specimens, but usually quite unintelligible to the general public. 

 The new plan is an attempt to interest and instruct the average 

 visitor by showing only specimens illustrating important charac- 

 teristics of each mineral, accompanied by brief, non-technical, de- 

 scriptive labels. A part of the exhibit has been provisionally in- 

 stalled with handwritten labels for several months in order to ob- 

 tain the comments and suggestions of various classes of visitors. 

 It will be finally installed with printed labels early in 1912. 



The department acknowledges the following gifts received or 

 worked up during the year: rocks and minerals from Dr. D. S. 

 Martin, Mr. E. Schernikow, Mr. F. P. Graves, Miss Henrietta Mur- 

 doch, Wm. M. Bird & Co., and Messrs. C. A. Ruff and Edgar L. 

 Brother. 



In April and May Dr. Martin visited Florida, Alabama, Georgia, 

 North Carolina, and Virginia, largely in the interest of the Pied- 

 mont collection of minerals. Dr. Pratt, state geologist of North 

 CaroUna, has contributed a series of specimens to this collection, 

 and arrangements have been made to secure the co-operation of 

 other state surveys in this work. 



Industry. It is the poUcy of the Museum not only to indicate 

 the economic importance of the objects represented in the collec- 

 tions, but to devote special exhibits to important industrial proces- 

 ses which should be familiar to well-informed persons. An exam- 

 ple of the possibilities of this work is seen in the traveling exhibit 

 of the iron and steel industry which was prepared in 1907. It is 

 considered even more important that the industries of our own 

 state should be adequately represented in the Museum, and it was 

 with much satisfaction that the director welcomed the aid of the 

 commercial organizations in providing for local industrial exhibits. 

 A case twenty-eight feet long and seven feet high, affording three 

 hundred and thirty-six square feet of exhibition space, has been 

 built in our own shop and is ready for industrial exhibits. 



Material for a complete exhibit of asbestos products and their 

 manufacture has been furnished by the General Asbestos and Rub- 

 ber Company of Charleston, supplemented by a collection given 

 by the Keasbey & Mattison Company of Ambler, Pa., through 

 Wm. M. Bird & Co. of Charleston. The Bailey-Lebby Company 

 has secured the promise of further material from the John-Man- 

 ville Company. This exhibit will form a very complete repre- 

 sentation of the processes of asbestos manufacture and is now in 

 preparation for installation. 



As a result of the special silk culture exhibit, described on a later 



