174 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The Southern Exposition of Louisville, organized in 1882, obtained per- 

 mission from the last Congress to remove certain objects from the Na- 

 tional Museum, with the sanction of the Director and without cost to 

 the Government, for exhibition in the Southern Exposition. (See Rev. 

 Stat., Forty-seventh Congress, second session, chap. 99.) This exposi- 

 tion opened on August 1, and a collection, the contents of which are 

 elsewhere enumerated, was sent from the Museum, and was returned 

 after the close of the exhibition, in good order, on November 8. The 

 contributions of the Museum were greatly appreciated by the visitors 

 to the exhibition, and the expenses incurred in its preparation were 

 promptly and cheerfully paid by the company. Several applications 

 from other similar exhibitions were received, but the Museum has always 

 taken the position that loans of this kind cannot be made without spe- 

 cial Congressional enactmeot. It is, however, my desire to prepare for 

 such purposes a special series of specimens which may be temporarily 

 sent to different parts of the United States for the purpose of public 

 instruction and of awakening interest in museum work. An excellent 

 precedent for this move may be found in the policy of the Science and 

 Art Departments of Great Britain, which at the present time has eight- 

 een loan collections of this kind in different parts of the United King- 

 dom. 



Exhibition of the Pharmaceutical Association. — On September 10, the 

 Pharmaceutical Association held its annual meeting and exhibition in 

 the Museum, the lecture-room being used for the meeting and the north- 

 east and east-north ranges for the exhibition, which was very largely 

 attended, the number of visitors during the five days of its session 

 amounting to 7,571. 



On the 4th, 5th, and 7th of December the Brush-Swan Electric Light 

 Company gave an exhibition of its incandescent lights produced by the 

 Brush storage battery. During the four evenings of the display there 

 were 1,543 visitors. 



Meetings and lectures during the year. — The National Academy of 

 Sciences held its regular semi-annual meeting in the lecture-room of the 

 Museum on April 17. The Biological Society has held its regular fort- 

 nightly meetings in the lecture-room. The Philosophical Society held 

 its annual meeting in the lecture-room of the Museum on December 8. 

 The Pharmaceutical Association, as has already been mentioned, held 

 its annual meeting in the lecture-room on the 10th of September. 



A course of 12 lectures, under the auspices of the Biological and An 

 thropological Societies of Washington, was given on successive Satur- 

 days, commencing on January 13. These were followed by a course of 

 8 lectures on materia medica by Dr. D. W. Prentiss, commencing April 

 7 and continuing until May 26, illustrated by specimens from the materia 

 medica section of the Museum : they were attended by about 200 stu- 

 dents of medicine and pharmacy. 



