30 S. Mis. 53. 



intention of the donor. Again : the building was to have been finished 

 in five years, and the income afier this was to be increased by the 

 interest on the remaining surplus fiand ; but the Regents have found it 

 necessary for the better security of the library and museum to add fifty 

 thousand dollars to the cost of the edifice ; and ten years will have 

 elapsed from the beginning, instead of five, before any income from 

 the surplus fund will be available. This additional expense is not 

 incurred for the active operations, and the question may be asked 

 whether they ought to bear any part of this additional burden. Further- 

 more, at the time the division was made, it was thought obligatory on 

 the part of the Institution to support the great museum of the exploring 

 expedition ; but the Regents have since concluded that it is not advisa- 

 ble to take charge of this collection; and Congress, by its appropriation 

 for the enlargemxent of the Patent Office, concurred in the opinion ex- 

 pressed in the Senate by the Hon. Jefferson Davis, that it was a gift 

 which ought not to be pressed upon the Institution. The inquiry may 

 also, in this case, be made whether it is advisable in the present state 

 of the funds, and the wants of the active operations, to expend any 

 considerable portion of the income in the reproduction of a collection 

 of objects of nature and art.- Again : the active operations are procur- 

 ing annually for the library, by exchange, a large number of valuable 

 books, which, in tim.e, of themselves will form a rare and valuable 

 collection, and even if the division of the income is to be continued, 

 a sum equal in amount to the price of these books ought to be charged 

 to the library, and an equal amount credited to the active operations. 



Though a large library connected with the Institution would be 

 valuable in itself, and convenient to those who are in the immediate 

 vicinity of the Smithsonian building, j^et, as has been said before, it 

 is not essentially necessary to the active operations. It would be of 

 comparatively little importance to the greater number of the co-labor- 

 ers of the Institution, who are found in every part of the United States, 

 and are not confinedeven to these limits. The author of the great 

 work on the American Algas, now publishing in the Smithsonian Con- 

 tributions, is a resident member of Trinity College, Dubhn; and but 

 few of the authors of the Smithsonian memoirs reside in Washington. 

 The libraries, therefore, of the whole country, and in some cases of 

 other countries, are at the service of the Institution, and employed for 

 its purposes. 



Similar remarks apply to the museum. It is not the intention 

 of the Institution to attempt to examine and describe within the 

 walls of its own building all the objects which may be referred to it. 

 To accomplish this, a corps of naturalists, each learned in his own 

 branch, would be required, at an expense which the whole income 

 would be inadequate to micet. In the present state of knowledge, that 

 profound altainmcnt necessary to advance science can only be made 

 by an individual, however gifted, but in one or two narrow lines ; and 

 hence a number of members are required to complete a single class 

 in any of the learned academies of Europe; and therefore the plan 

 which was once proposed, of establishing on the Smithsonian fund an 

 academy of associated members, was entirely incompatible with the 

 limited income of the Institution. The more feasible and far less 



