PROCEEDINGS OF THE PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
133 
many larger towns to bestir themselves to obtain similar 
educational institutions. You will remember that during 
the early stages of the movement for additional Museum 
accommodation, the selection of a suitable site for the 
proposed building was for a time much discussed, some 
holding the view that it would be better to extend the old 
premises in George Street, as occupied by our friends of 
the Literary and Antiquarian Society, while others main¬ 
tained that almost any other site in the city would be 
better. The latter party, as you all know, carried the 
public with them, and the present complete and beauti¬ 
fully-situated building is the result. Had the opposing 
view prevailed, it would have been impossible to have held 
such a conversazione in connection with the Museum as 
we are doing to-night. And I have no doubt that the ad¬ 
vantages which are so apparent to-night will continue to tell 
in the future. I spoke a little ago of the Museum being an 
educational institution, and I should like to point out to 
you in a very few words what grounds I have for so de¬ 
scribing it. This I shall best do by giving a short account 
of its principal features, and stating as succinctly as I can 
the object which the Society has had in view in arranging 
their collection. Now, a Natural History Museum may 
be general, or it may be local. A general collection will 
aim at representing fully all the multifarious tribes of 
plants and animals that clothe and people the earth—all 
the myriad species of fossil organic remains which have 
been dug out of the rocks—all the vast variety of minerals 
and rocks which enter into the solid framework of the 
earth’s crust. As a matter of fact no Museum does con¬ 
tain any such complete collection—the only one in our 
country which makes any approximation to it being the 
British Museum. It is, therefore, perfectly obvious that 
such a general collection is far beyond the resources of any 
one Society, however wealthy it may be. In a centre like 
this the most we can hope to do is to form a local collection 
—that is to say, a collection which shall fully represent 
the geology, zoology, and botany of the county. For 
educational purposes I believe such a local collection 
is of much more value than a highly incomplete general 
collection, which is the state of most general collections. 
In a general collection you find that the plants and animals, 
the minerals and rocks, are classified and arranged accord¬ 
ing to their mutual affinities, as under orders, families, 
genera, and species. So that in looking into the cases in 
such a Museum we may find, lying side by side, species 
which in Nature never occur together, but often belonging 
to totally different lands or seas, as the case may be. Unless 
he be prepared by previous study, the visitor to such a 
Museum will have only the vaguest and haziest notions as 
to the geographical distribution of the earth’s organic and 
mineral riches. General collections, in short, are only 
thoroughly understood and appreciated by professed 
naturalists, who have already acquired the knowledge to 
use them in the right way. To a beginner in natural 
science studies they are rather baffling and confusing, and 
of much less value than a small well-arranged local collec¬ 
tion. For every good local collection must have also its 
type or index collection—from which the tyro will learn 
the characters of the various types upon which all the 
plants and animals of the earth have been framed. Having 
acquired some knowledge of these types, he then proceeds 
to study the local collection, and observes to what extent 
each type is represented; and the knowledge thus acquired 
will fit him to make the most of any general collection he 
may afterwards visit. But the tyro will learn much more 
than this from a local collection. A general Museum will 
show a beginner in geology, for example, that there are 
vast numbers of rocks—some of these of igneous origin : 
some due to the action of water ; others composed of 
mineralised organic matter. But such rock specimens are, 
as it were, the mere letters of the alphabet of physical 
geology; and a knowledge of them, although absolutely 
necessary to a beginner, is, after all, only a means to an 
end. The chief object which the geologist has in view, is 
to discover, from a study of rocks as they occur in Nature, 
through what physical changes the surface of the earth has 
passed. Now, in a local Museum, the student should find 
not only a type or index collection of minerals and rocks, 
but a series of rocks native to the district, arranged in the 
precise order in which they occur—a classification which 
should show the relative antiquity of each stratum and 
rock-mass. Further, he should have the opportunity of 
inspecting diagrams and maps which indicate clearly the 
geological structure of the surrounding country. In short, 
the local collection should be so arranged as to delineate 
the geological history of the district in as clear and 
striking a manner as possible. From such a local col¬ 
lection, therefore, the student will obtain an insight into 
the meaning of geological science, and that is more than he 
will get in many large and pretentious collections. And as 
it is with the student of geology, so is it with tyros in 
zoology and botany. In a good local collection, the index 
collection will first claim their attention—after which the 
local collection will give them practical exemplifications of 
such questions as the geographical distribution of plants 
and animals, which are among the most interesting in 
natural science. Indeed, I have no hesitation in saying 
that a well-arranged and complete local collection will pre¬ 
sent the most distinct and impressive picture of the 
