152 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



work of entering these and putting tlie catalogue number on each 

 specimen has been for some time, and is now, in progress. Numbers 

 have been painted on 2,894 specimens, and nearly 2,000 labels have been 

 written. A preliminary classification has been begun, and twenty, 

 three sets of duplicate specimens have been distributed ; some of them 

 as exchanges, but the majority to institutions of learning. Mr. Yeates 

 reports, upon the present state of the collection, that it contains 6,939 

 specimens in the combined reserve and exhibition series, while in the 

 duplicate series there are about about 7,000 specimens, making an ap- 

 proximate total of 14,000 specimens. During the past year 413 specimens 

 were added to the reserve and exhibition series, and 1,261 to the dupli- 

 cate series. 



The mineral collection is disposed in drawers of unit cases in the 

 west hall of the new Museum, while a great mass of material, unas- 

 sorted a,nd in process of classification, is still in the temporary Work- 

 room in the southwest court. 



The department of building-stones, which in the preliminary classi- 

 fication was associated with that of mineralogy, has already been re- 

 ported upon as oue section of the department of arts and industries. 



DEPARTMENT OF METALLURGY AND ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 



This department, like the preceding, has been without a head for 

 the greater part of the year. In July, 1882, Mr. F. P. Dewey, previously 

 employed as chemical assistant to Dr. Hawes in his investigations upon 

 the building stones for the Tenth Census, was given temporary charge of 

 the department of the collection, and made some preliminary studies and 

 inspections. On December 1, Mr. Dewey was appointed to the curator- 

 ship of the department. Active work in the department is, therefore, 

 hardly begun, and all that can be said concerning it is in the way of 

 anticipation. To this department is assigned a very large portion of the 

 material given to our Government by the various foreign Governments 

 and other exhibitors at the close of the Centennial Exhibition, which 

 from 1876 to 1882, was stored in the basement of the Armory Building, 

 and which has in part been removed to the new museum, together with 

 the material recently received from the permanent exhibition in Phila- 

 delphia and stored in the temporary building adjoining the Armory. 

 The curator of metallurgy and economic geology also necessarily acts as 

 curator of the section of metallurgy and metal-working in the department 

 of arts and industries, which is already in possession of great quantities 

 of heavy and bulky material, and which may be expected rapidly to grow 

 in extent and importance. This department is one of the most difficult 

 the Museum to manage ; the material which it includes is always heavy in 

 and unwieldy and often of great bulk. Unlike many other departments, 

 it must place on public exhibition almost everything which it contains; 

 in fact, it has a greater share than any other department of material 



