UPON 



THE CONDITION AND PROGRESS OF THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 

 DURING THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1908. 



Richard Rathbun, 



Assistant Secretary uf the Siiuthsuidaa Institution, in charge of tlic U. S. National Museum. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



Tlie United States National Museum had its origin in the act of 

 Congress of 1846 founding the Smithsonian Institution, which made 

 the formation of a museum one of the principal functions of the 

 hitter, and provided that — 



Whenever suitable arrangements can be made from time to time for their recep- 

 tion, all ol)jects of art and of foreign and curious researcli, and all objects of natural 

 history, plants, and geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United 

 States, Avhich may be in the city of Washington, in whosesoever custody they may 

 be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of Regents 

 to receive them, and shall be so arranged and classified in the building erected for 

 the Institution as best to facilitate the examination and study of them; and when- 

 ever new specimens in natural history, geology, or mineralogy are obtained for the 

 museum of the Institution, by exchanges of duplicate specimens, which the Regents 

 may in then- discretion make, or by donation, which they may receive, or otherwise, 

 the Regents shall cause such new specimens to be appropriately classed and arranged. 



The principal and accumulated interest of the Smithsonian fund 

 amounted at that time to about $750,000, a sum considered ample to 

 meet the needs of the various operations in which it was proposed that 

 the Smithsonian Institution should engage. In 18-t6 probably not 

 more than one or two universities or learned establishments in Amer- 

 ica had so large an endowment, and it was apparently the idea of 

 Congress that the fund was sufficient both for the erection of a build- 

 ing and for the care of the collections which would be turned over 

 to it or acquired by the national surveys, and in other ways. The 

 Museum thus began as an integral part of the Institution, coordinate 

 with its library, and was required b}' law to provide for the Govern- 

 ment collections which had previously accuumlated, a duty which the 



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