REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 39 



in procuring materials and labor, the construction of this building 

 has progressed during the year as rapidly as could be expected, con- 

 sidering the vast undertakings of the Government in constructional 

 enterprises in Washington due to the war. By June 30, 1918, all of 

 the exterior walls were erected to entablature height and about half 

 of the architrave and frieze courses of the entablature were set. 

 Four-fifths of the interior walls had risen to gallery ceiling height 

 and all others were well advanced. The marble walls of the court 

 were completed to about two-thirds of their ultimate height. The 

 basement and first floor construction were completed, the drainage 

 system below the subbasement floor finished, and 10 per cent of the 

 heating and ventilating duct work in the subbasement installed. 



During the year Mr. Freer increased the extent of his collection to 

 over 6,200 items by 928 additions, of which 20 are paintings by the 

 American artists Whistler, Tryon, Dewing, Melchers, Metcalf, Sar- 

 gent, and Brush; while the oriental objects, numbering 908, consist 

 of paintings, pottery, fabrics, jewelry, and objects of jade, bronze, 

 wood, stone, glass, and lacquer. 



By bequest of Mrs. Mary Houston Eddy, of Washington, the gal- 

 lery received a collection of 12 paintings, 12 miniatures, 9 ivory 

 carvings, a Limoges enamel, a marble bust, a bronze statue, and mis- 

 cellaneous art objects, 140 items in all, to be known as the "A. R. and 

 M. H. Eddy Donation." Other permanent acquisitions were por- 

 traits by Ossip Perelma of M. Boris Bakhmeteff, first ambassador to 

 the United States from the Russian Republic, and of Mr. Frank B. 

 Noyes, president of the Associated Press and editor of the Washing- 

 ton Star; a portrait of Vinnie Ream (Hoxie), by G. P. A. Healy; a 

 marble statue of Puck, by Harriet Hosmer; two miniatures by Isa- 

 bey, one of Napoleon I, the other of Marie Louise ; two old English 

 silver snuff boxes and two large plaster landscape models made in 

 1902 of the park system proposed for the city of Washington by the 

 commission appointed by the Senate Committee on the District of 

 Columbia. 



The special loan exhibitions consisted of a collection of Joseph 

 Pennell's lithographs of war work in Great Britain and the United 

 States, displayed from November 1 to 24, 1917, with a special view 

 on the evening of the 1st ; and a series of architectural drawings by 

 Charles Mason Remey, being preliminary designs showing varying 

 treatments in different stjdes of architecture of the proposed Bahai 

 Temple for Chicago, exhibited during March, 1918. 



As elsewhere stated, the natural history building is, under normal 

 conditions, greatly overcrowded with the collections of its depart- 

 ments of biology, geology, and anthropology and of the art gallery, 

 nearly one-fourth of its space being given over to art in its various 



