REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. OY 
THE WASHINGTON LABORATORY, PREPARATION OF 
REPORTS, ETC. 
During the lifetime of Prof. Baird all the accommodations required 
for conducting the scientific work of the Fish Commission in Washing- 
ton were provided by the TJ. S. National Museum. The same arrange- 
ments were also continued until June, 1889, when, upon the refitting of 
Central Station, the scientific quarters were removed to that building. 
Formerly the collections of natural-history specimens as soon as they 
were received in Washington were transferred to the custody of the 
National Museum, which also provided for their maintenance and, to a 
great extent, for their elaboration. In the future the Fish Commission 
will retain possession of such materials until they have been studied, 
then depositing them in the National Museum, with which it is expected 
that the friendly cooperation so long maintained will be continued. Dr. 
Tarleton H. Bean has also been retained by the Museum as curator of 
the Department of Fishes and Mr. Bichard Bathbun as curator of the 
Department of Marine Invertebrates. 
The scientific work to be provided for in Washington, besides the 
routine of administration and the direction of investigations, is the 
preparation of reports, maps, and plans, and the study of natural-history 
collections, and of physical and chemical problems. The accommo- 
dations assigned to this division at Central Station comprise an office 
and laboratory with several storerooms. The laboratory is especially 
fitted up for biological inquiries, but may also be used for physical and 
chemical researches upon a limited scale. The facilities for the storage 
of collections are sufficient for immediate purposes, but they will un- 
doubtedly soon be outgrown. Not having the means for keeping up 
the very complete physical laboratory established in the Smithsonian 
Institution under the direction of Dr. J. H. Kidder, the privileges so 
graciously afforded there were relinquished toward the close of the 
fiscal year, the apparatus belonging to the Fish Commission being 
transferred to Central Station. Arrangements were at once made with 
the Chief Signal Officer and with the Superintendent of the Coast Sur- 
vey for the testing of all the more delicate instruments, the coarser ones 
being readily attended to in our own laboratory. The physical obser- 
vations are made chiefly in the field, and the subsequent preparation 
of reports upon those subjects seldom requires the use of apparatus. 
It would, however, be advisable to enlarge the facilities for that branch 
of investigation in Washington, and it is hoped that this may soon be 
accomplished. 
The scientific collections received in Washington during the past year 
have been very large and valuable, representing inquiries extending 
over a wide extent of territory. The most important were those ob- 
tained by the steamer Albatross on the voyage from Washington to 
Han Francisco in 1887-88, and during the subsequent surveys oil the 
