REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 37 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The Museum correspondence, which has always been very heavy, 

 increases in volume from year to year. Outside of ordinary routine 

 matters, it is occasioned for the most part by requests for informa- 

 tion, coming from all parts of the world and relating to a wide range 

 of subjects. Specimens, often in large lots, are transmitted for 

 identification, and questions are submitted in regard to all branches 

 of knowledge falling within the Museum's scope. The requests also 

 have reference to Museum administration, the building up and main- 

 tenance of collections, the construction of cases, the installation, label- 

 ing, and cataloguing of specimens, and, in fact, no topic connected 

 with a great museum or suggested by its existence escapes notice. In 

 accordance with the time-honored custom of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, every communication made in good faith and appropriate to be 

 considered is fully answered, even though this necessitates incessant 

 demands upon the scientific staff, whose regular duties are quite suffi- 

 cient to occup}- their entire time. The number of lots of specimens 

 determined and reported upon during the year at tin 1 request of 

 correspondents was nearly Too. 



A considerable proportion of the work of furnishing information is 

 accomplished through the medium of Museum publications, of which 

 more than 30, 000 volumes and pamphlets were distributed during the 

 year, about one-third of these having been sent in compliance with 

 special applications. 



As the Museum has no facilities for making chemical analyses, 

 requests for work of this kind have to be refused. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



The publications issued during the year comprised the second vol- 

 ume of the Annual Report for L897, the Annual Reports for 1898 and 

 L899, volume 22 of the Proceedings, and part 1 of Special Bulletin 

 No. 4, besides reprints in separate form of a large number of papers 

 from the Reports and Proceedings. 



Volume II of the Report for 1897 contains a biographical account 

 of Dr. (I. Brown (roode, the late assistant secretary of the Smith 

 sonian Institution in charge of the National Museum, together with 

 reprints of several of his more important papers on museums and on 

 the history of scientific progress in America. It is illustrated with 

 portraits of more than 100 men who have been prominent in the sci- 

 entific advancement of the country. The appendix to the Report for 

 1898 consists of a single paper, by the late Prof. E. D. Cope, on the 

 crocodilians, lizards, and snakes of North America, comprising 1,100 

 pages of text, with 37 full-page plates and HIT text figures. The 

 Report for 1899 contains five scientific papers based upon collections 

 in the Museum. 



