Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/498

492 Under the present director the work of the museum has made notable advances. During the past twelve years over 100,000 specimens have been entered in the books of the museum and the new material has been extensively studied. Especially through the cruises of the Investigator carried out under Major Alcock's direction (Major Alcock came to India as surgeon-naturalist (1888-1892) to examine the sea-barriers of India), a wealth of marine material has been placed in the hands of specialists throughout the world. And the museum had already published many memoirs upon it—twenty-five, or thereabouts. It might be mentioned, as a sad commentary upon the relation of politics and science in India, that the well-known gallery of fishes arranged by the director, after years of labor, has recently been demolished by order of the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, who could find in Calcutta no other gallery in which to house a collection of relics of the Sepoy rebellion!

The invertebrate collections of the museum are extensive and well displayed. Particularly interesting is the entomological cabinet which includes the de Nicéville lepidoptera and the Dugeon hymenoptera, the latter comprising about 1,000 type specimens. The entomological survey undertaken by the museum is its last development, establishing in 1903 the first entomological laboratory in India, in connection with a commission of forestry. Equally important are the geological materials exhibited in the museum. Of meteors, no less than 400 falls are represented. Of ores there are many varieties, especially in manganese. In fossils there is valuable Cretaceous material, including the types of Blanford; among late acquisitions there is a wonderful specimen of Elephas antiquus (namadicus). The fossil mammals from the Sewalik Hills near Simla are also preserved in the