ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39 



real value. Various branches of the Government have contributed 

 to this result by allowing their employes in the field to make collec- 

 tions for the Institution in connection with their regular work. It is to 

 be hoped that the valuable results attained with such a small additional 

 outlay will induce Congress to make some of the annual appropri- 

 ation for the Museum also available for the ^' tJicrease^' as well as 

 the " preservation " of the collections. In fact, the Museum cannot 

 grow in proportion to the demands of the public from the sources 

 it now has to rely on. Those considerations which call for the ex- 

 istence of the Museum at all also call for a liberal fund with which 

 to send out collectors and purchase valuable material. 



The collections here considered are those entered in the catalogue 

 during 1883. Some of the collections were actually made in pre- 

 vious years, but they have been stored and are now heard from for 

 the first time. 



In the organization of the National Museum, as outlined in the 

 "Proceedings" for 1881, it is contemplated classifying the anthro- 

 pological material under three departments: I, Antiquities; II, 

 Races of Men; and III, Arts and Industries. The Assistant Director 

 is Curator of the last named and Dr. Rau of the first ; but other- 

 wise the work embraced under the second department, "Races of 

 Men," is really carried on under Arts and Industries under the 

 general supervision of the Assistant Director. 



The general routine work is as follows: 



Collections, on receipt at the Museum, are acknowledged and 

 given an accession number by the Registrar, who files under this 

 number all manuscript accompanying the various collections. Each 

 collection is classified or divided up and the proper portions sent 

 to the various departments or sections, where each specimen or lot 

 of similar specimens is entered in the ethnological catalogue and 

 given a Museum number, which is painted on the specimen for its 

 future identification. The entry in this catalogue is briefly made 

 under the following heads : 



Museum Number ; Collector's Number; Name; Locality; When 

 Collected; Nature of Object; Accession Number; Measurements; 

 Received from or Collected by ; Cost ; When Entered ; Number of 

 Specimens ; Remarks. 



The descriptive cards to be printed to accompany each specimen 

 are then written, access being had to the manuscript in the hands 

 of the Registrar to get full data, and the collection is arranged and 

 sent to the preparators for installation in the Museum. 



