On July 1, 1897, in order to meet changed conditions, a new plan of organization went into effect. The various divisions and sections of anthropology, biology, and geology, which had previously been conducted independently of one another, the curators and custodians reporting directly to the assistant secretary in charge of the museum, were united under three head curators—one of anthropology, another of biology, and a third of geology. This secured direct expert supervision, and correlated the work of each department. Before this such correlation had been impossible, owing to the large number of independent heads of sections and divisions in each department, who planned and executed the work more or less independently of one another.
In the department of anthropology the system of installation inaugurated by Prof, W. H. Holmes is somewhat elaborate. The primary arrangement is founded, first, on the geographical or ethnographical assemblage, and, second, on the developmental or genetic assemblage. Other methods may be classed as special; they are the chronologic, the comparative, the individual, etc. The primary methods are adapted to the presentation of the general truths of anthropology, and the special methods are available for limited portions of the field.
In many ways the department of biology, under the charge of Dr. F. W. True, was, at the date named, in much better condition than either of the other two departments. Many of the zoölogical divisions had been in existence since the reorganization of the museum, in 1883, and several of them for a much longer period, and as the biological specimens had been in charge of curators and assistants who followed well-defined and long-established methods, the reorganization of the department was a relatively simple matter, no radical changes in the scientific methods or in the business administration being required.
To the organization and administration of the department of geology, Dr. George P. Merrill brought the results of a recent study of various European museums. He found it necessary to make a systematic examination of the written and printed records of the various Government exploring expeditions and surveys, with a view to ascertaining what geological material had been collected which could properly be considered the property of the Government, and what disposition had been made of the same. The law[1] provides
- ↑ "And all collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, archæology, and ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological Survey, or by any other parties for the Government of the United States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National Museum.…"—Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the United States, vol. i, second edition, 1874-1891, p 252.
