Viewing page 10 of 21

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

3
In this connection the following  historical notes on the work done on the mollusk collection since my [[strikethrough]]connection [[/strikethrough]] association with it are quoted from my report of 1882, printed in the Report of the Asst Director for that year pp. 21-24.

[[clipping, corrected]] The collection of the mollusca has suffered many vicissitudes in the past. It is about eighteen years since I first became interested in the mollusk collection of the Institution. It is about fourteen years since the writer first took charge of it, and his connection with the duties of the position has been (except during about fourteen months in 1870-71) that of a volunteer worker, struggling to keep from deterioration a valuable typical collection, without clerical assistance, without any of the mechanical aids to labor employed by all museums of equal importance, without any regular allowance whatever for the needs of the department, with a building and cases which rendered the work of preservation more than ordinarily difficult, and with the necessity of supporting myself by other work which occupied nearly all the ordinary working-hours of the day. It is obvious that under such circumstances the curator who succeeded in making any impression on the material which was added from time to time by gift or exchange, in addition to keeping in order [[strikethrough]]among [[/strikethrough]] that originally on hand, might reckon himself fortunate.

The original collection was mounted with cement on glass plates by the late Dr. Philip P. Carpenter. Twice the writer replaced the twelve or fifteen thousand specimens upon their tablets, from which the extremes of winter cold and summer heat had detached them. When the third winter passed and the effect of the temperature was again apparent, I spent a month experimenting with cements, found none reliable, and proceeded to relabel and place in paper trays the entire collection.

From July, 1871, to January, 1875, I was detailed on field work in Alaska by the United States Coast Survey, and again in 1880. During these periods the curatorship remained practically vacant. While engaged in the above-mentioned field work, dredgings were carried on over nearly the whole coast of Alaska, and of invertebrates alone, from 1871 to 1875, not less than 100,000 specimens were forwarded to the Museum. On [[strikethrough]]my [[/strikethrough]] return in 1875, the question of representation at the Centennial Exhibition was mooted, and the curator of mollusks devoted, with the exception of his Sundays, every spare hour of his time for six months in preparing a collection of economic invertebrates for that occasion.

The funds available for this purpose indirectly benefited the collection by the duplicates which came in with specimens collected for exhibition and which were administered upon simultaneously.

At this time the valuable services of Mr. F. G. Sanborn were temporarily obtained, and by hard and constant work the general collection of the Museum was labled, cleaned, and systematically arranged. The policy of the curator from that time forward has been simple.

Specimens of a general character coming in are carefully registered and boxed and put in store. A collection prepared by the late Dr. James Lewis, for the Centennial, of the land and fresh-water shells of the United States, carefully labled, catalogued, and packed, has been retained in its original boxes. Everything of value or not administered upon has been put away, packed and secluded, safe from harm at least, until better times for the colection should arrive. In this way only could the progress made be held good. Until skilled assistance and a constant guardianship are available, it would be very unwise to expose to the inevitable injuries of dust, accident, or carelessness, collections whose value could not be estimated in money. Meanwhile the curator has bent his energies and employed his leisure in putting into shape for future reference special groups, one by one. In this way something has been accomplished. This has been done especially with brachiopods, limpets, and chitons, but unfortunately, owing to defects of the only cases available, mice and dust have since made such effectual inroads upon the chitonidæ that the labor of months has been lost and that part of the collection practically ruined.

The immense collection of Alaskan mollusks, however, has been registered and systematically arranged, compared, and studied in a preliminary way, and has suffered from nothing worse than dust. The administration upon some thirty or forty thousand specimens has taken several years, and has been carried on wholly out of ordinary office hours.

[[strikethrough]]During the last year the curator has been engaged during spare moments in reporting upon the very interesting mollusks of the deep sea obtained by various United States vessels, especially the party on the Coast Survey steamer Blake, under the supervision of Prof. A. Agassiz; and the mollusks of the northwest coast have been temporarily laid aside, to be returned to hereafter. The latter are in a forward state and will take comparatively little labor to prepare a proper monograph and catalogue of them for publication.[[/strikethrough]]

The present state of the collection may be summarized as follows:
1. Labeled in order and accessible for reference, the general collection of mollusks prepared by Dr. Carpenter, and of which part was originally mounted on glass, except two boxes as hereafter mentioned.