40 Report of the President 



taken by Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars, Curator of Reptiles, New 

 York Zoological Society. It is hoped that other photographers 

 will deposit their negatives with the Museum for permanent 

 record. 



The most notable accession of the year is the Bickmore 

 series of lantern slides. This collection comprises about 20,000 

 slides, of which 12,000 are colored. It was made by Prof essor 

 A. S. Bickmore during his long connection with the State 

 Department of Public Education. Professor Bickmore and 

 his wife, Charlotte B. Bickmore, have presented these slides 

 to the Museum. They are particularly valuable not only 

 because of their association with the work of Professor Bick- 

 more, but because the original negatives from which many of 

 them were made were destroyed in the disastrous fire in the 

 Capitol at Albany. 



MINERALS 



L. P. Gratacap, Curator 



Department of Mineralogy. — The past year has been 

 signalized by the removal of the entire mineral collection from 

 the former Morgan Hall to the new hall in the West Wing, 

 formerly occupied by the Mexican antiquities. This was ac- 

 complished early in the year in a provisional and imperfect 

 manner. Since then the efforts of the department have been 

 exerted in bringing this array of material into order, inter- 

 calating in it some 3,000 specimens, which, from deficiency in 

 exhibition room, had been previously stored away in drawers. 

 The systematic collection is thus quite exhaustively shown. 

 Additions of maps (numbering almost 100), the installation of 

 wall-case specimens, and the preparation of the large metallic 

 cases in the center and on the sides of the main corridor, have 

 taken up considerable time. The theory of arrangement is 

 now: first, an attractive display of the principal minerals in 

 large and showy specimens in the center of the hall and in the 

 east and west wall cases, meeting the needs of the general 

 visitor, who is assisted by large head labels; second, the in- 

 stallation, on the sides of the hall, of the extended series of 

 minerals intended for the student and collector, and for the 



