EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 57 



the Acta* of the Philippines. Dr. Abbott's collections arc therefore very 

 valuable, since they represent some of the very earliest stages of invention. 



Two altars in combined Gothic, Renaissance, and RocOco style from a 

 church in Hildesheim, Germany, have been added to the series illustra- 

 ting ecclesiastical art, which it is hoped will be prepared for exhibition 

 before very long. 



The American history collections have been considerably increased 

 during the year, perhaps the most noteworthy additions being swords, 

 pistols, medals, spurs, and shoulder straps contributed by Mrs. George \Y. 

 Morgan as personal memorials of her husband, General Morgan, who 

 received them in recognition of his services in the Mexican and civil wars. 

 Several telegraph instruments and insulators of historic interest were 

 donated by J. H. Bunnell & Co., of New York City, and one of the origi- 

 nal cylinders and other parts of the celebrated locomotive, the "Stour- 

 bridge Lion," were presented by Mr. G. T. Slade, general manager of the 

 Erie and Wyoming Valley Railroad Company. 



In the division of prehistoric archaeology 281 articles of flint from an 

 ancient Egyptian quarry, presented by Mr. H. W. Seton-Karr, of London, 

 are of special interest as illustrative of the quarrying and stone-shaping 

 art of the primitive Egyptians. The specimens consist entirely of "reject- 

 age," or partially shaped failures and broken pieces that result from the 

 manufacture of knives and other implements by the flaking processes, and 

 closely resemble the rejectage from American flint quarry sites. A num- 

 ber of Babylonian seals and some inscribed earthenware bowls were 

 acquired durirg the year, many of the seals being rare and of great inter- 

 est, while the inscribed bowls are said to reveal a peculiar phase in the 

 development of religious ideas. 



Among the accessions of prehistoric objects from localities within the 

 United States may be mentioned as of special interest the stone implements 

 and other relics, principally from Maryland, presented by Mr. J. D. McGuire, 

 of Ellicott City, Maryland, consisting of more than 7,000 specimens, and 

 perhaps the most important collection yet made in the Chesapeake region 

 as the result of the energies of one person. Also there was acquired the 

 Steiner series of more than 18,000 stone implements obtained from an 

 ancient village site on Big Kiokee Creek, Columbia County, Georgia. Mr. 

 Win. H. Holmes, the head curator of the Department of Anthropology, 

 secured nearly 500 archaeological specimens from an ancient quarry in 

 Union County, Illinois. He describes these objects as representing not 

 only the rejected materials resulting from manufacture, including the vari- 

 ous forms of unfinished and broken implements and the flakage, but also 

 the tools used in quarrying and shaping, and in sharpening the implements 

 used and made. 



In the Department of Biology several divisions report the receipt of ac- 

 cessions equaling or surpassing in interest and value those of the preceding 

 year. One of the most important accessions was from Dr. W. L. Abbott, 

 and included large numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, mollusks, insects, 

 and marine invertebrates from the Natuna Islands, the Mergui Archipel- 

 ago, and the coast of Tringanu, Malay Peninsula. The value of this mate- 

 rial will be appreciated from the fact that as many as twenty new species 

 have already been noted among the mammals alone. The collections of 



