PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SiMITHSON's BEQUEST. 847 



to which end it was proposed that it should be attached to 

 the Engineer's office, in the Department of War, and that 

 the mathematical and astronomical instruments already 

 belonging to that Department should be transferred to the 

 use of the observatory. All this must of course be other- 

 wise arranged, if the President and Congress should approve 

 the proposal of establishing the observatory on the Smith- 

 sonian foundation. But that document contains much val- 

 uable information, which may be made available whenever 

 an observatory shall be erected. It is No. 124, House docu- 

 uments of the first session of the 19th Congress. 



In the estimate of expenses at that time, by the Chief 

 Engineer, he assigned for the necessary buildings only 

 14,500 dollars. But as it is desirable that the principal 

 building, the observatory itself, should be, for the pur- 

 poses of observation, unsurpassed by any other edifice con- 

 structed for the same purposes, I would devote one year's 

 interest from the fund to the construction of the buildings ; 

 a second and third, to constitute a fund from the income of 

 which the salaries of the astronomer, his assistants and at- 

 tendants, should be paid ; a fourth and fifth, for the neces- 

 sary instruments and books ; a sixth and seventh, for a fund 

 from the income of which the expense should be defrayed of 

 publishing the ephemeris of observations, and a yearly nauti- 

 cal almanac. These appropriations may be so distributed 

 as to apply a part of the appropriation of each year to each 

 of those necessary expenditures ; but for an establishment 

 so complete as may do honor in all time alike to the testa- 

 tor and his trustees, the United States of America, I cannot 

 reduce my estimate of the necessary expenses below two 

 hundred thousand dollars. 



My principles for this disposal of the funds are these : 



1st. That the most complete establishment of an astrono- 

 mical observatory in the world should be founded by the 

 United States of America; the whole expense of which, 

 both its first cost, and its perpetual maintenance, should be 

 amply provided for, without costing one dollar either to the 

 people or to the principal sum of the Smithsonian bequest. 



2d. That by providing from the income alone of the fund, 

 a supplementary fund, from the interest of which all the 

 salaries shall be paid, and all the annual expenses of publica- 

 tion shall be defrayed, the fund itself would, instead of being 

 impaired accumulate with the lapse of years. I do most 

 fervently wish that this principle might be made the fun- 

 demental law, now and hereafter, so far as may be practi- 

 cable, of all the appropriations of the Smithsonian bequest. 



