KEPOKT OF THE SECKETAKY. 3 



would not be perhaps impossible, but it would certainly be difficult, to 

 make such a permanent arrangement consistently with the independence 

 of the Smithsonian, and its continued devotion to the original objects 

 of its being; but since the project is from time to time renewed, it may 

 not be superfluous to observe that in any case the Museum would stand 

 on an entirely diflereut footing from any other governmental bureau of 

 applied science, if only because it has been created in a very consider- 

 able degree out of the endowment income of the Institution; while other 

 scientific bureaus have grown up wholly independent of the Smithso- 

 nian, which has neither legal nor moral title to their property. 



It must be admitted, however, that the line of demarcation, even in 

 the Museum, between the property to which the Smithsonian has an 

 undoubted legal title; that to which this claim is only presumptive; and 

 that to which it has no claim, is not in all cases at present clearly drawn, 

 and we are endeavoring to remedy this uncertainty. As regards the 

 care of this property, a great gain has been made in the past year by 

 carrying out (with the concurrence of the Secretary of the Interior) the 

 wishes which the Eegents expressed in regard to the Museum at their 

 last meeting; so that it is no longer uncertain how far this care falls 

 upon the Institution, and how far upon the Interior Department. 



Keference has just been made to the question of the general policy to 

 be followed by the Smithsonian with regard to its accepting the charge 

 of other Government departments of science, and this question is so far 

 from being an idle one that the Secretary has been called upon during 

 the past year to consider whether it was his duty to advise that the Fish 

 Commission, which until lately had such intimate though unofficial re- 

 lations with the Institution, should be united with it by a legal bond, 

 or not. While feeling that it would be in many respects most desira- 

 ble to connect with the Smithsonian the purely scientific portions of the 

 Fish Commission and its ai)paratus of research, he could not but recog- 

 nize that these were almost iudissolubly mingled with certain great 

 utilitarian interests, which were not equally proper subjects of the 

 Smithsonian's care; and after consultation with those Kegents whose 

 advice he could separately obtain, he felt unable to urge such a union 

 with any confidence thiiv it would meet the approbation of the Board. 



The President saw tit to appoint as Commissioner, Dr. G. Brown 

 Goode, the Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who, 

 while still, with my full consent, retaining that place, accepted the 

 office provisionally, from a sense of duty to the interests of the Fish 

 Commission, concerning which he had obtained an intimate acquaint- 

 ance under the late Professor Baird. 



Having placed these interests on a proper footing ; after a brief period 

 of laborious but wholly gratuitous service, he declined the higher salary 

 and permanent appointment of Commissioner which was pressed upon 

 him, and resumed the duti«?s hereto which his scientific life has beeu 

 chiefly devoted. 



