68 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1900. 



importance, and constituting perhaps the largest single accession ever 

 received, was the well-known collection of vertebrate fossils assembled 

 under the direction of the late Prof. O. 0. Marsh, of Yale University. 

 The scientific branches of the Department of Agriculture which engage 

 in field collecting, the Biological Survey, the Division of Entomology, 

 and the Division of Botany, have, as in past years, deposited in the 

 Museum the main parts of the material resulting from the year's work. 

 The collections received from the Bureau of American Ethnology have 

 been extensive and noteworthy. 



Acknowledgment is due to several of the Departments for courtesies 

 in connection with administrative matters, especially deserving of men- 

 tion being the facilities atl'orded for the transportation of collections 

 and assistants by the Quartermaster's Department of the Army. 



EXPLORATIONS. 



Although having very limited means for field investigations, at least 

 a few^ members of the Museum staff spend a month or more during 

 every year in adding to the collections, making their trips independently 

 or in connection with expeditions sent out by other Government 

 bureaus or under private auspices. Much important material is 

 obtained in this way. 



Dr. F. W. True spent several weeks of the summer of 1899 at the 

 station of the Gabot Steam Whaling Gompany, in Newfoundland, study- 

 ing the finback and humpback whales, which are taken along that coast 

 in large numbers. 



Anthropological researches were carried on in Gul^a and Jamaica 

 during the spring of 1900 by Maj. J. W. Powell, Director of the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, and Mr. William H. Holmes, head 

 curator of anthropology, who collected many objects illustrating the 

 ancient peoples of those islands. 



Extensive zoological and botanical collections were made in Guba 

 and Porto Rico for the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 by Dr. 

 Leonhard Stejneger, Dr. Gharles W. Richmond, Mr. William Palmer, 

 and Mr. J. H. Riley, of the Museum staff'. The groups of animals 

 chiefly represented were birds, reptiles and batrachians, fishes, bats, 

 insects, cnistaceans and annelids. The Philippine Islands were visited 

 in behalf of the same exposition l)y Gol. H. M. Hilder, of the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology, who secured a large amount of interesting 

 material bearing upon the native tribes and the history of the islands. 



The expedition to central and southern Mexico by Dr. J. N. Rose 

 and Dr. Walter Hough, which started in the spring of 1899, as noted 

 in the last report, contiimed during a part of the summer and was 

 very successful. Its object was the collecting of botanical and ethno- 

 botanical specimens, the latter including plants used in the arts, both 

 ancient and modern, and examples of native handiwork. At the close 



