50 EEPOET OF THE SECRETARY. 



Perhaps tlie most important labors iu the museum have been that 

 connected with the renovation of the extensive alcoholic collections. 

 These were iu a very unsatisfactory condition, in consequence of the 

 lire of 18G5, and the unavoidable confusion during the i)rocess of recon- 

 struction of the various apartments of the Institution. 



The bottles were necessarily stored in a damp cellar, where the labels 

 became obliterated to a greater or less degree ; and although the pre- 

 caution had been taken to introduce within the jars numbers corre- 

 sponding to those of the external label, yet both in many cases were 

 found to have become illegible. It was necessary, therefore, to use 

 every effort to remedy the difficulty by re-labeling such specimens as 

 had not lost their history beyond recovery ; and this work has occupied 

 a considerable portion of the force the entire year. All the bottles, 

 however, have been cleaned and placed in a dry cellar, and dnring the 

 coming year tliis part of the collection will be put in as good order as 

 can be desired. 



A considerable portion of the time of the employes of the museum 

 was occupied iu the transfer of the extensive collection of rocks and 

 minerals from the Land-Office, which has necessarily required great care 

 to prevent the misplacement of the labels. This was, however, satis- 

 factorily accomplished, and the specimens are now safely in the posses- 

 sion of the Institution, and, it is hoped, will be placed on their shelves 

 in the coiu'se of the year 1873. 



Quite a number of the skeletons of the larger animals, such as the 

 Irish elk, several species of tapir, the American moose, the buffalo, 

 American and European bisons, the elk, camel, &c., have been mounted 

 <luring the year and placed iu the general collection. There is yet much 

 to be done in this direction, the museum fortunately possessing very 

 comi>lete series of the bones of most of the American mammalia and 

 many foreign species. Several large mammals have also been mounted, 

 such as the bison, the moose, walrus, and a considerable number of the 

 larger fish found on the Atlantic coast. 



Distribution of specimens. — In accordance with the policy adopted by 

 the Smithsonian Institution in the administration of the collections of 

 the I^fational Museum, much has been done in the way of transmission 

 of specimens to other museums at home and abroad. 



Many of the rare and more choice stone implements in different mu- 

 seums throughout the country have been borrowed and duplicated by 

 means of casts, and enough of these prepared to permit quite an exten- 

 sive distribution. 



The collections brought in by Professor Hayden during his different 

 expeditions of several years past were all unpacked and arranged 5 and 

 after reserving a series for the Museum of the Institution, the remainder 

 were made up into some fifteen or twenty sets, which were distributed 

 to different colleges and academies throughout the country. This branch 



