REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 183 



These departments are full of interest, and that of foods especially, as 

 has been shown by the experience of the Bethnal Green Museum, in 

 London, may be made one of the most instructive to the public. 



II. Department of Races of Men. 



The experience of the past year has impressed upon us more strongly 

 than ever before the importance of the organization of this department, 

 which was provided for in the original plan of classification, but which, 

 owing to lack of mouey, has not yet been organized. It is hoped that 

 during the coming year it may be possible to appoint a skillful ethnol- 

 ogist to this curatorship. The department of arts and industries is 

 now overburdened with material which cannot properly be cared for, 

 owing quite as much to the lack of knowledge and skill on the part of 

 its officers as to the inadequacy of the numbers of the staff employed. 



III. Department of Antiquities. 



The department of prehistoric antiquities, under the charge of Dr. 

 Charles Bau, has advanced with its usual steps of progress during the 

 year. The present somewhat unsettled condition of the upper main 

 hall of the Smithsonian building, in which these collections are stored, 

 is due to the fact that the arts and industries col lections, formerly exhib- 

 ited here, have been only in part removed, owing to the lack of exhibition 

 cases in the new building. An exceedingly important addition to this 

 department, which, on account of its size, has been installed in the 

 Museum, is the Lorillard collection of Central American antiquities, 

 consisting of a series of forty eight casts of wall sculptures and picture- 

 writings, made in Mexico aud Yucatan, by M. Desire Charnay, at the 

 expense of Mr. Pierre Lorillard, of New York. This collection, of which 

 a duplicate is deposited in the Trocadero Museum in Paris, was for- 

 warded from that city in May, and set up in the most skillful and 

 artistic manner by M. Barbiei, from the Trocadero Museum. The Mu- 

 seum is greatly indebted to Mr. Allen Thorndike Eice, editor of the 

 North American Eeview, who, at Mr. Lorillard's request, acted as di- 

 rector of the Charnay expedition, and by whose advice its results were 

 deposited in Washington. 



In the same gallery with the Lorillard collection has been installed a 

 considerable number of monolithic statues from Yucatan, Costa Eica, 

 and Nicaragua, which have been for some time in the possession of the 

 Museum, but not exhibited until recently on account of a lack of room ; 

 also the Syrian sarcophagus for many years exhibited in front of the 

 Smithsonian building, and a number of casts of prehistoric statuary 

 from Egypt and elsewhere. 



A large collection from the mounds of the United States has been 

 transferred by the Bureau of Ethnology. This collection has been 

 made under the direction of Prof. Cyrus Thomas in important localities 



