44°  Field  Columbian  Museum — Reports,  Vol.  i. 
Books.  Pamphlets. 
Department  of  Geology,                                           1,463  2,687 
Department  of  Ornithology,  368   
Department  of  Zoology,  279   
Records. — No  changes  have  been  made  in  this  department,  the 
original  system  adopted  being  still  maintained.  The  abandonment 
of  the  Department  of  Columbus  Memorial  entailed  an  unusual  amount 
of  labor.  Receipts  were  obtained  for  all  of  the  material  distributed 
and  the  records  show  where  and  when  each  specimen  was  distributed. 
The  total  number  of  specimens  accessioned  during  the  year  has  been 
64,921  and  classified  as  follows  : 
No.  of  No.  of 
Accessions.  Specimens. 
Gifts,   125  5,783 
Loans,   1  15 
Exchanges,   36  4,348 
Collected,   58  11,216 
Purchase,   65  43,558 
Deposit   1  1 
286  64,921 
Departmental  Cataloguing,  Inventorying  and  Labeling. — With  a 
few  minor  exceptions  all  the  specimens  in  Geology  are  now  numbered 
and  catalogued  and  records  of  them  are  filed.  Newly  descriptive 
labels  were  provided  for  the  series  of  framed  enlargements  of  the  cuts 
illustrating  mining  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Several  hundred  large 
specimens  which  had  been  imperfectly  labeled  were  provided  with 
descriptive  labels.  Many  single  collections  were  also  fully  labeled, 
of  which  might  be  mentioned  the  Mazon  Creek  fossils,  local  Niagara 
fossils  and  dinosaur  remains.  In  the  Department  of  Zoology  an  un- 
usual number  of  labels  has  been  written,  the  total  exceeding  those  of 
any  previous  year.  The  system  of  cataloguing  in  the  Department  of 
Botany  has  been  considerably  improved  by  the  introduction  of  a  new 
system  requiring  but  little  clerical  work  to  keep  it  up  to  date.  In  this 
connection  the  report  of  the  Curator  of  the  Department  of  Botany  is 
given  in  full : 
"  The  method  of  handling  incoming  material  is  as  follows  :  Upon 
receipt  of  a  collection  a  blank  form  of  accession  giving  the  date  of 
receipt,  collector's  name,  locality  represented,  number  of  specimens 
and  how  acquired,  is  filled  out  and  deposited  with  the  Recorder  of 
the  Museum,  The  collection  is  then  stored  away  until  its  turn  for 
installation.  When  laid  out  for  mounting,  the  labels  are  permanently 
attached  to  the  sheets,  the  plants  are  placed  upon  them,  and  all  are 
superimposed  in  an  open-ended  box  ready  for  consecutive  handling 
by  the  mounter.     After  mounting,  the  sheets  are  arranged  in  the 
