The Genesis of fJic Unifed States National Miiscii})!. 1 15 



The sixth Government expedition was that by G. W. Featherston- 

 haugh, in 1834-35, to explore the geology of the elevated country 

 beween the Missouri and Red rivers and the Wisconsin Territories. I 

 have found no record of the disposition of his collections, but it is not 

 improbable that he may have carried them with him to England. 



The seventh expedition was that inider Lieutenant Wilkes, already 

 referred to as having been sent out in 1838, under the direction of Presi- 

 dent Van Buren, who seems to have intrusted the plans very largely to 

 Mr. Poinsett, who was the first to urge the formation of a national 

 museum, and to whom was doubtless due the insertion of the clause 

 instructing the officers to preserve and bring back collections in natural 

 liistor}' , a precaution which might easily have been overlooked, since the 

 expedition was organized professedly in the interests of the American 

 whale fisher5^ 



It was, perhaps, the fact that there was no suitable depository for 

 collections at the seat of Government that stimulated Mr. Poinsett to 

 immediate action in 1840, when he founded the National Institution, the 

 arrival of these collections from the Pacific being at that time expected. 



The purpose of Mr. Poinsett's efforts is shown clearly in his first anni- 

 versary address: 



There are many of our countrymen [says he] who, like Sir Hans Sloane, the 

 founder of the British Museum, look forward with regret to the sale and dispersion 

 of their collections, and desiring to have them preserved entire, would deposit them 

 with an institution which will be as stable as the Government that protects it. For 

 these purposes, and especially if it [the National Institution] be intrusted, as we 

 hope it will be, with the specimens of natural history collected by the exploring 

 squadron, it will be necessary that measures should be early adopted to have erected 

 on a suitable site a plain, fireproof building, where the increasing and valuable collec- 

 tions may be displayed, and be examined by the scientific inquirer. We cherish the 

 hope that they will form the foundation of a National Museum, and contribute to 

 spread the light of science over our land. 



The exploring expedition [he continued] has already sent home a large collec- 

 tion, which remains packed away in boxes in a room belonging to the Philadelphia 

 Museum, generously loaned bj^ the company for that purpose; and we may antici- 

 pate from the ability and well-known zeal of the naturalists who accompanied it, 

 that the squadron itself, shortly expected, will return richly freighted with objects 

 of natural history. I can not believe that, after all the labor, pains, and expense 

 incurred in procuring them, these specimens are not to be brought to Washington 

 to be arranged and exhibited here." ' 



Mr. Poinsett was at this time still Secretary of War, and had the 

 power to effect at least the beginning of what he desired to see done, 

 and one of his last official acts was to persuade his colleague, James K. 

 Paulding, the Secretary of the Navy, to order the.se collections forwarded 

 from Philadelphia. 



In February the Institution was informed ' ' that about one hundred 

 and fifty boxes, the results, as far as have been received, of the Explor- 



' Discourse on the Objects and Importance of the National Institution, 1841, p. 50. 



