8 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



The principal .sources of the collections niav be briefl}' summarized 

 as follows: 



1. The explorations carried on more or less direct! 3' under the 

 auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, or by the Institution in con- 

 nection with educational institutions or commercial establishments, 

 and the eii'orts, since 1850, of its officers and correspondents toward 

 the accumulation of natural histor}^ and anthropological material. 



2. The United States Exploring Expedition around the world from 

 1838 to 1S42, the North Pacific, or Perry, Exploring Expedition from 

 1853 to 1856, and many subsequent naval expeditions down to and 

 including the recent operations in the AVest Indian and Philippine 

 waters. 



3. The activities of meml)ers of the United States diplomatic and 

 consular service abroad. 



4. The Government surveys at home, such as the Pacific Railroad 

 surveys, the Mexican and Canadian boundary surveys, and the surve3's 

 carried on by the Engineer Corps of the U. S. Ami}- and the activi- 

 ties of officers of the Signal Corps, and other branches of the Arnw 

 stationed in remote regions. 



5. The explorations of the U. S. Geological Survey, the U. S. Fish 

 Commission, the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, and other scientific branches 

 of the Government. 



6. Donations and purchases in connection with the several exposi- 

 tions at home and abroad in which the Museum and Fish Commission 

 have participated, among these having been the Centennial Exhibition 

 at Philadelphia in 1870, the international fisheries exhibitions at Berlin 

 in 1880 and at London in 1883, the New Orleans Cotton Centennial 

 Exposition in 188-1 and 1885, the Cincinnati Exposition of 1888, the 

 World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, and the expositions 

 at Atlanta in 1895, at Nashville in 1897, at Omaha in 1898, and at 

 the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. The returns from the World's 

 Fair in Philadelphia were of greatest extent, comprising, besides the 

 collections displa3'ed b}- the United States in illustration of the animal 

 and mineral resources, the fisheries, and the ethnology of the native 

 races of the countr3' , valuable gifts from thirty of the foreign govern- 

 ments which participated, as well as the industrial collections of numer- 

 ous manufacturing and commercial houses of Europe and America. 



7. Exchanges with foreign and domestic museums and with indi- 

 viduals. 



Immediately preceding the Centennial Exhibition of 1S7*!, when the 

 collections were entirely provided for in the Smithsonian building, 

 the number of entries of specimens in the Museum record books was 

 about 235,000. In 1881:, when the additional room afi'orded b3^ the new 

 building gave opportunit}'^ for taking a provisional census of the large 



