REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 13 



By departments: ^ Square feel. 



Anthropology, including ethnology, archeology, American history, ami 



arts and industries 78, 280 



Biology, including zoology and botany 72, 914 



Geology, including division of practical geology 36, 971 



General and miscellaneous purposes 50, 524 



Total .' 238, 689 



An inypection of the .several building's shows conditions which are 

 very deplorable for the National Museum of a great country. Every 

 branch is seriously hampered by the total inadequacy of the space 

 assigned it, and the proper disposition of specimens long ago became 

 impossible, with the result that year after year valualile collections, 

 often of large size, have had to be packed away in insecure rented 

 buildings, where they are also inaccessible. While the Museum 

 building is not ill adapted to exhibition purposes, it is much too small 

 to serve the present needs. Its halls are overcrowded, the cases being 

 generally placed so near together that two persons can scai-cely pass 

 between them and no effective view of their contents can be obtained. 

 An increase in space of one-half to two-thirds at least woiUd be neces- 

 sary to properly display the present contents of these halls. 



Having practically no basement, the only space available for the 

 reserve storage, workrooms, and offices is in the small rooms of the 

 central towers and corner pavilions, except that some of the galleries 

 designed for exhibition have from necessity been turned over to these 

 purposes. In these quarters the specimens are packed almost solidly, 

 in cases generallv reaching to such a height as to make access to the 

 upper ones extremely inconvenient. The workers have scarcely room 

 in which to place their tables, and there is little place anywhere for 

 the spreading out of spc^cimens for purposes of study and classification 

 or of preparation for exhibition. 



In the Smithsonian building, which was originally intended to be 

 used only in small part for nuiseum purposes, the conditions are simi- 

 lar. There are four exhibition halls, three used for zoology and one 

 for prehistoric archeology. The latter, occupying the entire upper 

 floor of the main building, has, through the loosening and fall of large 

 areas of plaster from the ceiling, been pronounced unsafe and closed 

 to the public until funds can be obtained for its repair and renovation. 

 The large corresponding room on the ground floor has four galleries 

 extending nearly its entire length, which, some fifteen years ago, were 

 turned into work and storage quarters for several branches of zoology. 

 They are overcrowded with cases and tables and are, moreover, 

 extremely unhealthf ul places for the assistants stationed there because 

 of the impure air rising from the exhibition floor below. 



In the ])asement is stored the greater part of the valua})le alcoholic 

 collection of the Museum, in a series of dark, damp rooms, wholly 



