REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 13 



Offers -of several collections additional to those already mentioned 

 have recently been made. Hoen & Co., of Baltimore, are preparing an 

 exhibit of the lithocaustic process. Mr. Charles Henry Hart, of Phila- 

 delphia, has given a number of specimens of work of the earlier Ameri- 

 can engravers. Messrs. Thomas Hovenden, Stephen Parrish, Peter 

 Moran, James D. Smillie, Charles H. Miller, Alfred Kappes, Henry 

 Farrer, and F. Juangling, of New York, have promised to contribute 

 etchings and drawings. Mr. W. J. Linton, of New Haven, presents a 

 collection of proofs, including both his own work and that of some En- 

 glish wood engravers. He has also promised a number of fac-similes of 

 old work, collected by himself. The Century Company offers a techni- 

 cal collection — blocks, tools, etc. — drawings showing the various styles 

 employed in designing for engravings, some of the process work done 

 for them, and a series of proofs chronologically arranged. Harper & 

 Brothers promise specimens of their work dating from the organization 

 of their house, if possible. Mr. J. W. Osborne, of Washington, has a 

 large and very interesting collection of early attempts in various pro- 

 cesses, many of the specimens being undoubtedly unique, and this he 

 wishes to present to the Museum if assured that it would be properly 

 cared for. The Photogravure Company has offered to make a techni- 

 cal exhibit. 



Arrangements have been made with the School of Drawing and Paint- 

 ing at the Museum of Fine Arts at Roxbury, Massachusetts, for a set of 

 students' drawings illustrating various technical methods, and a selec- 

 tion of the best drawings will be made. The Art Students' League, in 

 New York, will probably make a similar contribution. Among the 

 latest accessions to this section is a machine said to have been invented 

 and used by Joseph Saxton for engraving on copper plate. 



DEPARTMENT. OF ETHNOLOGY. 



The additions to the ethnological collections have this year been of 

 extraordinary value, and are described in the appended report of Pro- 

 fessor Mason upon the work of his department. Nearly 2,500 entries 

 have been made in the ethnological catalogue, and the work of classi- 

 fying and arranging the great accumulations of the past has been act- 

 ively continued. The results of the curator's labors in this direction 

 will be more fully seen, as soon as certain proposed re-arrangements in 

 the exhibition halls have .made it possible to assign additional space 

 and to construct more suitable exhibition cases. Special attention has 

 been paid to the entire Eskimo collection, which is an exceedingly rich 

 one, and probably unsurpassed even by the famous one of similar 

 nature in the Ethnographic Museum at Copenhagen. In this work the 

 curator has been assisted by Lieut. T. Dix Bolles, IT. S. Navy, who, 

 having been stationed for some years on the northwest coast, was 

 familiar with the customs of the Eskimo race and especially well suited 

 for this work. In this connection Lieutenant Bolles has prepared an 



