420 Rerieics — Smithsonian Institution, Washington — 



(E) The Man's Knife among the North American Indians, a study 

 in the collection of the U.S. National Museum, by Otis Tufton 

 Mason, Curator Division of Ethnology, pp. 725-746, with 17 

 illustrations. 



(F) Classification of the Mineral Collections in the U.S. National 

 Museum, by Wirt Tassin. pp. 747-810. 



(G) Arrow - points, Spear - heads, and Knives of Prehistoric 

 Times, by Thomas Wilson, LL.D., Curator Division of Prehistoric 

 Archgeology, U.S. National Museum, pp. 811-988, 65 plates, and 

 201 illustrations in the text. pp. 989-1022 are devoted to a general 

 index to the whole volume. 



The Board of Eegents of the Smithsonian Institution are to be 

 congratulated upon the production of an imperial octavo volume of 

 1,062 pages, embracing a report upon the Museum, with seven 

 memoirs describing and illustrating various sections of the National 

 Collection, four of which are profusely and beautifully illustrated 

 by 149 plates and 457 process-block illustrations in the text. 



Part I. 



The Report itself occupies 246 pages, and is drawn up by. 

 Mr. C. D. Walcott, the Acting Assistant Secretary in charge of the 

 U.S. National Museum. The Departments are — Anthropology, 

 with 17 curators and assistants ; Animal Biology, with 27 curators 

 and assistants and 3 honorary associates ; Division of Plants 

 (National Herbarium), with 8 curators and assistants; Geology 

 and Mineralogy, with 18 curators and assistants. The administra- 

 tive staff is represented by Mr. S. P. Langley, the Secretary and 

 Keeper ; Mr. C. D. Walcott, Acting Assistant Secretary ; Mr. F. W. 

 True, Executive Curator ; and a staff of ten officers, including 

 a photographer, a registrar, two librarians, an editor, a chief of 

 correspondence and documents, and a chief of buildings. 



Here is a sample of the icorTc of the Museum. During the year 

 ' covered by this report nearly 27,000 geological and biological 

 specimens, selected from the duplicates, were distributed to uni- 

 versities, colleges, and schools. The publications of the Museum 

 were also distributed at home and abroad. Identification of speci- 

 mens is also undertaken, except when analyses of geological 

 specimens are desired ; these the Museum cannot perform. 



Letters containing requests for information on every conceivable 

 topic are all carefully answered. These number from 12,000 to 

 15,000 a year. Public lectures are also frequentl}^ provided, or the 

 lecture-hall placed at the disposal of Societies desiring to hold their 

 meetings in the Museum. 



To sum lip, the aims of the U.S. National Museum are to promote 

 the advancement of scientific research (1) through the medium of 

 the collections exhibited ; (2) by affording to specialists access to 

 the ' reserve ' collections ; (3) by the identification of specimens ; 

 (4) through the agency of the library ; (5) by the donation of 

 specimens to educational institutions ; (6) by the donation of its 

 publications ; (7) by its lecture courses ; and (8) by imparting 



