Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/174

148 the wall case (see Morgan collection in Metropolitan), the desk case (see miniature cases, ditto), and the free standing case. The proportions of these cases must be studied in each instance according to the objects they are to contain and the size of the room in which they are to be exhibited. A combination of wood and iron seems to prove most satisfactory in building these cases, and they can be made with all kinds of mechanical devices to facilitate the work of the curator. Thus desk cases are made with finely adjusted weights which work in the legs of the case in such a way that the top will remain open at any desired angle, and free-standing table cases have sliding decks so carefully adjusted that they can be pulled out and pushed in without jarring the objects in the case. Then there is the system in the McLean case, an adaptation of the type developed by Dr. G. E. Pazaurek, Museumskunde, II, 79, where the whole top can be lifted up by means of a crank which works on a series of ratcheted posts which disappear into the legs when the case is closed. It will readily be seen that some of these devices are merely ingenious while others are really useful. (For discussions of these subjects the reader is referred to Dr. A. B. Meyer's Reisestudien and Berichte; Museums Journal, VI, 231, 403, to Dr. Foy's description