REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 19 



Each letter of importance is registered as I have described in pre- 

 vious reports, and its course is traced until it is finally disposed of. In 

 addition to letters registered, many are forwarded directly to the 

 Museum, the Bureau of Ethnology, the Zoological Park, the Bureau 

 of International Exchanges, etc., for disposition. Many others, con- 

 cerning publications, are sent directly to the document room there to be 

 filed and accounted for. Referring now only to letters that are regis- 

 tered in the Secretary's office, 3,181 entries were made for the fiscal 

 year 1892-'93. 



A further change in treating correspondence has gradually been 

 forced upon the Secretary, and with the object of obviating the neces- 

 sity of giving so much of his time to matters of purely clerical routine, 

 a decision was finally reached, to delegate authority to the Assistant 

 in charge of office, to the acting Curator in charge of the Museum, and 

 to the Librarian, to sign routine letters bearing exclusively upon desig- 

 nated classes of correspondence. This has relieved the Secretary of 

 personally attending to correspondence of this elass, without essen- 

 ially impairing his proper supervision of official business. 



THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, the nucleus of which 

 was Smithsoifs cabinet of minerals, was formed in part, and for a time 

 entirely maintained, at the expense of the Smithson fund. Subse- 

 quently, at the bidding of Congress, the Institution assumed charge 

 of the so-called "National Cabinet of Curiosities," which included the 

 the collections of the United States exploring expeditions; the collec- 

 tions of the National Institute founded in 1840, and numerous other 

 objects and collections which had accumulated under the charge of the 

 Commissioner of Patents. For thirty-five years these two series of 

 collections have been housed and cared for conjointly, and form the 

 nucleus of what is now known as the National Museum. 



Each year since 1858 Congress has appropriated a certain sum of 

 money for the maintenance of the National Museum, but up to this 

 time it has not made any special provision for the improvement of 

 the collections by purchase, while it is becoming evident that those 

 received by gift or from other Government sources, though of consider- 

 able extent, are of rapidly diminishing consequence, since these things 

 are attaining each year a higher and higher market value, and are 

 tending to be commanded only by purchase. 



In respect of this provision for purchase, the National Museum stands 

 at the foot of all American museums, being surpassed even by every 

 municipal museum of note with which I am acquainted.* The disad- 



"The American Museum of Natural History, for example, expended $23,552.89 for 

 additions to its natural history collections during 1892, while the National Museum, 

 which is of very much wider scope, expended only $5,769.75 during the fiscal year 

 1892-'93, for collections of all kinds. 



