78 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1902. 



discrimination as the years go on, and material that would at one time 

 have been acceptable is now rejected. No idea of the value of the 

 accessions, moreover, can be derived from these figures, and it is safe 

 to say that in at least two of the divisions the materials are of a 

 \'alue equal to that of any corresponding period in the history of the 

 jNlu.seum. 



It is well to note in this connection that as time passes a propor- 

 tionally smaller amount of desirable material comes to the Department 

 in the way of gifts, while the funds that can l)e devoted to i)urchase 

 and collecting remain far too small. As a natural consequence the 

 growth of the collection is likely in time to be seriousl}^ checked. 



The most important of the accessions noted above have been: 



I. A collection of 173 specimens of ores and 6 transparencies of 

 mining regions received from the Government exhibit at Paris in VMM). 



'2. A fine example of native tellurium from Delamar, Nevada, gift 

 of B. F. Swindler. 



3. A magnificent mass of moss gold on <(uartz from the Miner's 

 Dream mine in California. 



■i. Twelve samples of Alaskan gold illustrating the characteristic 

 material from difi'erent parts of the territory'. 



5. A fine series of pot holes in basalt from Snake River Falls, Idaho, 

 collected by Mr. F. W. Crosby. 



C). Rocks and ores frbm the U. S. Geological Survey, including 

 collections from: 



The Silver and Rico Mountains ([uadrangles, Colorado, collected by 

 F. L. Ransome; the Highwood and Crazy Mountains of Montana, col- 

 lected by W. H. Weed; the Denver Basin, Colorado, collected by 

 Whitman Cross; the Bohemia mining district of Oregon, collected by 

 J. S. Diller; the Livingston Quadrangle, Montana, collected b}' W. 

 H. Weed. 



7. A beautiful mass of the so-called needle ore ((xothite) from Iron- 

 wood, Michigan, the gift of the Cleveland Cliff Iron Company. 



8. xV collection of rocks from Ellesmere Land, gift of Robert Stein. 

 1'. Three fine specimens of molvbdenite from Okanogan Count^^, 



Washington; two fine specimens of axinite from Switzerland and 

 Japan. 



10. Two beautifully perfect crystals of tourmaline (rul)elite) from 

 Mesa Grande, California. 



II. A suite of zeolites from Golden, Colorado. 



12. jNIinerals as below, the first V2 of which were not represented in 

 the collection: Narsarsukite, Narsarsuk, Greenland; percylite, Sierra 

 Gordii, (^hile; yttrocerite. Orange Count}^ New York; picroallumo- 

 gene, France; bornite (in crj'stals), Dognaska, Hungarj'; cpistolite, 

 Tulup, (xreenland; plumboferritc, Jacobsberg, Sweden; ankylite, 

 Narsarsuk, Greenland; sulvanite, Burra Burra, South Australia; tha- 



