HANDBOOK FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY 

 IN THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Part i.— Geognosy. — The materials of the earth's crust. 



By George P. Merrill, Curator. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The history of the Geological Department of the National Museum 

 may he said to date from the appointment of Dr. George W. Hawes as 

 curator in 1880, after the completion of the new building. Prior to 

 this time, owing to the limited amount of space that could be devoted 

 to the department in the Smithsonian building, the collections were 

 necessarily small. They were also of a very miscellaneous character, 

 the principal material of real value from a lithologic or geologic stand- 

 point which they were found to contain being a collection of 300 speci- 

 mens of rocks from France, purchased in 1869 from Louis Saeman in 

 Paris, and a similar collection of 148 specimens of rocks of Saxony, 

 received in 1863 from the Eoyal Mining School of Freiberg, Saxony. 

 There was, it is true, much material that might have been of value had 

 there been any accurate data concerning it ; but owing to the necessarily 

 limited time and space that had been devoted to the care of these col- 

 lections, in many cases nothing could be learned in regard to them, or 

 if anything, the information was so meager as to be practically value- 

 less. This was especially true of much of the material received from 

 the various United States geological surveys and exploring expeditions. 



At the time Dr. Hawes entered upon his duties as curator he also 

 assumed charge of that branch of the Tenth Census relating to the 

 quarrying industry of the United States. To this work he gave almost 

 his entire attention, and the present building and ornamental stone col- 

 lection is largely the result of his exertions in this direction. Dr. 

 Hawes' connection with the Museum was, however, too short to allow 

 the department to become fully organized, and at the time of his death 

 matters were still in a state of great confusion owing to the large 

 amount of material that had accumulated and the extent of the work 

 undertaken, but necessarity uncompleted. The extensive collections 

 received from Philadelphia at the close of the Centennial Exhibition 



503 



