388 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
tlon not only afford incalculable aid to commerce 
and industry; but they also serve to stimulate 
scientific enquiry respecting the capabilities of 
the country as regards its natural and manufac- 
tured resources. 
Dependent as Malta is upon her commerce, and 
upon the general intellectual efficiency of her 
people to enable them to compete with the cosmo- 
politan thousands with whom she trades, surely 
it is as great an anomaly to find her without an 
institution of this kind as it would be to find a 
country, whose safety depended upon the efficiency 
of its warlike defences, without an army or navy. 
But apart from the utilitarian aspect of the 
question, Malta should possess such an institution 
in order that the people might be afforded an 
opportunity of learning the precise nature of the 
history of their country, and in order that their 
horizon of thought might be broadened, and their 
intelligence quickened. 
The material that the islands afford for the 
study of the natural and civil history of the central 
Mediterranean is practically unlimited in extent, 
and inestimable in value: and yet, save for the work 
that has been undertaken by a few foreign enthu- 
siasts, and by one or two enlightened natives no 
interest has been, or is, evinced in the collection 
and study of it. 
It is a significant fact that while most of the 
principal museums of Europe possess some relic 
or other bearing on the former history of these 
islands, relics, that are cherished by their foreign 
possessors, and that are accorded a place of 
honour in the institutions of the country, in 
Malta such treasures are not only regarded with 
indifference, but when found, they are absolutely 
neglected, and are allowed to be dispersed into 
the collections of private individuals or else are 
relegated to some unsavoury room where the 
restrictions with reference to entrance, time, and 
similar details are such as to render them inacces- 
sible to the average would-be student. 
The islands have supplied, and are still conti- 
nuing to supply some of the rarest and most uni- 
que geological, anthropological, and archaeological 
specimens to the museums of other countries 
that those institutions can be said to possess 
Few seasons pass by without some important 
discovery being recorded; and few seasons pass by 
without some disgraceful act of despoliation and 
vandalism being perpetrated by the ignorant 
country people. It is a standing reproach to the 
people of Malta that they should possses so little 
of national pride as to allow such a state of things 
to exist. 
Alluding to this subject in his report on the 
discoveries at Notabile in 1881 , Dr. A. A. Caruana 
strongly urged the necessity of forming such a 
museum; but unfortunately his proposal met with 
but little success. 
Malta requires a museum. Why has she not 
one. It is not the assigning of a room, or of a 
series of rooms, fitted up with a few shelves and 
cases, and stocked with a lieteorogeneous assort- 
ment of scientific odds and ends, the greater part 
of which are unarranged, undetermined, and ill 
preserved, while the remainder are arranged in an 
unsystematic and antiquated fashion, that meets 
the needs of the case. 
Malta requires an institution that is worthy of 
her as an important commercial centre; worthy of 
her people as an intelligent, enlightened race, and 
worthy of her past and present history which is 
as ancient and as honourable a one as is that of 
many a more extensive and pretentious state. 
Her present need affords an opportunity for 
some liberal minded, public-spirited individual to 
come forward and earn the approbation of the 
present generation and the gratitude of future 
ones by providing the funds for the erection of a 
suitable edifice in which the treasure — trove of the 
islands, utilitarian and scientific, can be systema- 
tically arranged and effectually protected. Where 
the people may be able to obtain a clear and an 
adequate idea of the nature and extent of the 
resources of the country. Where the intelligent 
student may, by means of its well arranged collec- 
tions be able to verify and compaie the various 
stages of the islands’ natural history. Where by 
means of the collections of the islands’ archaeolo- 
gical treasures he may be able to obtain a thorough 
and practical knowledge of the civil history of the 
islands in past ages ; and where he may have the 
means at hand whereby to form a just estimate of 
the habits and characters of the former inhabit- 
ants of the islands. Where, in short, individuals 
might go, and while finding rational amusement 
of an elevating character, they might, with an 
