REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 7 



fence inclosing the interior court of the Armory yard gives great 

 security to the large amount of valuable Government property storea 

 in the main building and its annexes. 



Laboratory of Natural History. — By the transfer of Mr. T. W. Smillie 

 and his photographic apparatus from this buikli'.p; to the new photo- 

 graphic rooms specially arranged in the southed.- ern pavilion of the 

 National Museum building, it became possible to oiler accommodations 

 for photographic work to the force employed by Major Powell, in con- 

 nection with the Geological Survey and Bureau of Ethnology. Mr. 

 Hillers, photographer, has utilized the rooms of the building particu- 

 larly in the preparation of enlarged photographs of the scenery and 

 the aborigines of the West for the windows of the National Museum. 

 It is proposed to introduce these photographs in a large number of the 

 windows of the Museum building, selecting for each room the subjects 

 most appropriate to its contents. 



An Additional Museum Building required. — Large and capacious as is 

 the new Museum building, it has proved already inadequate to the exist- 

 ing requirements of the National Museum. This building was designed 

 pfimarily to accommodate the vast number of industrial and economical 

 exhibits presented to the United States by foreign Governments at the 

 close of the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. A special appropriation 

 was made by Congress for their transfer to Washington and the Armory 

 building in the square between Sixth and Seventh streets was assigned 

 for their reception. It required nearly sixty large-sized freight cars to 

 transport the mass. 



Before the building was completed in 1881, and available for its pur- 

 poses, almost equally enormous additions had been made to the collec- 

 tions of the various Government expeditions and of the Ethnological 

 Bureau, which, together with many thousands of objects previously in 

 charge of the Smithsonian Institution, but for which there was no room 

 in the old building, constituted a much larger mass than was originally 

 estimated. It is well known that at the close of the Centennial Exposi- 

 tion a company was organized to take charge of a large portion of the 

 collections exhibited on that occasion, and with these and such additional 

 articles as might be obtained to establish what was known as the "Per- 

 manent Exhibition" in the main Centennial building, which covers nearly 

 eighteen acres. This organization, after struggling for existence for 

 several years, finally became unable to continue the effort, and the col- 

 lections in its charge were speedily scattered. Many of these had been 

 presented to the National Museum with the understanding that they 

 were to be left with the Permanent Exhibition Company for a period of 

 at least a few years. Others, however, including many of the most 

 valuable series, were obtained for the National Museum through the 

 efforts of Mr. Thomas Donaldson. All these collections were carefully 



