REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 49 



uuder the Regents ou lower terms tbau the same nominal service is 

 elsewhere paid for by the Government. At the same time with this 

 fixity of tenure and permanence of position, closer and perhaps kindlier 

 relations are found to arise than exist else where in the midst of frequent 

 change ; and the writer is happy to believe that the best and most val- 

 uable part of this service is often an unbought and voluntary one, and 

 that this is recognized by both employer and employed. 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The relations of the Museum to the Smithsonian Institution have so 

 frequently been discussed, that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them at 

 the present time. The connection of the Museum with the present 

 establishment has not only always been ver^' much more intimate than 

 that of many of the other undertakings which were projected at the time 

 of the foundation of the Institution, but as has already been observed, 

 it rests on a radically distinct footing from any other, since the Smith- 

 sonian Institution has actual property in the Museum, equalling probably 

 its whole original fund. Through the agency of the Museum the Insti- 

 tution is able to direct the work of a goodly number of investigators, who, 

 in addition to their regular administrative work, are doing each year im. 

 portant service in the increase and diffusion of knowledge. In fact so 

 much is done in the name of the Institution by the officers of the Museum 

 and the Bureau of Ethnology in all the fields of biological, anthropologi- 

 cal, and geological work, that the Institution can devote a larger pro- 

 portion of its own funds to the encouragement of investigation in phys- 

 ical sciences than it coidd were not the biological sciences thus well 

 provided for. 



The statement of the work of the year in the Museum some years 

 since became so great in extent that it was found necessar3^ to add a 

 second volume to the Smithsonian Eeport to contain it. Referring then 

 to the report of Dr. G. Brown Goode, the assistant secretary in charge 

 of the Museum, for a history of the work as performed in its various 

 departments, I need here refer only to some of the most important gen- 

 eral considerations. 



Prominent among these are the financial relations of the Museum to 

 the Smithsonian and to the General Government, and the changes ob- 

 tained by legislation in the past year, with regard to placiug the appro- 

 priations more immediately under the care of the Regents, but these I 

 have already spoken of under the head of " Finance." 



During the past year a committee appointed by mo to investigate the 

 sanitary condition of the present Museum structure, has reported in 

 urgent terms on the need in the interest of health, of very great changes 

 such as can not be undertaken till another building exists to receive 

 the present personnel, the collections, and the jiublic duringthe changes. 



H. Mis. 142 4 



