64 APPENDIX TO THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



hides, leather, and the like; fourth, of the different varieties of oils ; 

 fifth, miscellaneous applications. 



Under the head of furs will be shown dressed skins of all the varieties 

 of fur-bearing- animals of the United States, in their different grades, as 

 occurring in different seasons of the year and from different parts of the 

 country, as well as some simple applications of some of these furs to 

 articles of dress or ornament. In this series will also be included 

 dressed skins of birds and ornamental feathers. 



The divisions of the bones and teeth will embrace the various forms 

 of carving, knife-handles, umbrella-handles, &c. In this division will 

 be included whalebone and its applications. 



The oils will be exhibited in sufficient quantity for comparison, includ- 

 ing those of all the different species of whales, cetaceans, alligators, 

 crocodiles, the various fishes, &c. 



The third series, that of apparatus, will represent the dress and 

 equipment of the hunter and fisherman, whether savage or civilized, 

 while pursuing their game, together with the different forms of boats, 

 sledges, snow-shoes, &c., made use of for the same purpose. There will 

 also be the various arms and implements in the way of rifles, guns, pis- 

 tols for hunting, nets, traps of every kind, fire-jacks, &c., for the sports- 

 man and trapper, and for the fisherman fish-hooks, lines, floats, rods, 

 reels, nets, pounds, models of fishing-smacks of various kinds, &c. 



IV. 



The preparations for an exhibition illustrating the fisheries of the 

 [Jnited States have involved a great deal of labor, in consequence of the 

 want of experience in this country of displays of this character, so that 

 the general plan and classification had to be almost entirely improvised 

 as a whole. It is, however, to be hoped that the measures that hate 

 been taken will result in showing the general nature and extent of our 

 interests in this direction. It is, of course, evident that the display of 

 animals of the country must have the inhabitants of the water as a 

 prominent feature, as also their application for food, oils, glues, &c., 

 and they cannot well be separated. 



The apparatus, however, by which they are followed, captured, and 

 applied to the purposes of life will represent satisfactorily this portion 

 of the programme. It is much more difficult to present attractive ex- 

 hibition of the fishes of the country than the mammals or birds, as they 

 are generally only shown as alcoholic specimens, which are always 

 more or less unsightly ; and, at any rate, only the smaller can be thus 

 preserved. On this account, the plan of a display of plaster-casts of the 

 actual fish, colored from nature, has been adopted. The work of making 

 these casts has been prosecuted with quite a large force of assistants 

 ever since the passage of th • appropriation, specimens in the best pro- 

 curable condition having been sent to Washington, mostly packed in ice, 

 where a colored sketch is at once taken of them. They are next photo- 



