in Washington, to various universities, and to private individuals both in this country and abroad. A total of 4,068 specimens have been sent out within the year. The collections in all branches of the department have as usual been accessible to accredited students, but extended research has been confined to the paleontological divisions.

Ira Edwards, curator of geology in the Milwaukee Public Museum, was again detailed for four months to study the Wisconsin Cambrian brachiopods of our collections; Prof. B. F. Howell, of Princeton University, was occupied in research work in connection with a monograph of the trilobite family Agnostidae; and Dr. A. F. Foerste, who regularly spends his summer vacation in a study of our Early Paleozoic collections, was occupied in this way during the summer of 1926.

Dr. R. C. Moore, State geologist of Kansas, has had frequent occasion to consult the collections during his studies of the major geosynclines of North America, a project of the American Petroleum Institute in cooperation with the National Research Council.

Dr. I. Hayasaki, of Tohoku Imperial University, has studied our Paleozoic corals, and Dr. Yoshiaki Ozawa, of the Imperial University of Tokyo, studied Carboniferous bryozoans and foraminifera. Dr. I. P. Tolmachoff, of the Carnegie Museum, studied the Paleozoic collections to further his researches on Arctic paleontology.

The stratigraphic portion of the Austin collection of Early Silurian fossils was assembled and arranged by three graduate students of George Washington University, G. R. Tash, John E. Organ, and M. W. Shepherd, each of whom studied one of the three formations of the group.

W. S. Dyer of the Geological Survey of Canada, and M. M. Knechtel, a graduate student of Johns Hopkins University, have had access to the Mesozoic collections and library while engaged in researches, and Dr. Frank M. Carpenter, of the Bussey Institute, examined the unstudied Mesozoic and Cenozoic insects and selected material for study and description. The Cenozoic and Mesozoic collections have been constantly consulted and worked upon by members of the United States Geological Survey staff who have desk room and working space in the division.

Dr. R. Florin, assistant curator of paleobotany in the Royal State Museum at Stockholm, spent some days studying our fossil plants in connection with a monograph on the Permian floras of China.

Dr. O. P. Hay and Mr. Remington Kellogg have continued their researches in the division of vertebrate paleontology, and Charles Merriam has made a study of the collections from the John Day formation of Oregon.

Assistance to other Government bureaus and individuals.-This work has continued as heretofore and consists mainly in supplying materials for investigation. No record is supplied of the number of callers to whom information has been furnished, or of letters written on official business. It can be said that at least one-fourth of the time of the heads of divisions is taken up in furnishing information either by letter, to callers, or in the examination of materials. During the year, 450 lots were received through official channels for report, and 470 letters, chiefly requests for information on various subjects, were referred to the department from the division of correspondence,

Visits to other institutions and places on official work. The head curator was in Europe for practically the entire summer of 1926, his time being devoted at first to attendance on the Geological Congress in Madrid, and later to geological explorations on the island of Majorca, and a study of European museums. Periods of from one to several days were spent in the museums of Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Brussels, and London. Geological trips were also made into the tin mining districts of Cornwall, England, and the celebrated serpentine areas of Kynance. Two side trips were made to the gem-cutting town of Oberstein, Germany, where important additions to the Isaac Lea collection of gems were made by purchase. Assistant Curator W. F. Foshag visited the following mineral collections: American Museum of Natural History, Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, the private collection of George Vaux at Bryn Mawr, Pa., and the public collection in the Chamber of Mines at Chihuahua City, Mexico.

In the course of his work in Europe, Doctor Bassler studied methods of installation and collections in the leading museums of Paris, Münich, Frankfort, Berlin, and London.

DISTRIBUTION AND EXCHANGE OF SPECIMENS

The matter of distribution of specimens remains much as in previous years. Of the sets illustrating phases of rockweathering and soil formation, 27, aggregating 432 specimens, have been sent out as gifts. Additional material prepared on special requests number 867 specimens sent out as gifts; 4,068 as loans, usually for purposes of research; 8,137 specimens and 150 pounds of material as exchanges; and one lot numbering 138 specimens as a transfer to a Government bureau.

NUMBER OF SPECIMENS UNDER DEPARTMENT

The estimated totals as given by heads of divisions are as follows:

As mentioned repeatedly, these figures are necessarily estimates. An actual count of specimens of this nature is a practical impossibility.

DEPARTMENT OF ARTS AND INDUSTRIES AND DIVISION OF HISTORY

By WILLIAM DEC. RAVENEL, Director of Arts and Industries

The first Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, in interpreting the organic act establishing the Smithsonian, included as within the scope of the Museum of the Nation, among other things, the history of the progress of useful inventions, and the collection of raw materials and products of manufactures and arts. The early development of the Museum, however, was chiefly along other lines in the natural history, geology, ethnology, and archeology of the United States, and to a lesser degree of other countries. Greater opportunities for acquisitions in these directions were brought about through the activities of the scientific and economic surveys of the Government, many of which were the direct outgrowths of earlier explorations stimulated or directed by the Smithsonian Institution. It was not until 1876 that opportunity was afforded for establishing a department of industrial arts on a creditable basis, and so important was the subject considered that the curatorship was given by Secretary Baird to Dr. G. Brown Goode, who as assistant secretary was in charge of the National Museum. From the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 at Philadelphia, the first of the large international expositions to be held in the United States, the National Museum obtained 100 carloads of valuable material, being a large part of the foreign exhibits in the useful arts, as well as some from domestic sources. This unusual acquisition was the immediate cause of the erection of the brick building now known as the Arts and Industries Building. The collections from the Philadelphia Exhibition with additions from other sources were sufficiently extensive to occupy the greater part of this building, when it was completed in 1881. The division of American history was also started at this time.

The first separate report of the National Museum, that for 1881, relates how the great mass of material acquired at Philadelphia, which had been stored in the Armory Building had then been brought to the Museum and stored in two of the central courts; that the collection of naval models and musical instruments and a portion of the Chinese collection were put in order and were ready for exhibition; that the materia medica collections had been assorted