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to Ottawa the more commodious building provided there was becoming 
crowded and the need was felt for larger quarters more suited for museum 
purposes. In the Summary Report for 1895 Dawson observed that: 
“The number of visitors to the Museum again shows a notable increase, having risen 
to 31,595 in 1896, and every year the necessity for a modern and safe building of greater 
size becomes more urgent.” 
The following year he pointed out more vigorously that: 
“The absolute necessity for additional space for the preservation of specimens coming 
to the Museum, and for workrooms for material under examination, has led to the con- 
struction of temporary partitions and shelving on the two lower floors of the building on 
Sussex street adjoining that belonging to the Government and already occupied by the 
Survey. At best, however, this provides little more than storage room The 
need for new fireproof, and more spacious quarters becomes more pressing every 
day ” 
The matter has also interested prominent men outside Parliament. 
Sir B. E. Walker, president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, said in a 
public address: 
“The Dominion Government at Ottawa and each province, at its city of chief import- 
ance, should have a museum belonging to and supported by the people. These museums 
should contain exhibits of the metallic and non-metallic minerals of the country, both 
those of economic and of merely scientific value, the forest trees, with the bark preserved, 
in say 6 feet sections, cut also and partly polished, and each specimen accompanied by a 
small map showing its habitat; the freshwater and sea fishes mounted after the modern 
methods; the fur-bearing animals, the game birds, and the birds of our forests, fields, and 
seacoast, many of them mounted so as to tell a child their habits at a glance; the reptiles, 
crustaceans, insects, plants, indeed as complete a record of the fauna and flora of the 
country as possible; the rocks of stratigraphic importance and all the varieties of fossils 
which can be gathered in this country; the archaeological and ethnological evidences of the 
races we have supplanted in Canada, and much more that does not occur to me at the 
moment. I should not like to suggest a limit of expenditure on such museums . . 
I can only repeat that we are rich enough to bear the cost with ease, but we are not intel- 
ligent enough to see our own interest in spending the money.” 
These representations showed their first effect in 1899. Dawson 
wrote : 
“Since the date of the last Summary Report, no substantial progress has, unfortun- 
ately, been made toward the provision of a suitable building for a museum and offices of 
the Geological Survey. Preliminary plans have, however, been drawn, and the necessity 
for such a building has been strongly supported in the House by members of Parliament 
during the past session.” 
During the next five years progress was made, for Dr. Bell, in the 
Summary Report of the Geological Survey, remarks that construction of 
the Victoria Memorial Museum had at last been commenced. This building 
was not finished until 1911; but the transfer of the staff and collections of 
the Survey was begun in November, 1910. R. W. Brock, Director at that 
time, observes in his report for 1910: 
“The Museum can now expand and the work of the Survey be accelerated. The 
Museum will include the illustrative material acquired by the various divisions of the 
Survey, namely, mineralogy and geology, biology, and anthropology. It will, therefore, 
be a complete natural history museum For the present it is the intention to 
restrict the Museum to Canadian material (except in educational collections where necessary 
objects may be lacking in Canada) in order to make it, first, of all, the great Canadian 
Museum, whose collections in Canadian material will surpass all others.” 
Mr. Brock organized the Survey and Museum into better defined 
sections of geology, mineralogy, palaeontology, biology, anthropology, 
