V 



THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



A many of the readers of this biography may have 

 but an indefinite idea of the origin and status 

 of the Institution, a brief explanation of them 

 will make clearer the conditions under which Baird's life 

 work was done. 



James Smithson, illegitimate son of the Duke of 

 Northumberland and Elizabeth Hungerford, niece of the 

 Duke of Somerset, after providing for sundry creditors 

 and dependents, in default of heirs to his nephew, Henry 

 James Hungerford, bequeathed to the United States of 

 America in 1826 the whole of his property, amounting 

 to about half a million dollars, to found "at Washington, 

 under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Estab- 

 lishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge 

 among men." 



In 1835 this property, by the death without heirs of 

 the beneficiaries, became due to the United States and 

 was paid into the Treasury in December, 1838. 



This fund was afterward invested by the then Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury almost wholly in state bonds, 

 payment on which was a few years later defaulted, so 

 that most of the principal of this trust fund was absolutely 

 lost. Congress, however, remedied this misfortune by 

 directing the Secretary of the Treasury to pay to the 

 authorities of the Institution the income which should 

 have been received from the original investment, out of 

 the funds permanently payable on account of the debts 

 of the United States. 



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