THE INDUSTRIAL SECTION. 
63 
3. Collections of products contributed by private 
individuals. 
4. Trade samples supplied by the various Indian Cham¬ 
bers of Commerce and by individual merchants. 
5. A small series of ethnological specimens purchased 
or loaned. 
At the close of the Exhibition in 1884, the economic 
specimens were housed in temporary sheds on the site now 
occupied by the School of Art and in the annexe to the 
Chowringhee main buildings, but the treatment they had 
received reduced to a considerable extent the value of the 
collection. The almirahs and cases of the old Economic 
Museum emerged from the Exhibition in a fragmentary condi¬ 
tion. Majiy of the samples were found to be worthless and 
had to be destroyed. The total number of specimens at this 
time was 17,685, and registers are still preserved showing the 
names and districts where the articles had been collected. 
Those that were presentable were orderly arranged in the new 
temporary quarters, but for the next few years, the staff 
oould do little more than cope with the damaging influence 
of the climate. The Trustees reported, “ We are at present 
concerned in the almost helpless task of checking the decay 
and decomposition incidental to thousands of samples of 
raw products imperfectly housed.’’ The absence of a tech¬ 
nical staff and the attendance of an officer for about one 
hour a day were not conducive to the development of a 
museum with any scientific pretensions. Mr. T. N. Mukerji, 
who had made himself an authority on Indian artware, was 
appointed Assistant Curator in 1886, and on April 1st, 1887, 
the Economic and Art Section, which had formed a separate 
institution under the direct control of the Government of 
Bengal, was brought under the Trustees of the Indian 
Museum by Act IV of 1887. 
The Trustees undertook their new duties with some 
diffidence ; they felt that until suitable accommodation and 
scientific supervision were provided for the collections they 
would be able to do little towards carrying out the object of 
the Trust effectively. It was necessary to arrange properly 
