272 REl'OKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, liK«. 



Musoitin, on the .south .side of the Mall between tlie Museum buildinf,^ 

 and that of the Army Medical Museum, the amount requested for the 

 pur})ose varvin*;" in the several ]:»ills and amendments thereto from 

 1300,000 to $S()0,0<»0. Both of these measures failed to pass. The 

 report of the House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, 

 su))mitted February K), 1889, contains a letter from the Director of 

 the Survey, from which the following extracts, interesting in this 

 connection, are taken: 



111 addition to the rooms in the rented [Hooe] building, through the courtesy of 

 the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution the Survey is permitted to use twenty- 

 two rooms in the National Museum, and these are all crow(le<l in such manner that 

 work is seriously ol>structed. The rooms in the National Museum were temporarily 

 given to the Survey at a time when there was no pressing necessity for their use by 

 the officers of the Museum; but at the present time the entire Museum is so crowded 

 that the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Director of the Museum are anxious 

 to have these rooms surrendered for their use. * * * 



The building planned does not provide for museum space. The statutes now pro- 

 vide that the collections of the Geological Survey, when no longer needed for 

 investigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National Museum. The plan 

 contemplated in the bill before your committee provides that the building for the 

 Geological Survey shall be near to the National Museum— between that building and 

 the Army Medical Museum building. Such an arrangement of buildings will be 

 highly advantageous to the Survey, as the offices of the Survey Avould be adjacent 

 to the National Museum, and the materials stored in the Museum building would be 

 accessible for reference and comparison, as constantly needed. 



In his annual report for 1890, Assistant Secretar}^ George Brown 

 Goode, in charge of the Museum, made the following statements 

 regarding the necessity for a new building: 



The necessity for additional room is constantly increasing, and several of the c(j1- 

 lections, to wit, transportation and engineering, fishes, reptiles, birds' eggs, mol- 

 lusks, insects, marine invertebrates, vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, fossil and 

 recent plants, are in some instances wholly unprovided for, and in others only in a 

 very inadecjuate degree. 



In the main hall of the Smithsonian building is still exhibited the collection of 

 birds. A few cases containing birds' eggs and shells have recently l)een arranged 

 along the center of this hall. 



Eleven of the departments in the National Museum have no space assigned to 

 them in the Museum building, solely on account of its crowded condition. The col- 

 lection of prehistoric antliropological objects remains installed on the second floor 

 of the Smithsonian building. The collections of the remaining ten departments 

 can not be exhibited or even properly arranged and classified without more room. 

 These collections are at present stored in the attics and basements of the Smithso- 

 nian and Armory buildings, and are inaccessible for study and for the other purposes 

 for which they were obtained. The specimens comprising these collections are not 

 simply objects of natural history, possessing an abstract interest to the student, but 

 represent the application of natural objects to the industries, and, as such, are of 

 great importance. There are several collections of ores, minerals, building stones, 

 and of objects representing various arts and industries, which are of very great value, 

 since they furnish to the American manufacturer and designer information of inesti- 

 mable importance. 



