2S2 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



All of the wooden storage t^hedw are in eonstant danger from destruction by fire. 

 This is a matter especially serious in connection with two long sheds near the Smith- 

 sonian building. Tn his rei)ort ti) tlie Regents, i>resente<l to Congress in bS94, .Secre- 

 tary Langley made an earnest apja'al for relief in the following words: 



"I have the assurance of experts that a tire conmmnicated to these rooms would 

 sweep througii the entire length of the building, and although the building itself is 

 fireproof as against any ordinary danger, it may well Ik- il(>ul)ted whether any of the 

 collections therein exhibited can ))e regardeti as safe if the rooms immediately below 

 should be exposed to so peculiarly severe a conflagration as would be caused by the 

 ignition of these large quantities of inflammable material. Besides this, these wooden 

 sheds, which (as I have already intimated) are used not only for storerooms, but for 

 workshops, for the preservation of specimens, and also as sheds for. the carpenters, 

 are likewise liable to cause serious losses should a fin* be kindled in any of them, 

 and all of these, I repeat, are inunediately under the windows of the Smithscmian 

 building. 



"In a report recently submitted by one of the inspectors of the Association of Fire 

 Underwriters, in response to a request from me for a statement as to what insurance 

 rates would be fixed upon the sheds in question, the Smithsonian building is referred 

 to as an undesirable risk, owing solely to the presence of all this inflannnable mate- 

 rial umlerneath and in the adjoining sheds, on which latter insurance can not be 

 placed for less than |40 per $1,000. This is, I am informed, nearly ten times the 

 rate which would l)e charged on an ordinary warehouse. The chief danger, how- 

 ever, is not to the sheds themselves or their contents, but to the adjoining collec- 

 tions, which, without reference to their scientific interest but merely to their intrinsic 

 value, represent a very large sum of money." 



The result of all this crowding and lack of facility for work is that what is accom- 

 plished for public education by the Museum requires unnecessary and unusual effort, 

 and that the fullest results are not realized from the a])propriations which are made 

 for this branch of the pul)lic service. 



Another result is that the value of the collections, the property of tlie nation, is 

 not increasing as rapidly as it would otherwise do. The amount of valuable mate- 

 rial presented and beciueathed to the Museum is not as great as it seemed likely to 

 be a few years ago. Nothing which is offered is refused, but the authorities of the 

 Museum do not feel at liberty to ask for gifts when they can not assure the givers 

 that they can be suitably cared for; and persons having collections to give, being 

 aware of the lack of room, naturally prefer to place their gifts in institutions where 

 there is room to receive them. 



Notwithstanding these hindrances to the Museum's j)rogress, the increment from 

 legitimate sources, especially from the various Departments of the (iovernment, 

 which are required by law to deposit their aci-unndatiotis here, was during the year 

 1895 about l:i7,000 specimens. In 1894 the accessions were more nmnerous, the 

 total exceeding 171,000. This large increase was in part at least due to the fact that 

 a large number of collections were acquired at the close of the World's Fair in 

 Chicago. These were almost without exception collections which had been ])re- 

 pared by foreign exhibitors with the Smithsonian Institution in mind as the ultimate 

 place of deposit. 



It would have been possible to have ol)tain('d an immense nund)er of specimens 

 on this occasion, but it was deemed i)roper to refrain from efforts in this direction, 

 not only because of the cousideraticms just referred to hut also on aci-ount of the 

 desire of the people of Chicago to retain such objects in tiieir own city as a begin- 

 ning toward a great civic nuiseum whicdi might serve as a permanent memorial of 

 the World's Columbian Expositicm. It has always been the policy of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution to encourage the develojiment of such institutions throughout the 

 United States, and to assist in developing them, and on this account many proffers 



