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best type of packing material. Even the most delicate pieces of pottery 
and wood carving will travel in safety if packed fairly tightly in an abund- 
ance of this material. Delicate specimens should not be packed so close 
to each other that they may rub together, and it is inadvisable to pack 
heavy and light material in the same box. 
Necessary Data 
Much confused and inaccurate cataloguing has been the result of 
collecting specimens with incomplete information about them. The fact 
that a specimen was bought from a Blackfoot Indian is no guarantee that 
he did not first obtain it from a Sioux and that it was not made by a Cree. 
The collector’s list is made primarily to enable the specimen to be cata- 
logued properly and is in no sense a substitute for the collector’s field note- 
book which should contain all other needful information. The list for- 
warded with the specimens should give the date and place of collection; 
the original source of the specimen, that is to say, where the Indian or 
other owner obtained it and by what tribe it was made; a note on the 
materials employed in its manufacture, if these are not obvious; and the 
“description” of the specimen, usually its common name or a statement 
of its use. Such details as the original owner’s names and the amount 
paid for the specimen may be important enough for the field notebook, 
but are seldom required for cataloguing. 
CLEANING 
When a shipment of specimens has been received in the laboratory, 
unpacked, and checked against the collector’s list, and the packing material 
carefully examined to make sure that everything has been found, including 
small pieces broken off in transit and extras that the collector forgot to 
add to the list — when all this has been done, the next step is to clean the 
specimens. This must be done before they can be repaired, preserved, 
catalogued, or stored. 
Dry cleaning, in the strict sense, is on the whole to be preferred to 
the use of water, alcohol, or gasoline, though the use of these liquids is 
essential at times. If the specimen is dry, superficial dirt and dust can be 
removed with a brush and a pair of bellows. The use of a cloth is not to 
be recommended, as delicate work is easily ruined in this way. 
When liquids are to be used at all, it is better to immerse the specimen 
completely provided its nature permits. If not, small swabs of cotton 
vv'ool on a short, slender stick, or a soft camel’s-hair brush, should be used 
with as little of the liquid as will give satisfactory results. The swabs 
should be discarded as soon as discoloured and the brush thoroughly rinsed 
after each application. 
Before using any liquid cleanser, unless one is quite familiar with the 
type of specimen in hand, its effect should be carefully observed by trying 
it on an inconspicuous corner or on a less valuable specimen of the same kind. 
Grease and similar organic dirt are frequently very difficult to remove. 
If neither alcohol nor gasoline should prove a success, acetone, chloroform, 
ether, or benzol may be tried. Here again it will be necessary to make 
sure that the specimen itself will not be injured in the attempt to clean it. 
