17G REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



under which, on a blackened surface, the pearl reposes in safety from 

 dust or loss, while the base is large enough to display a proper label. 



A specimen pair of Tridacna gigas, weighing 305 pounds, has been 

 mounted as an exemplar of the largest known mollusk of recent seas. 



Under the careful supervision of Dr. Stearns various cases, contain- 

 ing selections of edible or economic mollusks from the Atlantic and Pa- 

 cific, of ornamental species from tropical seas, of the ordinary species 

 of our Atlantic beaches familiar to sojourners at watering places on the 

 sea- shore, and of the land and fresh water species from our lakes and 

 streams, have been put on exhibition, with proper labels, which, how- 

 ever, had in some cases to be written, since the printed series have been 

 delayed and it was not thought well to wait for them. 



The series for which exhibition cases are at present available will, 

 without doubt, be completely arranged early in the course of the pres- 

 ent year. 



Fair progress has been made in the determination of the mollusks of 

 the southeastern coast of the United States and adjacent waters, for 

 which only at the present time have we begun to possess material 

 which should make a thorough illustration of this area possible. 



Another element of the routine work which enters largely into the 

 exertions required of the curator and his assistants is that of furnish- 

 ing specialists or students with names, information, objects having an 

 important beariug on investigations in progress, or special collections 

 for school or class purposes. This work is constant, and the corre- 

 spondence relating to it averages a page a day during the working days 

 of the year. The curator has endeavored to assist not merely those 

 who had by contributions to the Museum or their scientific standing an 

 official claim upon his attention, or those to whose needs his attention had 

 been formally called by the Museum authorities, but also all who have 

 applied, whether considerate in their requests or otherwise, as some- 

 times happens. The character of this work can be judged by a refer- 

 ence to the list of egressions in the Appendix. 



Besides these matters, the curator's official duties as the Paleontolo- 

 gist in charge of the Division of Cenozoic Paleontology for the U. S. 

 Geological Survey (by favor of whose Director, Maj. J. W. Powell, he 

 has been permitted to embrace both fields of labor in his daily occupa- 

 tion), have, of course, precedence, and imperative claims upon his time 

 for determination of specimens, and reports, monthly, annual, or occa- 

 sional, as well as other things. These being taken into consideration 

 with the character and amount of the routine work as above briefly 

 sketched, it will, in the opinion of the curator, appear that the results 

 in the shape of work, statistically stated elsewhere in this report, are 

 fully abreast of the opportunities offered by the situation. 



A list of the papers published by the curator and others, and bearing 

 ^ directly or indirectLy upon the work of this department, will be found 

 in Part iv. 



