18 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, i921. 
There were acquired during the year 62 exhibition cases (50 steel 
and 12 wooden), and 165 pieces of storage, laboratory and office fur- 
niture. Of the exhibition cases, 12 were made in the Museum, the 
other 50 transferred to the Museum by the Department of the In- 
terior, having been used at the Panama-Pacific International Ex- 
position at San Francisco in 1915. 
Of the 165 pieces of storage, laboratory and office furniture, 96 
pieces were manufactured in the Museum workshops and 69 were 
purchased. It is becoming more and more the policy of the Museum 
to manufacture its own furniture, as in most cases 1t can be done 
more economically, owing to the difference in the cost of labor. 
At the close of the fiscal year, there were on hand 3,647 exhibition 
cases and bases and 11,508 pieces of storage, laboratory and office 
furniture. In addition to these, there were 46,650 wooden unit 
drawers, 4,712 metal unit drawers, 1,047 wooden unit boxes, 224 
double unit boxes, and 11.244 insect drawers; also 752 winged frames, 
5,885 special drawers with paper bottoms, and 11,445 special drawers 
with compo bottoms. 
COLLECTIONS. 
The total number of specimens acquired by the Museum during the 
year was approximately 338,120. Received in 1,730 separate acces- 
sions, they were classified and assigned as follows: Anthropology, 
3,824; zoology, 196,077; botany, 55,436; geology, mineralogy, and 
petrology, estimated, 21,772; paleontology, estimated, 50,000; textiles, 
wood, medicine, foods, and other miscellaneous organic products, 
943; mineral technology, 466; mechanical technology, 162; graphic 
arts, 2,296; and history, 7,144. 
Additional material, to the extent of 794 lots, mainly geological, 
was received for special examination and report. While this free de- 
termination of material sent in from all parts of the country requires 
considerable time on the part of specialists, it is not without advan- 
tage to the Museum in furnishing occasional desirable specimens and 
in recording new localities. 
About 25,000 specimens were sent out in exchange, for which the 
Museum received much valuable material specially desired for the 
collections. . 
The distribution of specimens for educational work was broadened 
this year to include objects from the department of anthropology. 
Of the 6,000 specimens distributed as gifts in aid of education dur- 
ing the period of this report, over 5,000 were comprised in classified 
and. labeled sets of specimens prepared for schools and colleges, 
nearly 2,000 being ores and minerals. The other subjects represented 
were rocks, rock weathering and soil formation, mollusks, marine in- 
