REPORT ON THK DEPARTMRNT OF MINERALS 

 IN THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 1891. 



By F. W. Claiikk, Honorary Curator. 



The .crowth of this department during the year has been satisfactory 

 and steady, although no very great additions were made to the collec- 

 tion. 



The 1 online work of cataloguing, labehug, packing, etc., has occupied 

 most of the time of the assistant curator, Mr. W. S. Yeates. In addi- 

 tion to this, a nearly comj)lete rearrangement of the systematic exhibi- 

 tion series was carried out during the early spring. In rearranging 

 the collection the miscellaneous minerals bequeathed totlie Museum by 

 the late Isaac Lea were distributed throughout the regular series, and 

 tlie entire mass of material was thoroughly culled over. The display 

 was tlius rendered much more effective than it had been, and the appear- 

 ance of the mineral hall is greatly improved. 



Technically speaking, the accessions to the collection have been only 

 moderate. A reasonable nujnber of additions were made by exchange, 

 gift, and purchase, but only three accessions were particularly notable. 

 These are, first, a collection of 171 Eussian minerals, presented by Mrs. 

 Mary I. Stroud; secondly, 53 Freiberg minerals received in exchange 

 ft'om the depository of the Koyal Saxon Mining School; and, thirdly, a 

 superb series of specimens from the Broken Hill mines in Australia, 

 given by Mr. Walter J. Koehler, The last-named collection consisted 

 mainly of the species silver, copper, bromyrite, cerargyrite, cernssite, 

 and chrysocolla, the bromyrite and cernssite being finer than anything 

 of the kind that I had previously seen. 



Outside of the legitimate increase in the collection i^roper, several 

 quani additions to it may be fairly noted here, consisting of minerals 

 bought for use in the proposed exhibit of the Museum at the World's 

 Columbian Exposition. The most important of these was the gem col- 

 lection of the late Joseph Leidy, containing alxmt 400 cut stones, some 

 of them of exceptional beauty. Other fine lots were obtained from 

 dealers, but none of this material can be regularly absorljed into the 

 collection until the object of the purchases has been fulfilled. 



The present state of the exhibition series of minerals may be sum- 

 marized statistically as follows : Meteorites, including the Shepard collec- 



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