EEPOIiT OF THE SECRETARY. 33 



placed iu stonige subject to future calls of siuiilar nature. The assist- 

 ant director, who rcpreseuted the Smithsouian Institution in the Gov- 

 ernment Board in charge of exhibitfon work, has coiu^ilcted andhandc^d 

 in to the chairman of the Board his portion of the ofhcial report, and 

 (so far as wo have been informed) the work of the Board has been com- 

 pleted. A number of exhibits obtained by the State Department for 

 the second New Orleans Exhibition have, since its close in xlpril, been 

 turned over to the Museum by Mr. C. S. Hill, the representative of that 

 Department. 



I. The Department of Arts and Industries. — In this department, which 

 is under the curatorship of the Assistant Director of the Museum, Mr. 

 G. Brown Goode, are assembled together for convenience a number of 

 special collections mainly of recent origin which may very possibly in 

 future be grouped in quite different relations. The scope is necessarily 

 general and indefinite, and I shall siujply call attention to the present con- 

 dition of some of the most important groups of objects which it contains. 



The section of textiles already includes a very full series, of the ani- 

 mal and vegetable fibers used throughout the world, together with good 

 representations of devices for spinning and weaving, and of tlie various 

 products of tbe textile industries. This, collection is nearly all perma- 

 nently installed, provided with printed labels, and illustrated by dia- 

 grams. For lack of room, fully half of the material ready for exhi- 

 bition has been stored away, and the cases prepared for its display are 

 in boxes in the Armory building. The space assigned to the exhibition 

 series is still so crowded that the objects cannot be satisfactorily exam- 

 ined. Work upon this and other allied technological sections under the 

 charge of Mr. Romyn Hitchcock, being so greatly impeded for lack of 

 accommodation, he applied for and obtained a furlough of two years, 

 and, having accepted a professorship in the University of Osaka, in 

 Japan, is making a special study of Oriental technology. 



To the collection of food substances, also under the charge of Mr. 

 Hitchcock, is assigned a large quantity of unassorted material. The few 

 cases now on exhibition contain the foods of the North American In- 

 dians, of Japan and China, and some of the more curious and unusual 

 articles of diet. There are also two cases of educational injportance 

 which exhibit graiJhically the composition of the human body and its 

 daily expenditure of tissues and the manner in which this is compen- 

 sated for by daily rations of food. This collection is modeled after the 

 famous collection of similar character prepared by Dr. Lankester and 

 others for the Betlinal Green Museum in London. It is however based 

 upon an entirely new series of analyses, and upon a revised plan prepared 

 by Prof. W. O. Atwater, of Wesleyan University, and corresponds to the 

 latest views in physiological chemistry. 



The collections in chemical technology already have a good nucleus, 

 and the chemical.manufactures and their products and methods should 

 ultimately occupy a prominent position in the plan of the Museum. The 

 ]J. Mis. 170 3 



