Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT.--With suitable buildings provided, the immediate
development of the National Museum naturally lies in four directions:
(1) The occupation of the present building by the anthropological
collections; (2) the housing, developing, and installing of the large
biological collections; (3) the development of a great museum of
practical geology; and (4) the development of the scientific side of a
National University.
1. The collections in anthropology, as they stand to-day, cover a wide
field in a broken and disconnected way. It is difficult to use them
effectively to illustrate the great features of this branch of
science. They do not present a connected story of the peoples and
cultures of the world. This arises from the gaps in the collections
and the absence of suitable laboratory and exhibition space. This
department should have adequate representations of the American
peoples and their culture, not only of our own country, but of the
whole American continent. Our nation is the only one in America that
can reasonably be expected to do anything of importance toward the
preservation of the materials necessary for the illustration of this
vast field; and as the American race is a unit, of which the tribes in
our own territory constitute a considerable part, it appears to be our
duty to take up this work in a comprehensive way. Thus would be built
up not only a National Museum, but an American Museum in the widest
sense. This applies not only to anthropology, but to the other great
departments of the museum. It will be impossible to carry on such a
work without turning over to the Department of Anthropology the entire
present building, with all its laboratory and exhibition space.
2. The Department of Biology now occupies a large exhibition space in
the Smithsonian building and 55,000 square feet in the museum
building. Large collections are stored in laboratories and inclosed
spaces in the exhibition halls which would be placed on exhibition if
space were available. As has already been explained, in a new building
there should be available for the Department of Biology 190,000 square
feet of exhibition, laboratory, and storage space.
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