THE !MICHIGAN DIAILY7
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5, 1958 iua..' auvi .vta"s . ian.s-
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iversity Museums Encompass the Ages
By CHARLAINE ACKERMAN
From modern art to ancient
Egyptian artifacts, from living
flora and fauna to petrified fossils,
the University's museums encom-
pass a large variety of exehibits.
The largest of these museums,
housed. on the corner of Wash-
tenaw and North University, is the
Museum of Natural Sciences. This
building actually comprists five
separate and independent muse-
ums: the Museums of Anthro-
pology, Paleontology, and Zoology,
the University Herbarium and the
Exhibit Museum.
The first four are fundmaentally
research and teaching units. Their
functions include the acquisition,
care and study of the collections
in their respective departments,
exploration and fibld work; main-
tenance of specialized libraries
and teaching at both undergradu-
ate -arid graduate levels.
Give Students Information,.
The Exhibit Museum presents'
displays on various aspects of the
biological and anthropological sci-
ences. The exhibits frequently of-
fer additional information to stu-
dents and others who have courses
in these sciences.
The Research Museum of Zool-
ogy, headed by Prof. Theodore
Hubbell of tihe zoology department,
is 6ne of the largest and most com-
prehensive university museums of
its kind in the nation. It contains
more than six million specimens of
which Michigan fauna are par-
ticularly plentiful.
There are several collections
covering the United States as a
whole and, in order of descending
representation, Mexico, Latin
America and the Far East.
According to "Prof. Hubbell, no
attempt is made to cover all of
the animal kingdom in the muse-
um's studies.
Has 13 on Staff
Its 13 staff members, all of
whom teach in the zoology depart-
ment, carry on research in three
divisions, verteebrates, mollusks
and insects. Each member, how-
ever, is concerned' with a different'
phase of work, either evolution,
natural history or systematics.
Two types of publications, tech-
nical in nature, are put out by this
museum.
The Occasional Papers, of which
f approximately 600 have been pub-
lished to date, are informative
pamphlets which appear at the
rate of about 20 a year. The,Mis-
- cellaneous Publications are larger,
appearing from four to six times a
year, and having published over
100 reports.
The University Herbarium,
under the direction of Prof. Edwin
Mains of the botany department,
is concerned chiefly with the study
of the classification and distribu-
tion of various plants.
With close to 600,000 specimens
on display and another 200,000
stored, the museum constitutes one
of the largest college museums of
its type in the country.
Research is done on a collection
of preserved plants, including
flowering plants, ferns, mosses,
liverworts, algae, lichens and fungi.
Michigan flora are well represent-
ed in this, collection, other areas
comprising tropical American,
northwest Asiatic and Pacific, Arc-
tic and marine plants.
Five Divisions
The Anthopology Museum is ac-
tive in five divisions, Archaeology,
Ethnology, Physical Anthopology,
the Orient and the Great Lakes.
The museum's collections en-
compass human remains, artifacts
and objects grown or used by man
is evidence for the study . of hu-
man life and civilization, past and
present.
The Great Lakes Section studies
are prehistoric and early historic
Indian cultures around the Great
Lakes, with special attention given
to Michigan.
ChinagJapan and especially the
Philippines are the areas in which
the Orient Section concentrates.
American Indians from the United1
-States, Mexico and Peru are the
topic of study. for the Archeology
division, while Ethnology studies
materials from living peoples.
Excels in New World Study
'According to Prof. James B.
Griffin of the anthopology depart-
ment, director of the Anthopologya
Museum, the study of the New
World is the field in which this de-
partment most excels.
Research collections of fossils,
representing all geological periods
and many parts of the world, is thel
specialty of the Museum of Pale-1
ontology..
The more than 35,000 catalogued
items include material from an-4
cient rocks of Michigan and Mexi-
co, vertebrate animals, microscopic
fossils, and ancient plants.
Evolution Hall Well Known
The Paleontology Museum is
perhaps best known to students
through its exhibits in the Hall ofj
Evolution. The Hall, which is part1
of the Exhibit Museum, gives a
picture of life through fossils start-I
ing from the Middle Cambrian
period. Several undersea dioramas
illustrate water life in the different3
periods.
Striking displays on this floorI
include the fossil skeleton of a,
dinosaur laid beneath a back-
ground mural depicting the en-
vironment in which he lived, the1
RECENTLY MODERNIZED-The Museum of Art housed in Alumni Memorial Hall encompasses
a large number of art exhibits in its sky-lighted galleries (shown in the picture). A huge collection
of modern European and American paintings and a variety of textiles, ceramics and other art
objects are displayed.
Q Although it receives little pub-
remains of a mastodon, a prehis-
toric elephant discovered by an.
expedition from the Museum of
Paleontology, a special alcove
showing fossil plants and exhibits
of man and the lower primates.
Climbing the stairs from the
second' floor Hall -of Evolution to
the third floor Michigan Wildlife
Balcony, one meets the guardian
of this section of the Museum, a
display of gila monsters.
Life-like Animals
While it cannot boast of live
animals t fill its cases, the Wild-
life Balcony possesses some ex-
tremely life-like stuffed animals
in their native settings. Models of
Michigan flora highlight displays
of flowers and fungi.
"Microscopic Pond Life," a di-
orama by Edwin Reiber, forms a
fascinating display of the mico-
organisms that inhabit ponds en-
larged hundreds of times.
The Hall of Life on the fourth
floor combines anthropology and
biology in a series of displays rang-
ing from Eskimo artifacts to hu-
man reproduction and physiology.
Mural Shows Plants, Animals
Dioramas include those of Ber-
muda coral reef fauna, animals at
an African water hole, cave adap-
tations, deep sea life and a Central
American rain f orest. , A large
mural on this floor portrays the
development of plants and animals
through geologic time.
The Rotunda display, changed
about four times a year, exhibits
objects of seasonal interest, new
acquisitions and things of special
interest in the Museum.
According to Museum Director
Irving Reimann, the Exhibit Mu-
seum is engaged in several pro-
jects. One of the most. important
of these is the rearranging and
modernizing of various exhibits to
make them more interesting to the
student observer.
On the third floor, for example,
exhibits on conservation will be
added, while those of reptiles, am-
phibians and fish are being re-
vised.
licity, Reimann contends thaat the
Museum has enough visitors dur-
ing the year to equal the popular
tion of Ann Arbor, one-third of
these being school children. One
interesting, if discouraging, fact
that Reimann added is that out-
of-town visitors to the Museum
outnumber residents eight to one.
Papyri Documents Center
The greatest center in the
United States for papyri docu-
ments and one of the greatest in
the world, the Kelsey Museum of
Archeology is located at 434 South
State Street.
The museum resulted from sev-
eral expeditions made in the early
1900's by a team from University
College in London. The present
museum director, Enoch E. Peter-
son, was a member of one which
excavated two ancient Roman
colonies in Egypt and dug in Se-
lucia on the Tigris.
On the second floor of the mu-
seum, various Roman artifacts
such as tombstones and a Roman
household shrine are on display.
Most impressive are the displays
of Egyptian pottery and ancient
Egyptian glassware.
Named Only Recently
Although the museum's;history
goes back to the 1890's when Prof.
Kelsey of the Latin department
sponsored the purchase of several
Roman antiquities later added to
the results of the Egyptian expe-
ditions, the museum was not
dubbed Kelsey until 1952.
Open primarily for research
purposes, the museum is host to
many students, scholars and out-
of-town groups. Several books
have been published by- its own
staff members as a Humanistic
Studies series.
The Museum of Art, under the
direction of Charles H. Sawyer,
is housed in Alumni Memorial
Hall. For exhibition purposes, it
makes use of four sky-lighted gal-
leries on the second floor and a
new exhibit area on the first floor.
Includes Many Paintings
Its permanent collection includes
a large number of European and
American paintings, mostly late
19th century or modern, a small
group of contemporary sculpture,
a collection of prints and drawings
and a variety of textiles, ceremics
and other art objects. The museum
also features traveling exhibits,
such as a recent one'on Mexican
Art.
Another feature of the recently
modernized museum is a research
study room provided for the spe-
cial examination of material in its
collections.
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