IV.— REVIE^A^ OF THE WORK OF THE SCIENTIFIC 

 DEPARTMENTS, INCLUDING THEIR PARTICIPATION 

 IN THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXHIBITION. 



DEPARTMENT OF ART« AND INDUSTRIES. 



The Department of Arts and Industries was the immediate and 

 necessary outgrowth of the erection in 1881 of the new building intended 

 to receive the collections presented by foreign governments to the 

 United States at the Centennial Exposition. ]\Iost of these collections 

 could not with propriety be merged with any already in the custody 

 of the Institution, since tliey were neither geological, biological, nor in 

 a strict sense anthropological. 



This new department was therefore formed, which was intended to 

 include all the collections illustrating the utilization of the earth and 

 its products by man, and the history and method of arts and industries 

 within historic times. At first all the anthropological collections 

 except those classed as prehistoric were administered by this depart- 

 ment, but experience taught that there are large classes of objects 

 which can be best exhibited and studied when arranged ethnically, 

 and so in 1884 the Department of Ethnology was established. 



The distinction between these two departments is not easy to define, 

 and is really not very strictly observed, and will perhaps in time disap- 

 pear. There are, however, certain classes of objects which either for 

 effective installation or for convenience it has been found better to 

 arrange with reference to form rather than race. These are as a rule 

 those in which the arts of civilized man are predominant, and which 

 possess some special interest when arranged in progressive, or, as they 

 are sometimes in (piesti(mable propriety called, ''evolutionary" series. 

 Among these are such collections as those of musical instruments, land 

 transportation, the models of boats and vessels, and the fishery appli- 

 ances. 



Closely allied to some of these is another group of collections, pro- 

 perly technological, in which the idea of materials, and tools and i)roc- 

 esses of manufacture, together with the products of the processes, are 

 the most prominent. 



It was atone time intended to develop this part of the Museum to 

 such an extent that every product of the earth useful to man — mineral, 

 vegetal, and animal— should be shown, in its natural condition and in 

 the various stages through which it may pass, in preparation by man 

 for his own use, together with the tools employed and illustrations of 

 processes. This project has not yet been fully realized, chiefiv through 



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