100 REPORT OF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



sbows 1,574 entries. Many of these are specimens of Chinese medi- 

 cines and the remainder are the first installment of the gift of Messrs. 

 W. H. Schieffelin & Co., of JISTew York City, who have volunteered to 

 furnish to the Museum a complete collection of the drugs now in use in 

 the United States and Europe. 



A very complete collection of the official pharmacopoeias of all na- 

 tions has been gathered, and Dr. Flint has undertaken the work of 

 compiling from these, for use in the arrangement of the collections, a 

 list of all the articles of the materia medica of the world and the author- 

 ized i)reparations of each. 



Foods. — A considerable amount of work has been done ui)on the col- 

 lection of foods by Prof. J. Howard Gore, who reports that there are now 

 in the Museum 951 specimens belonging to this department, 225 from 

 China, 51G from the Indians of North America, and 210 preparations of 

 marine foods, gathered in connection with the fisheries exhibit. 



Messrs. H. K. & F. B. Thurber & Co., of New York City, have under- 

 taken to prepare for the Museum, without charge, a full exhibition of 

 the food-substances handled in the grocery trade of the United States, 

 which will form an excellent nucleus for tliis department. There have 

 been received from the various manufactories of canned fishery prod- 

 ucts sample cans showing all the brands of canned fish put up in the 

 United States during the census year — an important addition to the 

 fishery collection. 



It would be premature to attempt to state the extent and nature of 

 the collections in this department. Through the exertions of Mr. Thomas 

 Donaldson, a large number of the most important of the exhibits which 

 were retained at the close of the Philadelphia Exhibition in the so-called 

 Permanent Exhibition of Philadelphia have been given to the National 

 Museum and are now stored in Philadelphia, there to be retained until 

 the Museum is ready for their reception. An enumeration of these arti- 

 cles win be more appropriate in the report for the year 1882. 



Aid of Manufacturing and Commercial Firms. — Important contribu- 

 tions have been promised by several manufacturing and commercial 

 houses, prominent among which are a full exhibition of i^aints, varnishes, 

 and pigments, by Messrs. F. W. Devoe & Co., of New York; of chemical 

 products, by Powers, Weightman & Co., of Philadelphia; of perfumes 

 and essential oils, by Young, Ladd & Coffin, of New York City; of the 

 appliances and operations of dentistry, by the S. S. White Manufac- 

 turing Company, of Philadelphia, and others of less extent but of equal 

 interest. 



Accessions of the year. — Among the important contributions received 

 during the year may be mentioned a large series of cotton fabrics, illus- 

 trating the condition of that branch of the textile industry of the United 

 States during the census year, sent by the various mills at the request of 

 Mr. Edward Atkinson, special agent of the Tenth Census ; a collection of 

 the ornamental woods of Japan, a hundred in number, consisting of 



