8 KEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



The principal sources of the collections may be briefly summarized 



as follows: t ., j ^i 



i The explorations carried on more or less directly under the 

 auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, or by the Institution ni con- 

 nection with educational institutions or commercial establishments, 

 and the efforts, since 1850, of its officers and correspondents toward 

 the accumulation of natural history and anthropological material. 



2. The United States Exploring- Expedition around the w^orld from 

 1838 to 1812, the North Pacitie, or Perry, Exploring Expedition from 

 1853 to 1856, and many subsequent naval expeditions down to and 

 including the recent operations in the West Indian and Philippine 



waters. 



3. The activities of members of the United States diplomatic and 



considar service abroad. 



1. The Government surveys at home, such as the Pacific Railroad 

 surveys, the Mexican and Canadian boundary surveys, and the surveys 

 carried on by the Engineer Corps of the U. S. Army; and the activi- 

 ties of officers of the Signal Corps, and other branches of the Army 

 stationed in remote regions. 



5. The explorations of the U. S. Geological Survey, the U. S. Fish 

 Commission, the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, and other scientific branches 

 of the (jovernment. 



6. Donations and purchases in connection with the several exposi- 

 tions at home and abroad in which the Museum and Fish Commission 

 have participated, among these having been the Centennial Exhi])ition 

 at Philadelphia in 1876, the International Fisheries Exhibitions at Berlin 

 in 1880 and at London in 1883, the New Orleans Cotton Centennial 

 Exposition in 1881 and 1885, the Cincinnati Exposition of 1888, the 

 World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, and the expositions 

 at Atlanta in 1895, at Nashville in 1897, at Omaha in 1898, and at 

 the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. The returns from the World's 

 Fair in Philadelphia were of greatest extent, comprising, besides the 

 collections displayed by the United States in illustration of the animal 

 and mineral resources, the fisheries, and the ethnology of the native 

 races of the country, valuable gifts from thirty of the foreign gov- 

 ernments which participated, as well as the industrial collections of 

 numerous manufacturing and commercial houses of Europe and 

 America. 



7. Exchanges with foreign and domestic museums and with indi- 

 viduals. 



Inmiediately preceding the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, when the 

 collections were entirely provided for in the Smithsonian building, 

 the number of entries of specimens in the Museum record books was 

 alxHit 235,000. In 1881, when the additional room afforded by the new 

 building gave opportunity for taking a provisional census of the large 



