96 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



among rnnnkind, would be chiefly expended in salaries and official 

 emoluments. 



Already the Committee think it would be well to consider whether it 

 might not be consistent with the proper working of the Institution to 

 limit and reduce some of these expenses. 



While the Committee desire to preserve and increase? the library and 

 museum, as already stated, they think it would be well to repeal the 

 seventh resolution, passed by the Boaid of Regents on the 26th Janu- 

 ary, 1847, which has already been recited. 



They recommend that, in future, the appropriations should be made 

 without reference to any fixed rule of distribution or division between 

 the diflerent operations and objects of the Institution, and that the 

 Board, while making specific appropriations, should apportion them ac- 

 cording to their opinion of what is necessary and proper, giving to each 

 object such sum as its intrinsic importance and a compliance in good 

 faith with the law mh}'^ seem to demand. 



Thus they will be enabled to economize by postponing or limiting 

 some operations and preferring others, by applying the funds to those 

 objects which at the time appear most pressing, and which promise the 

 most prompt, tar-reaching, and beneficial action. 



In conchision, the Committee adopt the following remarks and 

 recommendations, which they extract from a paper submitted to them 

 by the Secretary, and desire that they may be considered as part of 

 this report : 



" If one-fourth of the whole income is devoted to the museum, ad- 

 ditional assistants will be required for the care and management of the 

 specimens, while the withdrawal of Prof. Baird from the publications 

 and exchanges will require more help in that quarter. 



"Besides the necessary expenditure for cases and furniture for the 

 library, appropriations Tnay be made for carr3'ing on the catalogue sys- 

 tem; for |)rintuig reports on libraries ; for the publication of a library 

 manual"; for the preparation and publication of bibliographies; for 

 completing sets of transactions, and the purchase of other books for 

 the operations of the Institution ; also for printing a catalogue or list of 

 books in the hljrary. 



"Inadchtion to the sum which will be necessarily required for the 

 cases and lii'niture of the museum, a small sum may annually be ap- 

 propriated t()r collecting particular desiderata in natural history, to be 

 presented to other institutions as well as preserved in this ; tor pur- 

 chasing instruments and models to illustrate particular branches of 

 knowledge, or to assist in the prosecution of special lines of research, 

 which miy serve as samples to artizans in this countr^^, or be used in 

 investigations. 



" Models may also be obtained for multiplying casts of the most cele- 

 brated specimens of ancient and modern art. 



" Appropriations for all these objects cannot be made in the same 

 year, but discretion, as I have said bef()re, should be used as to the 

 time when it would be the most advisable to make the expenditure in 

 each particular case. 



" As finv ojXMntions as possible ought to be carried on in the build- 

 ing of the Institution. Printing, stereotyping, engraving, &c., can be 



