3 [23] 



by attending to their duty as Regents, and therefore charging to the insti- 

 tution no expenses, the annual expense of the board will hereafter be very 

 small compared to what it has been : it cannot reasonably be estimated be- 

 yond eight hundred or one thousand dollars annually. 



This item of expenditure has also been increased by the necessary 

 expenses of a committee appointed to visit and report upon public struc- 

 tures in the principal cities of the Union, and to confer with architects, with 

 a view to the selection of convenient plans, based upon the act of Congress, 

 and of a suitable style of architecture. It is believed, that when the 

 institution building shall be completed, Congress and the public will be 

 satisfied with the result of these labors. 



Some expense will annually be incurred by the building committee, 

 until the completion of their task. But, as two of the members of the 

 committee are residents of Washington, that expense will not be large; 

 and will, it is believed, be repaid by the amount of information collected 

 and recorded by them, and by the volume now preparing for publication. 



Document No. ^ is a record of all the important proceedings of the 

 Board of Regents, extracted from their journal, and continued from the 

 close of their proceedings, as given in the last report of the board to Con- 

 gress, down to the end of their last meeting. There will be found, among 

 other resolutions passed by the board, one making appropriations for the 

 current expenses of the institution throughout the coming year; also, the 

 action of the board upon the series of resolutions establishing a scale of 

 expenditure for the next four years. 



Documevt No. 5 is the report of the Executive Committee, in which is 

 proposed to the board a plan of financial operations, and scale of expenditure, 

 for four years from and after the 19th of March next — that is, during the 

 last four )^ears of the building contract; according to which plan, the sum 

 of fifteen thousand dollars may annually, throughout that term, be appro- 

 priated for the current expenses of the institution; and the building may 

 be completed and furnished, and the grounds laid out and fenced, without 

 withdrawing from the amount of so-called accumulated interest — to wit : 

 $242,129, specially made appUcable by Congress to the building — more 

 than S102,000, and thus leaving $140,000 of that sum to be added to the 

 original principal or bequest, as a permanent investment. 



Document No. 6 is the first report of the Secretary of the institution. The 

 programme of the organization, given therein, embraces as well the general 

 considerations which iiave served as a guide in adopting that organiza- 

 tion, as the details both of the plan to increase and of the plan to diffuse 

 knowledge. The report of the Secretary elucidates and explains the pro- 

 gramme, and also contains a statement of the progress made in the pre- 

 paration of the first volume of the Transactions of the institution; in the 

 purchase of apparatus, the preparation for original researches, with sugges- 

 tions as to the operations of the next year, &c., &c. 



The board respectfully express the hope that Congress will cause to be 

 published, along with this report, these several documents. 



All which is respectfully submitted. 



G. M. DALLAS, 

 Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 JOSEPH HENRY, 



December 31, 1847. Secretary. 



I* 



