The Liverpool Museum and Progress

Abstract

OUR attention has been directed to a correspondence now taking place in the Liverpool press, à propos of a recent meeting of the Biological Society, at which questions were raised as to the disposal of space in the newly-erected extension of the city Museum and the rearrangement of the collections which must thereby ensue. The subject was introduced by Mr. Isaac Thompson, a past president, and continued at length by Prof. Herdman, in his capacity as the founder and leader of the Liverpool Biological School; and the undisguised theme was a protest against the non-communicativeness of the Museum Director and his committee of management, as to their intentions for the future development of their work. These gentlemen, it appears, who, with the sole exception of the Director himself, are in ho way scientific, do not choose to consult Prof. Herdman and his co-workers, by whose long years of devoted labour the Liverpool School of Biologists have come to occupy a foremost position among the schools of the United Kingdom, more especially in matters pertaining to the fisheries and of economic importance. The claim which the local scientific men now raise is that their body shall be adequately represented on the Museum Board, and that immediate provision shall be made by this Board for the establishment o.f collections bearing on the nature and progress of oceanographic research and the fisheries, as more particularly representing the Liverpool area, regarded as a centre of local activity. And they also desire the display of objects of local interest, which shall in some measure reflect the latest advances in our knowledge of nature's operations.