GENERAL ACTIVITIES OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CANADA 
By W. H. Collins, Acting Director 
The conditions that forced a discontinuance of field work by the 
National Museum of Canada in 1931 unfortunately continued throughout 
1932 and the main museum activities were consequently limited to labora- 
tory work, to the revision and extension of exhibits in the public halls, and 
to the scientific study of materials collected in the field, and the prepara- 
tion of reports on the same. 
Efforts were concentrated for some time on the hall of Palaeontology. 
The hall is small and hopelessly inadequate, but the available space is 
being utilized to the best advantage. Exhibits have been rearranged and 
reconstructed and the labelling has been improved. Those in charge have 
kept the general public in mind and have recognized the growing tendency 
to regard the museums not as repositories of attractive curios or rare 
specimens of scientific interest but as centres of popular education. The 
story of the lives of the long succession of plants and animals, some 
miraculously persisting unchanged throughout geological ages, some rising 
rapidly to dominance and then mysteriously vanishing, and some evolving 
into forms more and more complex and with more highly specialized 
functions, culminating in man, can be made intensely interesting. The 
facts that the records are incomplete and that the broken chain of events 
must in part be left to the imagination to piece out, only enhance the 
interest. The rearrangement of the exhibits and the mounting and 
framing in mahogany of the fine collection of dinosaur tracks from Peace 
River Valley, Alberta, have increased their educational value and added 
to the orderliness and attractiveness of the hall. 
Two exhibits have been placed on the grounds of the Museum and 
have called forth specially favourable comment. One is a cast in cement 
of a dinosaur trackway of six tracks placed on a level with the ground; 
the other is a cast in cement of a single enormous dinosaur track raised 
12 inches from the ground. It is deep and makes an excellent bird bath. 
In the Hall of Anthropology arrangements are well under way for 
setting up an Eskimo habitat group. An alcove has been partitioned off 
from the rest of the hall, and an opening in the partition affords a view 
of an igloo interior. The exhibit will be completed and in place in a few 
weeks. 
Several loans, mainly of Indian and French-Canadian handicrafts, 
were made during the year. The Acting Director arranged for a display 
of exhibits at the Central Canada Exhibition held in Ottawa in August. 
Three booths were occupied, one by the Division of Biology, one by the 
Division of Anthropology, and one by the Geological Survey. 
The paucity of new material being acquired for scientific study and 
for exhibition purposes is due to the temporary suspension of field work 
and the restricted appropriation available for purchase of specimens. In 
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