Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/516

498, membership fees, and contributions. In the capitals of Europe, museum buildings are generously provided for.

The National Museum building was erected with the view of covering the largest amount of space with the least outlay of money. In this respect it may be considered a success. It is, in fact, scarcely more than the shadow of such a massive, dignified, and well-finished building as should be the home of the great national collections. There is needed at once a spacious, absolutely fireproof building of several stories, constructed of durable materials, well lighted, modern in equipment, and on such a plan that it can be added to as occasion arises in the future. The site for such a building is already owned by the Government; only the building needs to be provided for. What the Capitol building is to the nation, the library building to the National Library, the Smithsonian building to the Smithsonian Institution, the new museum building should be to the National Museum. There should be available:

—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