UPON 



THE CONDITION AND PROGRESS OF THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 

 DURING THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1900. 



ElCHARD RaTHBUN, 



Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



The act of Congress of 1846 establishing the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion made it the legal place of deposit for all "objects of art and of 

 foreign and ciirious research, and all objects of natural histor}^, plants, 

 and geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United 

 States," and thereby created, in fact if not in name, a national museum. 

 With extraordinary foresight the same act provided for additions to 

 the national collections by exchange, donation, or other means, and 

 for the arrangement and classification of the specimens in a manner 

 best to facilitate their examination and study, all in such broad and 

 comprehensive terms as to cover the full activities of a great establish- 

 ment of this kind. 



The Smithson fund at that time amounted to about half a million 

 dollars, a sum then considered ample to meet the needs of the multifa- 

 rious operations upon which it was proposed that the Smithsonian 

 Institution should enter. In 1846 probably not more than one or two 

 universities or learned establishments in America had so large an 

 endowment, and it was apparently the idea of Congress that the fund 

 was sufficient both for the erection of a building and for the care of the 

 collections which would be turned over to it or acquired by the national 

 survej's and in other ways. The Museum thus began as an integral 

 part of the Institution, coordinate with its librar}-, and was required 

 by law to provide for the Government collections which had previ- 

 ously accumulated, a duty which the Institution did not see its way 

 clear to fulfill until 1858, when Congress began to make small yearly 

 appropriations for the purpose. So inadequate, however, were the 



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