The Genesis of the Unifed Spates National Museum. 87 



to become members of the National Institution, and to deposit in its 

 Cabinet their effects, books, and papers." ' 



This invitation was accepted July 17, 1841,-' in a letter from Asbury 

 Dickins, secretary, and although no record of any transfer is to be found 

 in the Bulletin of the National Institution, I have before me a letter 

 from Messrs. John J. Abert, A. O. Dayton, and F. A. Markoe, com- 

 mittee of that society, addre.s.sed to the Secretaries of the War and Navy 

 Departments, January i, 1842, in which, among the other collections in 

 their custody, they mention "the books, minerals, and works of art 

 belonging to the late Columbian Institute, ' ' and also the ' ' books, papers, 

 and proceedings of the late American Historical Society," an organiza- 

 tion to which also the National Institution stood in the position of an 

 heir. 



To Doctor Edward Cutbush is due the preservation of the only state- 

 ment extant of the objects of the Columbian Institute, embodied ap- 

 parently in its constitution, and quoted as follows in his address as its 

 president, delivered January 11, 1817, in Congress Hall, Washington: ^ 



To collect, cultivate, and distribute the various vegetable productions of this and 

 other countries, vs^hether medicinal or esculent, or for the promotion of arts and 

 manfactures. 



To collect and examine the various mineral productions and natural curiosities of 

 the United States, and to give publicity to every discovery that the institute may 

 have been enabled to make. 



To obtain information respecting the mineral waters of the United States, their 

 locality, analysis, and utility, together with such topographical remarks as may aid 

 valetudinarians. 



To invite communications on agricultural subjects, on the management of stock, 

 their diseases, and the remedies. 



To form a topographical and statistical history of the different districts of the 

 United States, noticing particularly the number and extent of streams, how far navi- 

 gable, the agricultural products, the imports and exports, the value of lands, the 

 climate, the state of the thermometer and barometer, the diseases which prevail in 

 the different seasons, the state of the arts and manufactures, and any other informa- 

 tion which may be deemed of general utility. 



To publish annually, or whenever the Institution shall have become possessed of 

 a sufficient stock of important information, such communications as may be of public 

 utility, and to give the earliest information in the public papers of all discoveries 

 that may have been made by or communicated to the Institute. 



' Proceedings of the National Institution, July 12, 1841, 2d Bull., p. 94. 



2 Idem., p. 113. 



3 Cutbush, Edward. An address | delivered before the | Columbian Institute, | for 

 the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, | at the City of Washington, | on the nth Janii- 



ary, 1817. | | By Edward Cutbush, M. D., | Hon. Member of the Philadelphia 



Medical and Chemical Societies ; | Corresponding Member of the Linnaean Society 



of Philadelphia ; j and President of the Institute. | | Published by the request 



of the Columbian Institute, | | Washington. | Printed by Gales & Seaton. | Six 



parts I 1817. Svo., pp. 1-29. 



A copy of this rare pamphlet is in the library of the Surgeon-General's Office, as 

 well as a nearly complete series of the publications of the two brothers Cutbush. 



