28 COLUMBIAN INSTITUTE FOR THE 



Commissioners of the City from the proceeds of a similar sale. The 

 draft of the petition prepared for Congress is missing, but it un- 

 doubtedly conformed more or less closely with the report, which not 

 only entered into much detail but is interesting as proposing benefits 

 to the Capitol and Capitol grounds as well as to the Institute. A 

 brief abstract will answer in this connection. 



The purpose of the memorial to Congress was to secure aid to en- 

 able the Institute to build a wall around the botanic garden, to bring 

 the water of the eastern branch of Tiber Creek to Capitol Hill, to 

 cultivate the garden, and to erect the necessary buildings therein, 

 the entire expense of which was placed at $30,000. The length and 

 cost of the wall were given. Water could be taken from the eastern 

 branch of Tiber Creek at a level sufficiently high to reach the top of 

 the windows of the second story of the Capitol building and be 

 brought to the Capitol grounds in 6-inch cast iron pipes at not ex- 

 ceeding $16,200. A reservoir in those grounds would be a great 

 security in the event of fire, and the water might be carried into 

 every room in the Capitol, afterwards serving to water the botanic 

 garden, etc. The application of the proceeds of the sale, it was 

 proposed, should be under the direction of the Commissioner of Pub- 

 lic Buildings and the Columbian Institute. 



The matter of securing funds in the same manner was again 

 brought up early in 1828, and is mentioned in the minutes of several 

 subsequent meetings until the spring of 1830. No drafts of reports 

 or petitions prepared during this period are preserved in the files, 

 but at least one memorial reached Congress, in 1828, and failed of 

 consideration through a misunderstanding on the part of the House 

 Committee on Public Buildings. 



In the early part of 1830 Thomas Law presented a paper on a 

 botanical garden and a building for the Institute, accompanied with 

 plans and estimates, which, with a draft of a memorial by Judge 

 Cranch, were referred to a committee with instructions to prepare 

 a petition to Congress. The immediate presentation of this petition 

 was withheld, and there is no record of its having been subsequently 

 transmitted, though it may have been. 



While some of the petitions presented or prepared for presentation 

 to Congress for assistance in the manner above described contained 

 a vague intimation that another form of financial aid might be 

 more highly regarded by Congress, there seems to have been only 

 one direct appeal for an appropriation of money, which was made 

 in the form of a resolution, submitted to the society on July 2, 1825, 

 the disposition of which is not recorded, as follows : 



Resolved, that the President of the United States be requested to recommend 

 to Congress the importance of establishing at the seat of the general govern- 



