Jan. 1935 Annual Report of the Director 205 



contains six drawers. These small cabinets are found more con- 

 venient in use than a single large one and obviate the necessity of 

 providing filing capacity long before it is needed. 



Illinois Emergency Relief workers assigned to the Department 

 prepared more than 13,500 catalogue cards, numbered more than 

 1,600 specimens, and completed large amounts of typing on work of 

 various kinds. From two to six of these workers served the Depart- 

 ment during about thirty weeks of the year. 



INSTALLATIONS AND REARRANGEMENTS — GEOLOGY 



As was the case last year, exhibits in the Department were dis- 

 turbed as little as possible during the period of A Century of Progress 

 exposition, and there were no major changes. 



The change in the method of mounting minerals in the tall cases 

 of Hall 34, inaugurated last year, was finished by the complete 

 reinstallation of six more cases, and reinstallation of the minerals 

 on the top shelves of ten others. Eighteen hundred of the new 

 tyipe wooden specimen mounts, made in the Department workshops, 

 were employed in this hall, and in similar work in progress in Clarence 

 Buckingham Hall (Hall 35). The new installation is so much more 

 economical of space that several hundred specimens, partly from 

 reserves and partly new accessions, have been added to the exhibits 

 without producing a crowded effect. 



The four cases near the center of Hall 34 which contain the 

 William J. Chalmers Crystal Collection, the amber collection, and 

 the ornamental minerals, are equipped with narrow glass shelves 

 on which it has been difficult to maintain the installation in good 

 shape, as any vibration moved both specimens and labels out of 

 position. The specimens have all been remounted and the pedestals 

 have been attached to the glass shelves by a touch of adhesive, in- 

 visible and easily removed. The special wire label holders formerly 

 used were somewhat unsightly and never held the labels securely. 

 A new type of steel label holder, which is practically invisible and 

 holds the label firmly, was designed and built in the Department 

 workrooms. One thousand of these were used in the reinstallation. 



In Clarence Buckingham Hall (Hall 35) three cases of concretions 

 and four cases illustrating various phases of structural geology were 

 reinstalled. Here it was not possible to use the new typ^ of mounts 

 for all specimens, and many were therefore remounted on tj^pes of 

 supports already in use, while some of the larger specimens required 

 special treatment. As in the mineral collection, the new installation 



