REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 165 



DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATION. 



Department A : Direction. — During tbe period of the reconstruction of 

 the east end of the Smithsonian building- tbe Director bas occupied an 

 office in the northwest pavilion of the Museum. Early in the year tbe 

 assistant director was appointed commissioner to the International Fish- 

 eries Exhibition to be held in London from May 1 to November 1, and 

 his duties in this connection necessitated his absence from the middle 

 of April until the 1st of October: during tbis period Mr. Frederick W. 

 True was appointed to serve as acting assistant director, and rendered 

 most efficient service. 



The assistant director was instructed while in Europe to study the 

 methods of administration of the most important museums, and has 

 now in preparation a report upon his observations during the present 

 year and in 1880 upon the chief museums of England, France, Ger- 

 many, and Italy. He desires in tbis place to make acknowledgment of 

 numerous courtesies and valuable aid received from Sir Philip Cuuliffe 

 Owen, director of the South Kensington Museum ; Dr. A. C. G. Gun- 

 ther, keeper of the zoological collections of the British Museum ; Prof. 

 W.*H. Flower, curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons; 

 Dr. P. L. Sclater, secretary of the Zoological Society of Loudon ; Dr. Will- 

 iam Murie, librarian of the Linuaean Society of London ; Mr. W. Saville 

 Kent, curator of the Buckland Museum of Practical Fish Culture, South 

 Kensington; Prof. H. N. Mosely, of the University of Oxford; Mr. John 

 W. Clarke, superintendent of the Cambridge University Museum; Mr. 

 A. J. R. Trendell,of the Science and Art Department, South Kensington; 

 Prof. Thomas C. Archer, director of the Edinburgh Museum of Science 

 and Art; Mr. T. J. Moore, curator of the Liverpool Museum; Mr. 

 Mark H. Judge, curator of the Parkes Museum of Uygiene ; Mr. John 

 Durand, of Paris; Dr. E. Sauvage, of the Museum of Natural History, 

 Paris; Prof. E. H. Giglioli, director of the Royal Museum of Vertebrates, 

 Florence; Dr. Franz Steindachner, keeper of the Imperial Cabinet, 

 Vienna; and Baron N. De Solsky, director of the Musee Imperial Agro- 

 nomique, St. Petersburg. 



The act of Congress authorizing and directing the participation of 

 the United States in the International Fisheries Exhibition at London 

 necessarily added an enormous weight to the work of the division of 

 administration. 



Departments B and C : Registry and storage, and archives. — These de- 

 partments, under the supervision of Mr. S. C. Brown, registrar, have 

 been efficiently administered. The total number of packages received 

 was 2,196. The regular storage rooms in the Smithsonian building 

 having been temporarily dismantled, a shed for the reception of the daily 

 acquisitions was erected at the south entrance of the Smithsonian build- 

 ing, and the contents of several of the store- rooms transferred to the 

 Armory. The shed, built adjoining the Armory in 1882, and also the 



