16 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1921. 
repairs is now $5,000 less that it was 10 years ago, when the Natural 
History Building was new and naturally required comparatively 
little in the way of repairs. The amount for furniture and fixtures 
is likewise $5,000 less than it was for a number of years prior to the 
war when prices of labor and material were from 50 to 75 per cent 
lower. 
Of the $64,202.70 appropriated this year for printing, $37,500 was 
the regular item, and $26,702.70 a deficiency item for the completion 
during the year of an unusual accumulation of work at the Govern- 
ment Printing Office. The Museum printing had for several years 
been held back for lack of sufficient available funds. 
A comparison of the operating expenses of the United States Na- 
tional Museum with museums of similar size and scope in this coun- 
try and abroad is extremely interesting, and brings out very strongly 
the inadequacy of the appropriations, especially with reference to the 
salaries paid to all classes of its employees. The scientific staff is 
paid from 40 to 50 per cent less than scientific men of the same grade 
in similar museums elsewhere. 
BUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT. 
The Aircraft Building was opened to the public on October 7, 1920, 
whereby the Museum added about 14,000 square feet of fioor space to 
its exhibition halls. This metal structure, erected by the War De- 
partment on the Smithsonian Reservation in 1917 for the use of the 
United States Signal Service, was transferred to the custody of the 
Smithsonian after the close of the war. In it has been assembled a 
collection of aircraft and accessories in production during the war 
period, 
In the upkeep of the buildings the more important work performed 
in the Natural History Building included the construction of a locker 
room for the engineer force at the east entrance, ground floor; the 
painting of the ceiling and side walls of the corridor and the rooms 
in the east hall, ground floor, and of the corridor around the south, 
east, and west sides of the auditorium; the laying of cork flooring 
in the west and northwest ranges, ground floor; installing rubber 
interlocking tile flooring in two elevators at the north entrance; and 
the painting of all concrete floors in corridors of the west hall, 
ground floor; also, the painting of the exterior surfaces of all metal 
window frames on the first and second floors and the wooden frames 
and sashes on the ground and third floors, and the preparation of the 
east court and planting the same with lawn grass. 
In the Arts and Industries Building the interior work included 
the pointing up and painting of walls and ceilings in several exhibi- 
tion halls and office rooms and, in the latter, the replacing of worn- 
out floors with new ones of pine. On the exterior, the snow brakes 
