REPORT OF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR. 53 



E.— REVIEW OF THE YEAR'S WORK IN THE SCIENTIFIC 



DEPARTMENTS. 



As in my last report, I here present a brief review of what has been 

 accomplished in each department of the several scientific divisions. 

 The Curators' reports are given in fall in Part II of this report. These 

 are especially intended to embrace (1) a review of the important addi- 

 tions daring the year; (2) a Btatement of the character of routine work 

 employed in arranging and classifying the collections, and in preparing 

 > the exhibition and study series. 



17. DIVISION OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 (a) Department of Arts and Industries. 



The curator of this department is the custodian of all materials pos- 

 sessing anthropological significance, which are not elsewhere assigned. 

 Its belongings are consequently somewhat heterogeneous and difficult 

 to report upon, and its relations with the Department of Ethnology are 

 so intimate that it is impossible to make a definite division between 

 them. Certain collections belonging to this department are under the 

 charge of other curators, the collection of building-stones being as- 

 signed to the department of lithology and physical geology, while all 

 that relates to mining and metal-working is cared for by the curator of 

 metallurgy and economic geology. Several sub-curatorships have 

 grown up in this department, and certain other collections, especially 

 those of architecture, musical instruments, and modern ceramics, to- 

 gether with the somewhat anomalous collection of historical objects, 

 are at present assigned to this curatorship. 



When, in 1857, the Smithsonian Institution assumed the custody of 

 the collection of the United States Exploring Expedition, together with 

 the miscellaneous material which had gathered around this nucleus, a 

 great quantity of material was transferred to the Smithsonian building 

 which has not to this day been classified and placed upon exhibition. 

 The rapid growth, especially during the past decade, of the collections 

 illustrating the ethnology of North American Indians, and especially 

 of prehistoric objects from this continent, has absorbed the attention of 

 all who were interested in this department of the Museum. The major- 

 ity of the foreign ethnological objects are still, on account of lack of 

 room, packed up or crowded together in a too limited amount of case- 

 room. At the close of the Centennial Exhibition the Museum received 

 .from foreign Governments great quantities of material exhibited al 

 Philadelphia, which, while possessing an undoubted ethnological inter- 

 est, could not in many instances be displayed in the manner usually 

 adopted in ethnological museums. 



The material received from Philadelphia in 1876 wasforseveral years 

 stored in the Armory building. On completion of the present Museum 



