Repo?'t of the President. 1 5 



istration of this work and have added materially to the 

 comfort of visitors. 



Department of Public Instruction. — The prolonged 

 illness of Professor Bickmore made it inadvisable for him to 

 continue in active charge of this department, of which he had 

 been the efficient head since its foundation, and while he still 

 remained Curator Emeritus, Mr. Sherwood was made Curator. 

 At the same time all the work connected with the public 

 schools and the lecture system was placed under the direction 

 of this department, as .well as the general photographic work 

 and the custody of all negatives, photographs, electros and 

 slides belonging to the Museum. 



Important relations continue to exist between the Museum 

 and the school system of the City. So far as possible all 

 requests for nature collections have been granted, although 

 this has necessitated the purchase of several hundred new 

 specimens and the construction of new cabinets. The records 

 show that during the year 300 schools have been supplied with 

 collections which were studied by more than 800,000 school 

 children. 



Various courses of lectures were arranged and given as 

 stated later in this report. One of these was the "Children's 

 Course," which was attended by 17,187 pupils. 



Besides a large number of photographs for illustrating the 

 Museitm Journal, Bulletin and other publications, the photo- 

 graphic work has included the making of many negatives for 

 use in the preparation of exhibits and for future reference. 



Writers, artists and illustrators have frequently consulted 

 our photograph files, and many have been supplied with prints 

 for publication. 



Department of Geology and Invertebrate Palaeon- 

 tology. — The cataloguing of the collections of American 

 fossils has been completed, showing a total of 10,416 species 

 represented. Similar work is now being done on the European 

 fossils. The collection of building and ornamental stones 

 has been temporarily installed in the Hall of North American 

 Woods. 



