THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



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the channel into which gifts for scientific purposes might be directed, 

 even if they do not see their way clear to accepting such donations for 

 the Institution itself. 



For the National Museum a great new building is a prime necessity. 

 The Museum has practically reached a point where it is physically 

 impossible that it should grow under present conditions. 



Secretary Langley has for several 3 T ears past been urging upon the 

 Government the dispatch of several expeditions for capturing the 

 species of large mammals so rapidly being destroyed in the United 

 States and Alaska; but even without this, the National Zoological 

 Park, with its relationships to the other great national parks, is des- 

 tined to be one of the great collections of the world. 



The Bureau of American Ethnology, which since its organization 

 has devoted itself to the aboriginees of this continent, may have new 

 work to do in Porto Rico and in Hawaii. 



Among still other activities, of which there is now but a premonition, 

 a National Gallery of Art (provided for by Congress in the original 

 charter) may be alluded to. 



The past of the Smithsonian Institution is secure, its presentis known 

 to all men, and it looks forward to the future in the belief that it will 

 worthily continue under whatever changing conditions to "increase and 

 diffuse knowledge among men." 



