the Museum in geography 
in the projection of the Arctic and Antarctic regions has attracted so 
much attention and such close study by visitors that it is clear that the 
way is open for a complete geographic exhibit. Already, through an 
arrangement with the American Geographical Society, under President 
Huntington, a typical globe, embodying the very latest results of 
geographical research, has been prepared, which will serve as the basis 
on which can be recorded not only all the geographical and physical 
features of the earth, but the distribution of plants and animals and 
of the races of men. It is obvious that geography is the subject above 
all others through which we may get into close touch with the work 
of the public schools; that advanced museum methods of geography, 
such as we shall adopt, will be a great aid both to teachers and to pupils 
— ^in fact, it will put the whole science on a new basis in the City of 
New York. 
Oceanog- Oceanography is another of the new subjects which it is proposed 
raphy. develop, both on its physical side — the content of the sea and of the 
-tr- geographical sea bottom — and on its living side — the marvelous and 
peculiar forms of sea life. America has been one of the leaders in this 
subject, through the voyages of the "Blake" and of the "Albatross," 
under Alexander Agassiz and others. At the present time, the "Alba- 
tross" has been offered to the Museum by the United States Depart- 
ment of Fisheries for use in the Antarctic, which [will enable the 
Museum to secure its first oceanographic collections and train its first 
observers in this field. 
The following conspectus of the present and future scope of the 
exhibitions is the taking stock of what we have and of what we need 
to carry out these plans. 
[128] 
