REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 57 



Ncwroiiiidlaiid, ]Ma<;(l;ileii Islands, aud adjacent islands. An account of 

 tbis expedition will be given in a paper by Mr. F. A. Lucas in Part II 

 of the Keport of tlie Smithsonian Institution for 1888. 



The collection of the department of Ethnology has- been enriched 

 by the receipt of a most valuable and interesting contribution of 

 specimens brought from Easter Island, and also of a series of photo- 

 graphs taken on the island by Paymaster William J. Thomson, U. S. 

 Navy. 



Mr. W. T. Hornaday, curator of living animals, made a collecting 

 trip to the Northwest in November aud secured a large number of living 

 animals. 



Under the joint auspices of the Fish Commission and Smithsonian 

 Institution J\Ir. Charles II. Townsend made a collecting tour on Swan 

 Island and in Central America. As a result large collections of mam- 

 mals and birds were obtained for the Museum. 



During the summer Mr. P. H. Kuowiton made a collection of the 

 plants, rocks, and ores of Vermont. 



During the year important changes have taken place in connection 

 with some of the scientific departments of the Museum. Dr. Charles 

 Ran, Curator of the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, died on 

 June 2G, 1887.* His successor is Mr. Thomas Wilson, who received his 

 appointment as Honorary Curator on December 1. In November Dr. H. 

 G. Beyer, U. S. Navy, Honorary Curator of the Section of Materia Medica, 

 was ordered to other duties, and Dr. J. M. Flint, U. S. Navy, the first Cura- 

 tor of this collection, has again taken charge. The Museum has com- 

 menced the formation of a collection of casts of Assyrian and Babylonian 

 antiquities, in association with the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Paul 

 Haupt, Professor of Semitic Languages in the Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity, was in February a])pointed Honorary Curator, Dr. Cyrus Adler, of 

 the same university, consenting to act as Honorary Assistant Curator. 

 The Section of Transportation, under the care of Mr. J. E. Watkius, has 

 now reached that point in its history where it may take rank with the 

 other sections of the Department of Arts and Industries. The Section 

 of Graphic Arts, under the curatorship of Mr. S. R. Koehler, has made 

 excellent progress toward the illustration of the resources of the art of 

 engraving in all its branches. On May 9 the Department of Living 

 Animals was organized, with Mr. W. T. Hornaday, Chief Taxidermist, as 

 curator. 



As in years past, we have been called upon to contribute to local ex 

 hibitions, and numerous applications have been made for material, 

 which has always been refused on the ground that nothing couhl be done 

 without an order from Congress. Numerous bills of this kind have been 

 before Congress for consideration. Oneof these, passed during the fiscal 

 year of 1887, applied to the present year. This was the bill authorizing 

 *See Necrology, in a subsequent section. 



