REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 45 



transferred to the Department of Agriculture to assist in the cotton 

 investigations in Guatemala, which gave him the opportunity to 

 make an interesting collection of the plants of that country. In 

 addition to editorial work, Mr. E. S. Steele spent much time in the 

 identification of miscellaneous lots of plants, mainly sent to the 

 Museum for that purpose by the Department of Agriculture; and 

 Mr. J. H. Painter, appointed aid near the close of the year, gave 

 some attention to the Mexican species of Meibomia. 



Capt. John Donnell Smith, an associate in botany, reports that 

 during the year he continued his studies of plants collected in Cen- 

 tral America by himself and others at his instance. Cards were in 

 course of printing for the seventh distribution of these plants and 

 for Part VII of "Enumeratio Plantorum Guatemalensium necnon 

 Salvadorensium Hondurensium Nicaraguensium Costaricensium quas 

 edidit John Donnell Smith." The twenty-seventh continuation of 

 his articles entitled "Undescribed Plants from Guatemala and 

 other Central American Republics" was submitted to the Botanical 

 Gazette for publication. 



During the year Dr. Edward L. Greene, also an associate in botany, 

 began the preparation of an important paper under a grant from the 

 Smithsonian Institution, to be entitled "Landmarks of Botanical 

 History," which he expects to complete in the course of about two 

 years. 



The total number of papers by the staff of the division of plants 

 issued during the year amounted to 39. The collections in the 

 division have been consulted by the botanists of the Department of 

 Agriculture, by Dr. N. L. Britton and Dr. M. A. Howe, of the New 

 York Botanical Garden, by Prof. E. L. Morris, of the Washington 

 High School, and many others. 



Over 2,000 sheets of plants were lent for study to some eighteen 

 institutions and specialists, the larger sendings having been to the 

 Gray Herbarium, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the New York Botan- 

 ical Garden; the Ames Botanical Laboratory, North Easton, Mas- 

 sachusetts; the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts; 

 President Ezra Brainerd, of Middlebury College; Mr. B. F. Bush, of 

 Courtney, Missouri; Doctor Fedde, of the Royal Botanical Museum, 

 Berlin; Fr. Buchenau, of the Natural History Society of Berlin, and 

 the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England. 



The head curator of geology. Dr. George P. Merrill, has given much 

 time to the preparation of two general papers, one a contribution to 

 the history of American geology, the other a history of American 

 public scientific surveys. The former was completed during the 

 year and is in course of publication in the Annual Report for 1904. 

 He also conducted observations on the origin of asbestiform ser- 

 pentine and the weathering of building stone. 



