ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR. 



1916 



To the Trustees of Field Museum of Natural History: 



I have the honor to present a report of the operations of the Museum 

 for the year ending December 31, 1916. 



The year has been profitable in accessions of material notwith- 

 standing there have been no expeditions or field work except of a local 

 and unimportant character. More or less confusion is observable 

 throughout the Museum by reason of the prosecution of the large work 

 of installing new material and re-installing old material and selecting 

 material from storage for display, all occasioned by the labor constantly 

 going on in preparation for the exhibition halls of the new Museum 

 building. In fact, the justifiable pride taken in the orderly, system- 

 atic and classified arrangement of the public courts and halls of the 

 Museum is rapidly disappearing in the face of the over-crowded condi- 

 tion and shifting about of cases in preparation necessary to the consum- 

 mation of the ambitious plans of the occupation of the new Grant 

 Park structure. 



Mr. George F. Porter, Trustee,, has resigned his place upon the 

 Board because of his intended protracted absence from the city. The 

 vacancy has been filled by the election of Mr. Henry Field, second 

 grandson of Mr. Marshall Field, the founder of the Institution. 



There have been no retirements from the scientific staff during the 

 year. Dr. J. Alden Mason, of the University of California, has accepted 

 the position of Assistant Curator in Mexican and South American 

 Archaeology, and has entered upon his duties. An appointment to 

 the Assistant Curatorship of the Division of North American Ethnology, 

 authorized by the Board of Trustees, has not been decided upon. Mr. 

 Carl L. Hubbs, of the Leland Stanford Junior University, has accepted 

 the position of Assistant Curator of Ichthyology and Herpetology and 

 will commence his duties early in 191 7. Both of these appointments 

 are from the younger school of their respective sciences, but come 

 to the Museum with the very highest endorsement and with the promise 

 of a useful career in the Institution. 



Mr. Stanley Field having assumed the cost of restoring and main- 

 taining the activity of the Section of Plant Reproduction in the Depart - 



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