620 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



elucidation kindly furnished by members of the staff it would have 

 been impossible to produce an intelligible account. It is a great pity 

 that this should be so. Doubtless the authorities recognise that 

 bluebooks are not read, even by the official circles for whom they 

 are intended, and they have therefore not objected to a reduction of 

 size by one-half, enforced for economic reasons. This only makes it 

 the more advisable that there should be some way of reaching the 

 public — some " Museum Magazine," under official auspices, but with- 

 out the cumbrousness and reserve characteristic of all officialdom. 



Another difficulty on the present occasion is that many of the 

 more important and interesting facts cannot yet be revealed. And 

 still a third difficulty arises from the circumstances that the officers 

 of the museum themselves may be ignorant of the services rendered 

 by the collections. Many an enquirer after some rare mineral, some 

 piece of geological information, or the name of some plant or animal 

 does not divulge the object of his enquiries; his errand may be con- 

 nected with munitions, with the medical service, or with field opera- 

 tions. For him the museum is as a dictionary ; an indispensable aid, but 

 not a confidant. The credit for his research goes to the branch of 

 the service for which he is working, and the museum is not mentioned. 

 A notable instance has just occurred. Those who have read Mr. 

 Balfour's correspondence with the Netherlands Government on the 

 subject of materials used by the Germans in their cement field works 

 may have observed a reference to determinations by certain geological 

 establishments. The Natural History Museum was not mentioned; 

 yet it is in the mineral department of that museum, and there alone, 

 that the rock specimens are preserved Avhich rendered j^ossible any 

 accurate determination of the source whence the enemy derived his ma- 

 terials. There alone, too, it is that our metallurgists can examine the 

 compound used by Austria in the manufacture of her high-grade 

 steel. There alone are to be found examples of numerous minerals 

 that are proving daily of the utmost value to investigators of urgent 

 war problems. Though help of this kind has been rendered since 

 the beginning of the war, no hint of it is found in the Keturn, nor, 

 for fear of the censor, can a fuller statement be given here. But it is 

 only right to give these few illustrations, because, to read the blue- 

 books, you would suppose that the staff of the mineral department 

 had been quietly arranging zeolites, measuring gemstones, and study- 

 ing meteorites, undisturbed by the world conflagration. 



A similar inference might be drawn from the annual reports of 

 the keeper of geology, for the ordinary reader does not immediately 

 seize the connection between, say, the Piltdown man and national 

 defense ; he gapes at the monstra hon^enda informia of the palaento- 

 logical galleries without attaching to them the smallest practical im- 



