Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/294

 be nothing short of a crime to place it in one of the leading educational institutions of the country.

But, someone will say, this is all in the future. What has already been accomplished? What definitely is the status of Roosevelt African Hall?

Well, I am mounting animals. The elephant group, the white rhinoceroses, and one of the okapi are completed and are now on exhibition. Work on the gorilla group is advancing rapidly. There are already collected and awaiting their turn to be mounted materials for a black rhino group and a lion group. I have estimated that it will require at least ten years and the expenditure of one million dollars to complete the work. And there is good reason to hope that the money needed will be provided. President Henry Fairfield Osborn in his Annual Report of the American Museum of Natural History for 1922 has called for a gift or a special endowment of one million dollars to finance and develop Roosevelt African Hall in addition to other funds now available, stressing this as the most pressing need of the Museum in the year 1923. The income from such a special endowment will enable us to complete the African Hall during the next decade and leave a million dollars of the new special endowment for the development of the new building to house the hall.

I am hopeful, too, that the Roosevelt Memorial Hall, out of which Roosevelt African Hall will open, is about to become a reality. The New York State Legislature will soon have before it a bill to appropriate two and one half million dollars for a memorial