REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 59 



Fossils and Minerals. — Bid well, Bobadilla, Brooks, Burke, Camp- 

 bell, Carrington, Denny, Fry, Hammond, Harvey, Hayden, Horner, 

 Hotchkiss, Hunter, Jenkins, Jenks, K. L. C. Akad., Lippmann, 

 McCue, Merrick, Naturf. Ges., Emden, Newberry, Eoss, Spence, Tay- 

 lor, Thickstun, Turner, Warren, Wilson. 



Miscellaneous. — Hamlin, Hoy, Swift, Tompkins, Triibner, White, 

 Wilson. 



B. — Work done in the Museum. 



The various collections of the year have been unpacked, assorted, 

 and catalogued as fast as received. Books have been opened for the 

 registry of the fishes and invertebrates of the series, which will be 

 labelled and entered as rapidly as circumstances will admit. 



C. — Distribution and use of the Smithsonian Collections. 



As in the previous years, the collections of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution have been freely open to the use of any persons engaged in 

 original research, and many specimens also distributed as exchanges. 

 The entire series of turtles has been sent to Professor Agassiz, to be 

 used in the preparation of his work, and many hundreds of living 

 ones were procured for him. Dr. Wyman has had many specimens 

 and preparations of salamanders and ichthyoid reptiles. Eggs of 

 North American birds have been furnished to Dr. Brewer, coleoptera 

 to Dr. Leconte., neuroptera to Mr. Uhler, hymenoptera to M. Desaus- 

 sure ; seeds to the United States Patent Office ; shells to Dr. Gould, 

 Mr. Lea, Hugh Cuming, and Mr. Cooper ; birds to the Bremen 

 museum and to Dr. Hoy ; living reptiles to the Zoological Society of 

 London ; fossils to Dr. Leidy, &c, &c. 



D. — Present Condition of the Museum. 



The present condition of the museum of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion may be summed up as follows : 



1st. Its collection of the vertebrate animals of North America, in- 

 cluding skins, specimens entire in alchohol, and skeletons and skulls, 

 is in every department, the richest in the world in materials for illus- 

 trating species and their geographical distribution. 



Of invertebrate animals — as insects, shells, Crustacea, &c, plants, 

 minerals, rock specimens, and fossils — its collections from the western 

 half of the United States are incomparably superior to all' others, while 

 from the eastern portion of the continent it has very good series, though 

 surpassed in the extent of the different divisions by a number of others, 

 both public and private. A single exception may perhaps be found in 

 the private cabinet of coleoptera belonging to Dr. Leconte, -which is by 

 far the richest known in the species of North America generally. It 



