492 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



On July 1, 1897, in order to meet changed conditions, a new 

 plan of organization went into effect. The various divisions and 

 sections of anthropology, biology, and geology, which had pre- 

 viously been conducted independently of one another, the curators 

 and custodians reporting directly to the assistant secretary in charge 

 of the museum, were united under three head curators — one of an- 

 thropology, another of biology, and a third of geology. This se- 

 cured direct expert supervision, and correlated the work of each de- 

 partment. Before this such correlation had been impossible, owing 

 to the large number of independent heads of sections and divisions 

 in each department, who planned and executed the work more or 

 less independently of one another. 



In the department of anthropology the system of installation 

 inaugurated by Prof, W. H. Holmes is somewhat elaborate. The 

 i:)rimary arrangement is founded, first, on the geographical or ethno- 

 graphical assemblage, and, second, on the developmental or genetic 

 assemblage. Other methods may be classed as special; they are 

 the chronologic, the comparative, the individual, etc. The primary 

 methods are adapted to the presentation of the general truths of 

 anthropology, and the special methods are available for limited 

 portions of the field. 



In many ways the department of biology, under the charge of 

 Dr. F. W. True, was, at the date named, in much better condition 

 than either of the other two departments. Many of the zoological 

 divisions had been in existence since the reorganization of the mu- 

 seum, in 1883, and several of them for a much longer period, and 

 as the biological specimens had been in charge of curators and assist- 

 ants who followed well-defined and long-established methods, the 

 reorganization of the department was a relatively simple matter, 

 no radical changes in the scientific methods or in the business ad- 

 ministration being required. 



To the organization and administration of the department of 

 geology, Dr. George P. Merrill brought the results of a recent study 

 of various European museums. He found it necessary to make a 

 systematic examination of the written and printed records of the 

 various Government exploring expeditions and surveys, with a view 

 to ascertaining what geological material had been collected which 

 could properly be considered the property of the Government, and 

 what disposition had been made of the same. The law * provides 



* " And all collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, 

 archaeology, and ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological Survey, 

 or by any other parties for the Government of the United States, when no longer needed 

 for investigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National Museum. . . ." — Supple- 

 ment to the Revised Statutes of the United States, vol. i, second edition, 1874-1891, p 252. 



