28 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



A summary of the operations of the National Museum is given as 

 usual in the appendix to this report and full details are set forth by 

 the Assistant Secretary in a separate volume, and need not therefore 

 be fully treated here. 



New building. — At the close of the year the exterior of the new 

 Museum building had been practically completed. Several months' 

 work, however, remained to be done to finish the south pavilion or 

 rotunda. Provision has been made for the improvement of the 

 grounds immediately about the building, including granolithic roads 

 and walks, grading, and readjustment of roadways. 



The transfer of collections, laboratories, and workshops to the new 

 building has progressed as rapidly as practicable considering that the 

 floor area to be provided with furniture and other new equipment is 

 about 10 acres. 



The collections of the National Gallery of Art, as mentioned below, 

 were transferred to the middle hall of the new building and opened 

 to the public in March, and in connection therewith some of the 

 more interesting ethnological groups and historical exhibits were 

 installed in the surrounding hall and adjacent ranges. It was not 

 practicable to open any other portions of the building to the public, 

 although more than half of the natural history collections, both re- 

 serve and exhibition, had been transferred to their new quarters. 



Art textiles. — The removal of the paintings from the old building 

 has afforded more ample space for the display of the art textiles and 

 fabrics, consisting of laces, embroideries, tapestries, brocades, and 

 velvets; also fans, enamels, porcelains, jewelry, etc. As mentioned 

 in my last report, these objects were brought together at the sugges- 

 tion of Mrs. James W. Pinchot, who has given personal attention 

 to their collection and arrangement. 



Accessions. — The additions to the Museum during the year aggre- 

 gated 970,698 specimens, as compared with 250,000 in the year pre- 

 ceding. The most noteworthy collection of the year was several 

 thousand specimens of mammals, birds, reptiles, batrachians, and 

 other animals, besides several thousand plants, received from the 

 Smithsonian African Expedition under the direction of Col. Theodore 

 Roosevelt, more fully referred to on another page. Other important 

 accessions in the several departments of the Museum are enumerated 

 by the Assistant Secretary in the appendix to the present report. 

 About 800,000 entomological specimens, received from the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, were varieties of beetles and other insects injuri- 

 ous to forest trees, which had been accumulated during investigations 

 by the Bureau of Entomology. 



