OPEEATIONS OF THE YEAR. 



WAR ACTIVITIES. 



During the trying conditions that have prevailed in the United 

 States since it entered the war, the National Museum has demon- 

 strated its value as a national asset in many ways. Members of its 

 staff of experts, its great collections, its laboratories, and all the 

 information in its possession, have been placed unreservedly at the 

 service of the executive departments and other Government agencies, 

 and have been freely used by a number of them. Some of its exhibi- 

 tion halls have been closed to visitors and turned into office quarters 

 for one of the important war bureaus of the Government. Facilities 

 for the comfort and recreation of officers and men stationed in the 

 vicinity and drilling on the Mall have been provided in the buildings, 

 and the reading rooms of the libraries have been equipped with tables 

 and writing materials for all men in uniform. 



Its department of geology has been frequently called upon to fur- 

 nish the Bureau of Standards, Naval Experiment Station, Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Geological Survey, the Carnegie Institution, 

 and various arsenals, materials for experimental work. A single call 

 from the Bureau of Standards embraced 27 varieties of minerals, 

 many of which were rare. To meet all of these demands it has been 

 necessary at times to make trips into the field to secure additional 

 supplies. At the request of the National Research Council the head 

 curator of this department has taken over the entire work of secur- 

 ing optical quartz for the needs of the United States and of Great 

 Britain, involving a large amount of correspondence and travel to 

 different points. 



The division of mineral technology has concentrated its activities 

 for the year upon the interrelationships, and consequent interdepend- 

 ence, existing in the industries sustained by mineral resources. In 

 addition to instructive exhibits, the curator and his assistants, in the 

 solution of the problems connected with the fertilizer, sulphur, fuel, 

 and power situations, have prepared for publication pamphlets which 

 have been not only in great demand by publishers of technical papers, 

 engineers, and business enterprises interested, but of particular value 

 to the Government bureaus handling these products. They have fur- 

 nished also a large amount of data to the Shipping Board, the fuel 

 and fertilizer administrations, and the War and Navy Departments, 

 including suggestions for insuring a sustained source of oil, and for 

 the systematic assemblage of industrial data as a basis for reconstruc- 

 tional work in man power. As a member of the joint information 



13 



