6 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



hand, much labor is duplicated, which is perhaps equally uufortunate, 

 collections of similar scope aud purpose being maintained in different 

 parts of the same city. One of the chief objections to such division of 

 effort is, that much of the value of large collections in any department is 

 lost by failure to concentrate them where they may be studied and com- 

 pared side by side. In Washington the national collections are all, 

 without exception, concentrated in one group of buildings. The Army 

 Medical Museum will soon occupy a building side by side with those 

 under the control of the Smithsonian Institution, and this proximity, 

 in connection with the long-established policy of co-operation between 

 the two organizations, will cause them to be, for all practical purposes, 

 united in interest. 



It is possible that, in the future, museums of specialties, occupying 

 buildings of their own, may grow up under the control of other Execu- 

 tive Departments of the Government, but it is to be hoped that they 

 will not be very remote from the chain of museum buildings already 

 in process of formation, and that a harmonious system of co-operation 

 will always be found to be practicable. 



The National Museum is now approaching an important crisis in its 

 history. Its future will depend upon the action of Congress in granting 

 it an additional building, for without more room its growth can not 

 but be in large degree arrested. From this time forward it will be im- 

 possible to develop the collections satisfactorily without additional 

 space. The laboratories and workshops are already entirely inadequate 

 for the storage of the unexhibited collections and the accommodation 

 of the preparators and mechanics, and the exhibition halls do not afford 

 suitable opportunity for the display of the materials already in order 

 for public examination. Each collection, and above all each depart- 

 ment, should have a hall of its own, more or less completely isolated 

 from those which adjoin it. It is evident that when several collections 

 are placed side by side in the same department, much is lost in respect 

 to effect and convenience of study, not to mention the still greater dis- 

 advantage of overcrowded space. 



A.— THE MUSEUM STAFF. 



Several changes have been made in the arrangement of the scientific 

 staff during the year. The collection of Cenozoic Fossils is now in the 

 custody of the Curator of Moliusks, the Department of Invertebrate 

 Palaeontology having been divided into three groups, corresponding to 

 the three principal periods of geologic time, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and 

 Cenozoic. Mr. John B. Smith was appointed Assistant Curator of the 

 Department of Insects on August 1, 1885. Mr. Eomyn Hitchcock, 

 Curator in the Department of Arts and Industries, was granted leave 

 of absence for two years to visit Japan for scientific exploration, and, 

 having received from the Japanese Government an appointment as 



