The Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee had its origin, in 1882, in the gift of the collections of the Wisconsin Natural History Society. Its collections include both natural history and history, and special attention is given to work with the schools and to exhibition.
The Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pa., has important collec tions of fossil vertebrates, South American birds and Lepidoptera, a speciality being African butterflies.
The Colorado Museum of Natural History, Denver, founded in 1902, is supported largely by the city; its scope includes, pri marily, the natural history of the State, and also art and industry. It has given much attention to fossil vertebrates.
The Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, Buffalo, N.Y., or ganized in 1861, was almost the first museum in which the ex hibits were definitely planned and arranged on an educational basis. It is particularly strong in fossil invertebrates from the Devonian near Buffalo.
The California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, organized in 1853, gives particular attention to the fauna and flora of the Pacific coast and western States, and while the collections were largely destroyed by the fire of 1906, they have again been brought to a high level. It is particularly rich in reptiles, and the series of giant tortoises from the Galapagos islands is unique.
The Peabody Museum of Yale University, New Haven, dates from 1866; it is rich in fossil vertebrates, especially dinosaurs, and possesses the first birds with teeth to be discovered, and important examples of early horses. Its exhibits are arranged with special reference to their educational influence and work with public schools.
The University of Michigan museum, Ann Arbor, Mich., one of the largest and most active of museums connected with col leges, is strong in ethnology, particularly of the East, and in collections representing the resources of the State. A special feature is its work in experimental biology and the problems of conserving natural resources. (F. A. Lu.) Visual Education in Museums.—In the United States, museums are being utilized to an unprecedented degree for visual education in the public schools and colleges. Scores of museums have arisen in all parts of the country, but their use as a part of the educational system is best exemplified in the larger cities.
The American Museum of Natural History in the City of New York may be selected as typifying this movement because of the extent to which it has been developed in connection with the immense school population in that city. The American museum deals with upwards of i,000,000 school children within the five boroughs of New York. During the year 1927, it made more than 9,900,000 contacts with this clientele by means of lectures in museum class-rooms devoted to the purpose, exhibition hall talks; classes for children with defective eyesight, and by more formal lectures, illustrated by lantern slides and motion pictures dealing with natural history, geography, exploration and kindred topics. Series of nature study collections in cabinets are circulated through the public schools and placed on loan in public libraries through out the city. Sets of coloured lantern slides are arranged, based on the museum exhibits and explorations, and on various topics suggested by public school teachers. An outdoor museum and a series of nature trails have been established in the Adirondack State park, under the museum's auspices, that school children and others may study animal and plant life in their natural surround ings. In this way 576 schools within the city limits were served during the year 1927.
Within the museum halls themselves, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibia and fishes are mounted or modelled in lifelike atti tudes, grouped as in nature and shown in a setting consisting of a pictorial painted background, reproducing faithfully the natural environment, with trees, shrubbery and other accessories modelled to close similitude with nature. A similar method is followed with the lower forms of life, such as the marine and fresh-water in vertebrates. In life, many of these creatures are soft-bodied and often translucent organisms of most beautiful and delicate colora tion. In the American Museum of Natural History, they are modelled in glass, wax and other materials, tinted with the col ours of the living animal, and often represented in groups having translucent painted backgrounds through which light filters, so as to give the illusion of an undersea environment.