54 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



The object in planning this room has been to excite the wonder and 

 curiosity of children, to inspire them unconsciously with a love for nature, 

 and no feature has been admitted which might tend to defeat this purpose. 

 No Latin or technical labels puzzle the children, but every object is 

 described in the plainest, language. 



Organization and staff. — The organization of the Museum, as modified in 

 1897, comprises an administrative office and the three scientific depart- 

 ments of anthropology, biology, and geology. Each department is in 

 charge of a head curator and is composed of several divisions, of which 

 anthropology has 8, biology 9, and geology 3, while there are also 18 sub- 

 divisions or sections. 



Under the general direction of the Secretary, who is the keeper ex officio 

 of the Museum, administrative matters have been in the immediate charge 

 of the Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



At the close of the year the scientific staff consisted, besides the 3 

 head curators, of 18 curators, 12 assistant curators, 14 custodians, 10 aids, 

 4 associates, and 2 collaborators, making a total of 63 persons, of whom, 

 however, only about one-half were under salary from the Museum, the 

 remainder serving in a volunteer or honorary capacity, though nearly all 

 of the latter were in the employ of other bureaus of the Government. 



The Museum has suffered the loss of one of its most valued collaborators 

 in the death, on September 15, 1900, of Mr. S. R. Koehler, Honorary 

 Curator of the Section of Graphic Arts, who since 1887 had rendered most 

 important services in building up the extensive print collection. He was 

 also connected with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as curator of prints. 



Dr. W. L. Ralph, custodian of the Section of Birds' Eggs since the 

 death of Maj. Charles Bendire, has been made Honorary Curator of that 

 section, and besides giving generously of his time, he has, by liberal per- 

 sonal donations, greatly increased the size and value of the interesting 

 collections under his charge. Mr. F. A. Lucas, curator of Comparative 

 Anatomy, has been designated Acting Curator of Vertebrate Fossils. Miss 

 Harriet Richardson has been made a collaborator in the Division of 

 Marine Invertebrates, and Mr. Peter Fireman has received a temporary 

 appointment as chemical geologist. 



Buildings. — Attention has been directed in each succeeding report to the 

 crowded condition of the two main buildings occupied by the Museum 

 collections, and to the necessity of increasing from year to year the extent 

 of the outside quarters required for storage and workshop purposes. Dur- 

 ing the past year Congress has again been called upon to provide for the 

 rental of an additional building. Inconvenient as it is to administer upon 

 the collections scattered and stored in this manner, the essential point is 

 the danger to which the material is thus subjected — material which can 

 not be replaced and which constitutes a record of the greatest importance 

 to the Government archives. 



Among the alterations and improvements made in the Museum build- 

 ing, the most noteworthy has been the fitting up of a new lecture hall in 

 accordance with the provision of Congress, the room selected for the purpose 

 being the East North Range, at one side of the main entrance. The only 

 changes made in the room itself have been to substitute a terrazzo floor 



