whole placed under the care and control of the Geological Survey, 
thus introducing a system of administration, which is only a 
really scientific classification of functions, with the additional 
merit of having had successful experience elsewhere to guide it. 
The geological collection in the hands of the Museum com- 
mittee was really too small and insignificant to permit the pos- 
sibility, having due regard to the other more pressing scientific 
interests in the Institution, of a specialist being retained for its 
care, hence by the amalgamation duplication of scientific 
effort has been reduced to a minimum. 
In the general scheme which the Department proposes to 
ultimately adopt in connection with the arrangement of the 
geological collections, a plan has been decided upon which will, 
it is hoped, meet the requirements of four totally distinct classes 
of visitors to the Geological Gallery, viz., (a) the general public, 
(b) the average student, (c)the practical man, prospector, engineer, 
etc., and ) (ti) the scientific enquirer. Naturally, as befits such an 
important mining State as Western Australia — which ranks 
second in the gold-mining countries under the British Flag — - 
the pride of place will be given to collections illustrating the 
geological structure and mineral wealth of the country, in addition 
to the application of geology to the various industrial pursuits, 
without, of cowrse, neglecting the more systematic treatment of 
the science of geology in general. To this end the mineral rocks 
and fossils of Western Australia will be properly placed on ex- 
hibition, and an endeavour made to display specimens which are 
especially characteristic of Australasia and elsewhere. The fossils 
which have been almost entirely collected by the staff and our 
predecessors in the ordinary course of their duties, from the 
different formations in the State, will be arranged and displayed 
primarily in stratigraphical and secondly in zoological sequence 
in conjunction with the geological maps of the districts in which 
they were obtained. The rock specimens also will be systemati- 
cally arranged so as to illustrate the various geological and mining 
maps ; whilst the extremely valuable collection of minerals and 
metallic ores will be primarily arranged on a metallic basis, but 
in such away as to afford a brief apercu of the nature, type, mode 
of occurrence and geographical distribution of the mineral wealth 
of Western Australia. In the case of the ores and other minerals 
all the specimens will, as far as possible, be of a uniform size 
(and arranged with illustrative plans, diagrams and photographs), 
such being of greater scientific, commexcial, and educational 
value than large trophies, or bulk samples from individual mines 
or disti'icts. 
Care is being taken to preserve and exhibit only such speci- 
mens as are of permanent and real value, and which have a lesson 
to teach. Cairied out on these lines, the Geological Gallery will 
then be as it ought to be, a collection illustrating in the very 
