REPORT •*««" 



New YOHK 



IX reviewing the work of this Museum during the year 191 1 

 it is gratifying to find that while the considerable labor of 

 moving to new quarters occupied several months of the year, 

 the total work accomplished on the regular lines of the staff work 

 has much exceeded the average, owing in large part to the in- 

 creased facilities afforded by the new laboratory. For the first 

 time in the history of this Museum has there been suitable place 

 under the Museum roof for both work and study in all the differ- 

 ent departments. For the first time has each department had a 

 separate room for work, storage of specimens, and where a scien- 

 tific visitor could examine the reserve collections in comfort and 

 without interruptions. The fuller description of the new labora- 

 tory will be given at the end of the more formal report. 



The construction of the building, which had dragged through 

 the previous year, was completed in the early spring, although the 

 porous nature of the concrete made the application of supposed 

 waterproof paint to the entire outside necessary, and this was not 

 completed at the close of the year. The Museum staff were natur- 

 ally anxious to move into the new and larger workrooms, but it was 

 not until May that this was possible. At first the resounding cham- 

 bers and halls in a building of one mass of concrete bound together 

 by steel rods and network were most uncomfortable, but the use of 

 coconut fibre matting on the painted floors of the hallways and the 

 accumulation of furniture and cases in the rooms greatly reduced 

 the reverberation, and custom finally made it nearly negligible. 



The shell was found very convenient and our cabinet makers 

 were able by the end of the year to provide tlu- many shelves, 



tables, cabinets, racks and other utilities that have made the new 



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BOTa 



