14 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1898. 



ment should have .adequate representations of the American peoples 

 and their culture, not only of our own country, but of the whole 

 American continent. Our nation is the only one in America that can 

 reasonably be expected to do anything of importance toward the pres- 

 ervation of the materials necessary for the illustration of this vast 

 field, and as the American race is a unit, of which the tribes in our 

 own territory constitute but a fragment, it appears to be our duty to 

 take up this work in a comprehensive way. Thus would be built up 

 not only a national museum but an American museum in the widest 

 sense. This applies not only to anthropology but to the other great 

 departments of the Museum. It will be impossible to carry on such a 

 work without turning over to the Department of Anthropology the 

 entire present building, with all of its laboratory and exhibition space. 



Second. — The Department of Biology now occupies a large exhibi- 

 tion space in the Smithsonian building and 55,000 square feet in the 

 National Museum building. Large collections, which would be placed 

 on exhibition if space were available, are stored in laboratories and 

 inclosed spaces in the exhibition halls. As has already been explained, 

 in a new building there should be available for the Department of 

 Biology 190,000 square feet of exhibition, laboratory, and storage space. 



The present exhibit is more complete than that of the other depart- 

 ments of the Museum. Of birds there is a large mounted series, one 

 of the finest in existence, but it is so indiiferently housed that it fails 

 to make the impression it should. Of mammals there is a good North 

 American series and some excellent examj^les of exotic species. There 

 is a good and rather large exhibit of the various groups of the lower 

 forms of animals, including an especially fine series of corals and 

 sponges. 



These are the only series at present exhibited whicli can be considered 

 at all comprehensive. Of the great groups of fishes, reptiles, and 

 amphibians there is room only for an outline representation. The 

 wonderful variety of form among insects can be scarcely more than sug- 

 gested in the space available. Of plants there has hitherto been no 

 exhibit worthy of the name, and the space which it has now been pos- 

 sible to set aside is entirely out of proportion to the vast extent and 

 importance of this great kingdom of nature. 



Every natural-history museum of the first class should have at least 

 two comprehensive exhibition series — first, the Systematic Series, repre- 

 senting the natural groups among which all animals and plants, from 

 the highest to the lowest, are divided; second, the Faunal and Floral 

 Series, showmg the animals and i)lants characteristic of each of the 

 grand divisions of the earth's surface which naturalists have established 

 as a result of their studies of these two kingdoms of nature. 



These two great comprehensive exhibits should be supplemented by 

 a number of Special Series, illustrating the more interesting phenomena 

 and phases of life, such as the macroscopic and microscopic structure of 



