» REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 127 



Specimens. 



Departmeut of insects about 1,000 



Professor Riley's private collection 150,000 



Department of marine invertebrates Impossible at present to estimate. 



Department of fossil invertebrates Impossible at present to estimate. 



Department of minerals Impossible at present to estimate. 



Department of rocks and building-stones; in reserve series 9,075 



Department of metallurgy and economic geology Impossible to estimate. 



DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES. 



The arrangement of the collections in the department of antiquities, 

 under the administration of Dr. Charles E-au, is, as it has been for some 

 years past, more perfect than in any other in the Museum. To this 

 department will eventually be devoted all of the upper exhibition hall 

 in the older Museum. At present the upright floor-cases and more 

 than half of the wall cases are filled with specimens belonging to the 

 department of arts and industries, the implements and manufactures of 

 partly civilized races of the present day. These are being removed as 

 rapidly as possible to the new Museum. 



The unexpected delay in transferring the ethnological and industrial 

 materials to the new Museum has retarded Dr. Eau's contemplated re- 

 arrangement of portions of this collection in the upright floor-cases 

 A few, however, have been emptied, and in these, special mound collec- 

 tions have been placed, with excellent effect. 



During the coming year (without question) an additional number of 

 these cases will be emptied, thereby providing space for a much more 

 striking presentation of the relics of prehistoric man than at present. 



Embarrassment has also been caused by the fact that prehistoric 

 objects and modern ethnological and Industrial material have hitherto 

 been entered indiscriminately in the same register, and that, with the ex- 

 jiansion of the scope of the Museum and the separation of modern and 

 ancient material in the two buildings, these combined catalogues are 

 very inconvenient. The work of making a duplicate copy of the cata- 

 logue has already been begun. 



Dr. Rau reports the following as the number of specimens at present 

 under his charge: Total, 35,512, of which 21,217 are on exhibition, 7,748 

 are in the reserve series, and 0,547 are duplicates. 



The total number of accessions has been 3,5G9, of which 2,554 were 

 acquired by gift, 353 by exchange and purchase, 511 from explorers em- 

 ployed by the Smithsonian Institution, and 141 by deposit. Two lots 

 of duplicates, containing, respectively, 27 and 171 specimens, have been 

 distributed. 



Four papers have been published by the curator of this department 

 during the year, and in the "Proceedings" of the Museum, volume iv, 

 was printed a list of his publications relating to anthropology which 

 appeared between 1859 and 1882 — fifty-two titles in all. 



Dr. Rau has been engaged during the year in the preparation of an 



