REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 31 



required for proper performance of duty in a period of limited 

 employment. At the present time men of high scientific training 

 must take time for routine work that could properly, and with 

 advantage to the public welfare, be done for them by others. 



Congestion in our present housing space increases annually in. 

 spite of careful effort to select for preservation only the objects that 

 must be kept and to eliminate all material that is not permanceitly 

 desired. As an asset to the Nation the collections of the National 

 Museum should be made as complete as possible, since in many 

 instances, unless the materials are secured now, the opportunity to 

 obtain them will be lost. Growth in our collections is therefore 

 steady and must continue. In the last 10 years the exhibition halls, 

 particularly those devoted to arts and industries and to history, haA'e 

 become increasingly more crowded. Exhibits in the Natural His- 

 tory Building have been curtailed to make way for historical objects, 

 and sjjace designed for anthropology has been preempted for dis- 

 play of objects of art. All this has led, in many instances, to 

 decided incongruity in association of exhibits, which can not be 

 avoided under present conditions. Conditions are equally bad in the 

 laboratories. In the entire Museum the collection of plants is now 

 practically the only research unit that has available the requisite 

 amount of floor space. To provide room in other laboratories there 

 has been gradual utilization of halls designed originally fpr passage- 

 ways, until now cases for the storage of study specimens line the 

 walls and to some extent close these passage lanes. The situation 

 is such that the limit of expansion is practically reached, and a 

 number of divisions are already urgently in need of more space to 

 house their valuable research collections. Though to one with casual 

 knowledge it might appear that one or two examples of each kind of 

 thing is sufficient, it is actually true that good series are imperative 

 for the scientific investigations of the workers to whom we look for 

 increase in our knowledge. It is found on close examination that 

 insects, birds, mammals, fossils of all kinds, plants, mollusks, or, in 

 fact, any other natural materials or organisms, differ from each 

 other individually in form, color, dimension, and structure, so that a 

 series of specimens is required to show the characteristics of a single 

 species. Such series must be assembled in our national collections, 

 where they will be available for the workers of the Nation, so that 

 inevitably our research materials, as well as our exhibitions, increase 

 and demand more room. 



Further housing for the National Museum, as indicated in the 

 preceding paragraph, is imperative. The collections in arts and 

 industries are found at present in the old museum, a building that 

 when completed in 1881 was a model of its kind for the world, but 



