4 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



The present National Museum is an integral part and the direct out- 

 growth of the Smithsonian Institution. In the fundamental law crea- 

 ting the Institution, Congress provided for the erection of a building 

 suitable for natural histor}^ collections, including a geological and 

 mineralogical cabinet, and further ordered that — 



Wlienever suitable arrangements can be made from time to time for their reception, 

 all objects of art and of foreign and curious research, and all objects of natural 

 history, plants, and geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United 

 States, which may l)e in the city of Washington, in whosesoever custody they may 

 be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of Regents 

 to receive them, and shall be so arranged and classified in the building erected for 

 the Institution as best to facilitate the examination and study of them; and when- 

 ever new specimens in natural history, geology, or mineralogy are obtained for the 

 Museum of the Institution, by exchanges of duplicate specimens, which the Regents 

 may in their discretion make, or by donation, which they may receive, or other- 

 wise, the Regents shall cause such new specimens to be appropriately classed and 

 arranged. 



From the results of this legislation sprang the Museum, yet several 

 propositions and institutions antecedent to the establishment of the 

 Smithsonian Institution contributed to the origin and development of 

 the present collections. 



To Doctor Goode's careful researches into the histor}^ of American 

 scientific institutions the reader desiring to know the history of the 

 National Museum in detail is referred.^ As far back as 1806 Joel Bar- 

 low, the well-known author of Tlie Columbiad^ put forward a plan for 

 the establishment of a national institution in which a general museum 

 had a prominent part. The early students and public men of the United 

 States fully recognized the importance, at least for natural history 

 studies, of the gathering and preservation of collections, and many 

 such turned toward Philadelphia, which, even after it ceased to be the 

 national capital, continued for a time the scientific and literary center 

 of the country. 



The first real scientific collection, both as regards material and 

 arrangement, which came into the possession of the United States 

 Government was the mineralogical cabinet of James Smithson (since 

 unfortunately destroyed by fire), and this, with the results of the policy 

 initiated in furtherance of the act incorporating the Smithsonian 

 Institution, formed the basis of the present national collections. 



It is anticipating somewhat, however, to make this statement, since 

 collections began to be brought together in Washington before the 

 Smithsonian Institution was actually founded, although they were 

 directly traceable to the Smithson bequest. Not long after its 

 announcement there was formed in Washington, chiefly through the 

 exertions of the Hon. Joel R. Poinsett, an organization under the title 



^ The Genesis of the National Museum. By G. Brown Goode. Report of the U. S. 

 National Museum for 1891, pp. 273-380. 



