REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 23 



NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



For many years after the Institution took charge of the National 

 Museum ouly $4,000 was allowed by Congress for the annual expense on 

 account of this duty. In 1871 the appropriation for this purpose was 

 increased to $10,000, and in 1872 to $15,000, and for the last year to 

 $20,000; the last-mentioned sum being sufficient for the present to 

 defray the annual expense without encroachment on the income of the 

 Smithson fund, uothing being charged on account of rent of the build- 

 ing. In addition to this, $10,000 was appropriated for the completion 

 of the cases in the large room of the second story, devoted to ethnology. 

 This money was expended in procuring cases in the form of tables with 

 glass tops and sides for the exhibition of smaller articles. 



The following report from Professor Baird gives an account of the 

 additions to the museum and the various operations connected with it 

 during the past year: 



Increase of the National Museum. 



As in previous years, nearly every region in North America, and a 

 considerable number of localities in Central and South America, as well 

 as in other parts of the world, have been represented in the collections 

 of 1874; the following summary showing, in a general way, the more 

 important of the acquisitions from a geographical point of view : 



From Greenland has been received a collection of articles of Esqui- 

 maux dress and other interesting curiosities, including the skeleton of 

 a polar bear. 



The arctic main land of North America is represented by perfect 

 skins, with the skeletons complete, of adult male and female musk-oxen, 

 forming an acquisition that any museum would consider of great im- 

 portance. 



Alaska has been richly represented during the year by a good series 

 of ethnological material of the Thlinket tribes of Sitka and the adjoin- 

 ing region, including a number of the stone implements wiiich are now 

 entirely gone out of use and very rare; also, from the Magiemut Esqui- 

 maux of the island of Nunivak, Behring Sea, a remarkably full series of 

 their utensils, weapons, and carvings. This addition, with what had 

 previously been obtained, gives to the National Museum a finer collec- 

 tion of Western Esquimaux material than exists in all other ethnological 

 museums combined. 



A series of dredgings has also been received, made in the Northern 

 Ocean, in the vicinity of Kotzebue Sound, and in other portions of Behring 

 Sea ; a large collection of birds with their eggs, among them specimens 

 of the Sterna aleutica and other rare species, and series of skins and 

 skeletons of the fur-seals, &c. 



Queen Charlotte's Island and Washington Territory. — From these we 



\X 



