REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 39 



by others in the same connection, as the basis both for descriptive 

 matter and for illustrations. 



A description of the Howland collection of Buddhist religious art 

 was prepared by Dr. I. M. Casanowicz, assistant curator of historic 

 religions, and a catalogue of the collection of Grant relics, by Mr. 

 Paul Beckwith, assistant curator of history. 



Mr. George C. Maynard, assistant curator of technology, continued 

 his inquiries relative to early steam railroading in the United States, 

 paying most attention to the historic locomotive Stourbridge Lion, 

 which was brought to this country near the end of the third decade 

 of the last century, and of which the principal parts are now preserved 

 in the National Museum. Important records concerning this engine 

 were obtained from several sources, but mainly from the Delaware 

 and Hudson Company of New York, whose pioneer efforts in intro- 

 ducing and establishing steam railroads are being worked up by Mr. 

 Maynard as a contribution to this interesting subject. 



A new genus and species of sea lion, based upon a fossil skull from 

 Oregon, was the subject of a paper by Dr. F. W. True, head curator 

 of biology, who has also begun upon a revision of the American 

 species of fossil cetaceans, of which he collected many specimens in 

 Maryland during the year, and an account of the Museum collection 

 of ziphioid whales. 



The assistant curator of the division of mammals, Mr. Gerrit S. 

 Miller, jr., spent most of the year in Europe, mainly at the natural 

 history museums of Paris, Berlin, and Leiden, and the British 

 Museum in London, where he accomplished very important results 

 in the direction of completing his work upon several large collections 

 of the National Museum, which could not have been properly studied 

 in any other way. The foreign museums named are very rich in 

 type specimens from the Malayan and other Asiatic regions and 

 from South America, with which it was desired to make comparisons, 

 especially in regard to the extensive East Indian collections con- 

 tributed by Dr. W. L. Abbott and to recently acquired material 

 from tropical America. These investigations have greatly advanced 

 the position of the National Museum as a place of research respecting 

 oriental and other exotic mammals through the authenticity thus 

 given to their classification. 



Besides his general work on the Abbott collections, not yet in final 

 shape for printing, Mr. Miller prepared revisions of the Malayan 

 tree-shrews, chevrotains, and squirrels, and a key to the genera of 

 Viverridse and the civet family. He also completed a new classi- 

 fication of bats, which has been in progress for two or three years, 

 keys to all the genera being rewritten and diagnoses of nearly 60 

 species prepared, and a revision of the South American free-tailed 

 bats. While at Leiden Mr. Miller studied the principal museums 



