141 [23] 



edifice indispensable. Tlie Board of Regents were, by tlie legislative 

 charter, instructed to select, as soon as they were organized, a site, and 

 to cause a structure to be reared, and that structure to make ' of sulilcient 

 size, and with suitable rooms or halls for the reception and arrangement, 

 upon a liberal scale,' j^Vs^, of objects of natural history, including a geologi- 

 cal and mineralogical cabinet; second, of a chemical laboratory; tliird, 

 of a library; fourth, of a gallery of oxi; fifth, of the necessary lectui'e-rooms; 

 and, sixth, of the national cabinet of curiosities and relics, now poorly and 

 partially accommodated in the upper story of the Patent OfRce. It is the 

 first duty, of the Regents to obey tlie unequivocal behests of Congress, to 

 carry them out faithfully on the scale and in the spirit they obviously im- 

 port; and to let their measures flow, not from their own discretion, but 

 from the provisions of the law which they are empowered to execute. I 

 say tills in explanation of the dimensions wliich the building must neces- 

 sarily take. It is consecrated to the various and boundless objects that 

 tend to 'increase and diffuse knowledge.' It is designed to participate, 

 as a satellite, in the duration and march of our glorious Union, to be the 

 depository of all the rare productions of nature and art which centuries 

 may gather, and to throw open halls sufficiently ample to contain the 

 knowledge-seeking masses of our countrymen. Congress have stamped 

 this character upon it, by prescribing and appropriating its vast interior com- 

 partments, and by other positive expressions of their will. 



" To conform strictly to instruction, and yet keep within the pecuniary 

 limits assigned to them; to provide the space called for, and yet avoid even 

 the appearance of unnecessary expansion; to combine solidity with archi- 

 tectural beauty, and wholesome ventilation, and to satisfy at once true 

 taste and stern economy by banishing useless embellishment, were aims 

 always cona-olling and uppermost with the Regents. How tar they have 

 succeeded, time will show, and mustbelelt to tiie candor of public opinion. 

 Not doubting that the experienced and reliable contractors for the work 

 will accompUsh their undertaking, in all its details, with exactitude and 

 fidelity, I may venture to give you an anticipation in brief of the building 

 whose first stone is now laid. 



"Its exterior will present a specimen of the style of architecture that pre- 

 vailed some seven centuries ago, chiefly in Germany, Normandy, and south- 

 ern Kurope, which preceded the Gothic, and continues to recommend it- 

 self, for structures like this, to the most enlightened judgment. It is 

 known as the Norman-, or, more strictly speaking, the Lombard style. It 

 harmonizes alike with the extent, the grave uses, and the massive strength 

 of the edifice; it exacts a certain variety in the forms of its parts; and it 

 authorizes any additions that convenience may require, no matter how 

 seemingly irregular they may be. 



" It will extend, east and west, an entire front of four hundred and 

 twenty-six feet, having a central building of fifty by two hundred feet in 

 the clear hiside, v/ith two towers; two wings of unequal fronts, the east 

 one forty-five by seventy five feet in the clear inside, with a vestibule and 

 porch attached to it; the west one thirty- four by sixty-five feet in the clear 

 inside, with a northern semicircular projection. These wings will be con- 

 nected with the central building by two ranges sixty feet in length in the 

 clear inside. It will have a central rear tower, and other towers of diffe- 

 rent heights, sizes, and characters, two of them placed in the wings. All 

 these numerous towers are essential to arrangements within, as flues, 



