KEPORT ON THE SECTION OF TRANSPORTATION AND ENGINEERING 

 IN THE U, S. NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



By J. Elfketh Watkins, Curator. 



The routine work in the Section of Transportation and Engineering 

 has been prosecuted during- the fiscal year 18S ( J-'90 at such times as my 

 duties in the Department of Property and Supplies would permit. A 

 number of labels have been attached to specimens and groups in the 

 exhibition series, which are arranged according to the classification 

 published in the report of 1889. 



While the accessions are less numerous than in previous years, they 

 are no less important. 



The collection of primitive vehicles, in the construction of which no 

 iron or other metal has been used, was materially strengthened by the 

 deposit of a Mexican cart, by Messrs. Schuttler & Hotz (through Mr. 

 Martin Conrad), Chicago, Illinois. The specimen was obtained from 

 Paso del Norte, where it had long been in use. 



The method of constructing the sides of the body of the vehicle of 

 cactus saplings held in place by a network of rawhide strips, is of the 

 greatest interest to the archaeologist as well as to the student of the 

 history of transportation ; while the rough wheels, without spokes or 

 tires, hewn from the solid log, show the crude methods of the ancient 

 wheelwright and the beginnings of the wheel vehicle. 



The nucleus of a collection to illustrate the history of the develop- 

 ment of the bicycle has been secured, through the construction in the 

 Museum workshops of a model of the English "dandy horse"; and 

 the acquisition of two of the old-fashioned "velocipedes" with two 

 wheels of wood, made between 18GO and 1865. A number of drawings 

 of bicycles constructed during the next ten years have also been ob- 

 tained. 



To the series illustrating the history of the stationary steam-engine 

 a most valuable relic has been added. I refer to the portion of the cyl- 

 inder of the first steam-engine erected on the Western Continent, which 

 was deposited by the New Jersey Historical Society, who obtained it 

 from Mr. David M. Meeker, of Newark, New Jersey. In a communica- 

 tion to Mr. Meeker from the Hon. Joseph P. Bradley,* one of thejus- 



* Justice Bradley married Mary, daughter of Josepli Coerten Hornblower, sou of 



Josiah Hornblower, who brought the steam-engine to Ameiica in 1753. 



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