16 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



Proving inadequate for the growing needs of the Museum, it has 

 become necessary to arrange for taking current from one of the elec- 

 tric companies and for enlarging and extending the system of wiring. 

 Under authority of Congress the new installation has been planned on 

 a scale ample for also lighting the exhibition halls in the Museum 

 building, thus providing the possibility for opening them at night, 

 should the requisite means be provided. The work was carried on 

 during the last year under an initial appropriation of $3,500, since 

 supplemented by one of $5,000, which should insure its completion 

 before the close of L902. 



'The roof of the Museum building, never entirely satisfactory and 

 developing many weak points during recent years, has been repaired 

 and strengthened, under the advice of a competent engineer, to the 

 extent that its character warrants, and it is hoped that it can be made 

 to answer for a few years longer. 



Taking advantage of the necessity for replacing the steam boilers 

 in the Museum building, which are now worn out beyond repair, and 

 for the renewal of which an appropriation of $12,500 was made at the 

 last session of Congress, plans were completed before the end of the 

 year for an entire revision of the heating system. It is proposed to 

 install in the Museum building a battery of two boilers of sufficient 

 power to heat both buildings, as well as the adjacent Museum shops, for 

 which heretofore additional boilers in the Smithsonian building and 

 a furnace in the stable building have been required. By this means 

 it is expected to obtain a better service with greater economy of fuel 

 and labor. 



ADDITIONS TO THE COLLECTIONS. 



The additions to the collections during the 3-ear, received in L.470 

 separate lots or accessions, amounted to 178,987 specimens, or about 

 27,000 less than the previous year. The total number of specimens 

 in the possession of the Museum, as indicated by the records, has 

 thereby been increased to 4,994,672, though the" actual number is 

 mu(-n greater, for the reason that, while thousands of very small 

 objects arc often contained in a single package, it has been customary ' 

 to estimate the contents of such packages at a small nominal figure. 



The decrease in the receipts as compared with 1900 was confined to a 

 lew divisions. In most divisions there was an increase, and in some 

 the increase was very marked. The scientific value of the additions 

 was, moreover, especially noteworthy. 



'he most extensive and important accessions as a whole were 

 derived, as usual, from the bureaus of the Government which are 

 engaged in scent , lie explorations, chiefly the Geological Survey, the 

 Fish Commission, the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the Bio- 



