Report of Society's Meetings. 209 
being frequently seen from week to week, or month to 
month. The new immigrants and those returning to 
India thus visit the Museum by hundreds from day to 
day while they are in town, and seem to take, like the 
other visitors generally, a real interest in what they see. 
This frequent visiting by the same people is largely due 
to the fa<5t that the Museum is the only public place in 
which a large collection of things unfamiliar to their 
ordinary experience can be seen at leisure, and to the 
very great variety of the specimens exhibited, so that at 
each visit, something so to speak new strikes the atten- 
tion ; while, as is well-known, there are actually new 
things being constantly added. 
The general charge of, and responsibility for, the 
place is an important one ; and a great deal of the time 
of the staff, and chiefly of the Curator, is taken up with 
the furnishing information, often in the character of demon- 
strations, to groups of visitors, a very large proportion 
of whom are quite unable to derive any information from 
labels. In such a place, and with such conditions, this is 
a necessary and important feature in the work of the 
Museum, and it tends greatly to popularise the exhibits. 
The institution is thus becoming a great educational 
establishment, and is yearly developing into a more im- 
portant factor in the life of the colony. The improvements 
in the place have steadily increased, as may be seen by 
the most casual inspection, and this is proved by the 
increasing appreciation of the large number of visitors. 
A more generous encouragement of the institution, as 
regards funds, is greatly needed, and such encouragement 
would open out wide possibilities. It seeks to deserve 
and is deserving of more cordial support, and considering 
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