214 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



to be fulfilled. The peculiar powers by which Congress 

 are enabled to discharge this trust in all its magnitude, are 

 vested in them by their authority of exclusive legislation 

 over the District of Columbia; but, in the execution of the 

 TRUST, the obligation incumbent upon them by the will of 

 the testator, and by their recorded pledge of the nation's 

 faith, is so to organize, and so to superintend the conduct 

 of the institution, as to spread the benefits to be derived 

 from it not only over the whole surface of this Union, but 

 throughout the civilized world. 



The Smithsonian fund appeared to the committee of the 

 House, which at the last session reported the bill, equiva- 

 lent to a considerable 3'early donation to the United States, 

 to be expended in furnishing the means, and in rewarding 

 the accomplishment, of new discoveries and inventions 

 throughout the whole range of science and of art. The 

 specific means of attaining directly or indirectly this end, 

 are as various as the arts and sciences themselves, and as 

 prolific as the imagination of man. Among the many 

 establishments which were suggested to them, or which 

 occurred to their own consideration, which would be 

 strictly included within the express language of the will, 

 and the undoubted intention of the testator, that upon 

 which they rested as first deserving, and for a succession of 

 several years, the application of the annual income of the 

 fund, was an astronomical observatory of the most enlarged 

 and liberal character, with provisions for the most efifective 

 continual observation of the phenomena of the heavens; 

 for the actual calculations and periodical publication of the 

 results of those observations, and for afltbrding to the navi- 

 gators of our own and of all other maritime nations our con- 

 tribution of all the facilities which the detected secrets of 

 the starry universe can furnish to the wandering pilgrim of 

 this sublunary sphere. It was not the intention or expecta- 

 tion of the committee that the appropriations from the 

 Smithsonian fund should be confined exclusively to this 

 object. Far otherwise; the improvement of all the arts 

 and sciences was embraced in the letter and in the spirit of 

 Mr. Smithson's bequest; and that was one of the principal 

 reasons which induced the committee to recommend, as a 

 fundamental principle for the organization and conduct of 

 the institution, that perpetuity and a regular income should 

 be irrevocably secured to the fund, and yearly appropri- 

 ations made only from the accruing income. A botanical 

 garden, a cabinet of natural history, a museum of miner- 

 alogy, conchology, or geology, a general accumulating 



