g REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, L901. 



2. The United States Exploring Expedition around the world from 

 L838 to L842, the North Pacific, or Perry, Exploring Expedition from 

 [853 to L856, and many subsequent naval expeditions down to and 

 including the recent operations in the West Indian and Philippine 



waters. 

 ::. The activities of members of the United States diplomatic and 



consular service abroad. 



4. The Government surveys at home, such as the Pacific Railroad 

 survey, the Mexican and Canadian boundary surveys, and the surveys 

 carried on by the Engineer Corps of the U. S. Army: and the activi- 

 ties of officers of the Signal Corps, and other branches of the Army 

 stationed in remote regions. 



5. The explorations of the United States Geological Survey, the 

 United State- Fish Commission, the Department of Agriculture, the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, and 

 other scientific branches of the Government. 



6. Donations and purchases in connection with the several exposi- 

 tions at home and abroad in which the Museum and Fish Commission 

 have participated, among these having been the Centennial Exhibition 

 at Philadelphia in L876, the international fisheries exhibitions at Berlin 

 in L880 and at London in 1883, the New Orleans Cotton Centennial 

 Exposition in L884 and 1885, the Cincinnati Exposition of 1888, the 

 World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, and the expositions 

 at Atlanta in L895, at Nashville in 1897, and at Omaha in 1898. The 

 returns from the World's Fair in Philadelphia were of greatest extent. 

 comprising, besides the collections displayed by the United States in 

 illustration of the animal and mineral resources, the fisheries, and the 

 ethnologj of the native races of the country, valuable gifts from thirty 

 of the foreign governments which participated, as well as the indus- 

 trial collection- of numerous manufacturing and commercial houses of 

 Europe and America. 



7. Exchanges with foreign and domestic museums and with indi- 

 viduals. 



Immediately preceding the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, when the 

 collections were entirely provided for in the Smithsonian building, 

 the number of entries of specimens in the Museum record books was 

 about 235,000. In L884, when the additional room afforded by the 

 new building gave opportunity for taking a provisional census of the 

 large accessions received from Philadelphia, and from other sources, 



the number had grown to 1.471. ». Now. at the close of 1901, it 



amounts to nearly 5,000,000. 



\\ Idle these figures convey no impression of the bulk of the collec- 

 tions, when it is considered that in Ins;, a ll of the space in both build- 

 ings was completely filled, and in fact was so overcrowded that a third 

 building was already being asked of Congress, some conception may 

 be had of the conditions now existing. The storerooms are packedto 



