6
The Whaling Museum Attendance and total revenues at the Whaling Museum for the season just ended exceeded all expectations and established a new record by a substantial margin. I wish that I could support a claim that this was the fruit of our own expanded effort but most of the gain, if not all, can probably best be explained in terms of the larger number of visitors on the Island and by the great amount of publicity that has been given the whale as an endangered species. The swelling influx of people in our midst will undoubtedly be viewed as a mixed blessing by those of you who fight tooth and nail during July and August to negotiate, by car or on foot, the three long blocks between the Pacific National Bank and the Pacific Club. I remain silent except to say that if given a choice I would much prefer to welcome to the Museum 100 percent of 50,000 visitors to our shores than 50 percent of 100,000. If this be treason, let the Chamber of Commerce make the most of it! We continue to plug away at sprucing up the place and rearranging exhibits when this appears desirable for a more effective display. Last year I reported that the Reading and Scrimshaw Rooms, upstairs hall and the reception and sales area had been redecorated and reorganized. Since then a similar program has been completed in the Portrait and South Seas Rooms. This winter we plan to move on to Sanderson Hall, the main exhibit area, and to do some relabeling in various locations. In connection with this program, we gratefully acknowledge the help given us from time to time by visitors with specialized knowledge that we do not possess. For example, last year the Curator of the Brooklyn Museum made a suggestion which we hastened to follow regarding the large Maori canoe model in the South Seas Room. This past summer Mr. R. J. Porter of Niantic, Connecticut, an avid collector of whaling and related artifacts, pointed out that some of the items in our display of native weapons brought back from the South Seas by Nantucket whalers were mislaDeled as to description, provenence or both. When he got back home Mr. Porter took the trouble to send us a considerable amount of source material bearing on the subject and we are now in the process of making the necessary corrections. We had one oddlooking shark-tooth dagger labeled "boomerang" which it in fact resem-
