24 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



The celebrated collection of Prof. C. U. Shepard, jr., numbering 101 

 specimens, has been deposited during the year. 



Eesearches have been made by Professor Clarke, and under his direc- 

 tion, upon the micas, the natural borates, and the tourmalines belonging 

 to the Museum collection. 



There are now 3,238 specimens on exhibition, 5,404 in the study series, 

 and 8,530 duplicates, which, together with the Willcox collection of min- 

 erals and the Shepard collection of meteorites, make a total of 18,001 

 specimens in the care of this department. 



DEPARTMENT OP LITHOLOGY AND PHYSICAL GEOLOGY. 



Mr. George P. Merrill, curator, has devoted the greater part of his 

 time to the arrangement of the exhibition and reserve series, both of 

 which have been greatly extended during the year. Of the reserve se- 

 ries 5,687 specimens are on exhibition, 2,720 of which are examples of 

 building stones, while 1,893 belong to the educational series of rocks 

 and rock-forming minerals. Mr. Merrill has had permission to do a por- 

 tion of his work in the petrographical laboratory of the Johns Hopkins 

 University in Baltimore, and has there examined several hundred mi- 

 croscopical slides of the sections of rocks, and has thus been enabled 

 to arrange a large mass of hitherto unclassified material which had been 

 accumulating for several years. Mr. Merrill has, at his own cost, made 

 expeditions to California and Montana, and has gathered much desir- 

 able material, described in the accession list accompanying this report 

 (Section v). In bis report he makes mention of 13 accessions received 

 during the year, which are of special value. The total number of speci- 

 mens in his department is estimated at 21,500. 



DEPARTMENT OF METALLURGY AND ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 



The time of the curator, Mr. Fred. P. Dewey, has been in part devoted 

 to the preparation of a preliminary descriptive catalogue of the collec- 

 tions. 



The accessions of the year have consisted chiefly of material sent for 

 examination and report, and 186 specimens have been examined. Six 

 hundred and seventy-one entries have been made in the catalogue. 

 There are now about 49,000 specimens in the collection, of which 18,000 

 are on exhibition. 



E.— REVIEW OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE WORK. 



PROGRESS OF GENERAL AND INCIDENTAL WORK. 

 Transportation and Storage. 

 Of the total number of boxes, packages, barrels, tanks, etc., received 

 during the year, which was 38,367, no less than 3,798 contained material 

 for the Museum. 



The registrar, Mr. S. C. Brown, continues to act as transportation 

 clerk for the Smithsonian Institution. 



During the year 436 boxes and packages have been entered on the 

 storage records. The temporary storing of material, it may be noted, 



