REPORT. 



To THE President and Fellows of Harvard College : — 



It is now twenty years since the foundation of the Museum. 

 During that time the Museum building has more than trebled in 

 size, and its collections are unsurpassed in some departments. 

 Thanks to the active co-operation of the assistants, the large col- 

 lections have been kept in excellent order, and rapid progress 

 has been made in the arrangement of the rooms intended for 

 public exhibition. With the present additions to the building it 

 will become possible to complete the exhibition-rooms containing 

 the Zoological collection, and to begin in the course of two or 

 three years the arrangement of the Palagontological exhibition- 

 rooms. 



Although I gave the plans proposed for the completion of the 

 northern wing of the Museum, and of the northwestern corner- 

 piece in 1875, yet these have from various causes undergone very 

 important modifications, so that at the risk of some repetitions 

 I here give the final plans as they have been adopted, and from 

 which the wing building has been completed, and the northwest- 

 ern corner-piece begun during the past year. 



The changes in the plans are mainly due to the incorporation 

 of the building of the Peabody Museum with the building 

 originally planned for the Museum, and to the modifications in- 

 volved in the limitations laid upon the space to be devoted to ex- 

 hibitions. The explanations of the plans will show the general 

 distribution of the available space which leaves full freedom for 

 the development of any branch of the Museum by its simple 

 removal to a new section of the building as soon as it has out- 

 grown the limits assigned to it here. 



