JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. Ill 



them, assigning certain shares of the income to be disbursed by them, and stating 

 their authority, privileges, and remedies for infringement of their official rights, or of 

 the interests intrusted to their care. All this would tend not to secure a loyal and 

 harmonious co-operation, to a common end, of the assistants with the Secretary, but 

 to encourage rivalry, to invite collision, to engender hostility, to destroy subordina- 

 tion, to distract the operations of the institution, to impair its efficiency, and to destroy 

 its usefulness. 



The committee are satisfied, too, that the expenditures of the institution would be 

 unprofitably increased by organizing it into several departments, with authority to 

 the head of each department to expend the money appropriated to it. The tendency 

 would be to more subdivisions of duty, to an increase of assistants, by the introduc- 

 tion first of temporary and then of permanent employes, until, as the collections grew 

 larger and the persons charged with their care became more numerous, the greater 

 portion of the income would be absorbed in salaries. Thus the munifience intended 

 to increase and diffuse knowledge among mankind would be chiefly expended in sala- 

 ries and official emoluments. 



Already the committee think it would be well to consider whether it might not be 

 consistent with the proper working of the institution to limit and reduce some of 

 these expenses. 



While the committee desire to preserve and increase the library and museum, as 

 already stated; they think it would be well to repeal the seventh resolution, passed by 

 the Board of Regents on the 2Gth January, 1847, which has already been recited. 



They recommend that in the future the appropriations should be made without ref- 

 erence to any fixed rule of distribution or division between the different operations 

 and objects of the institution, and that the Board, while making specific appropria- 

 tions, should apportion them according to their opinion of what is necessary and 

 proper, giving to each object such sum as its intrinsic importance and a compliance in 

 good faith with the law may seem to demand. 



Thus they will be enabled to economize by postponing or limiting some operations 

 and preferring others, by applying the funds to those objects which at the time appear 

 most pressing, and which promise the most prompt, far-reaching, and beneficial ac- 

 tion. 



In conclusion, the committee adopt the following remarks and recommendations, 

 which they extract from a paper submitted to them by the Secretary, and desire that 

 they may be considered as part of this report : 



"If one-fourth of the whole income is devoted to the museum, additional assistants 

 will be required for the care and management of the specimens, while the withdrawal 

 of Professor Baird from the publications and exchanges will require more help in that 

 quarter. 



" Besides the necessary expenditure for cases and furniture for the library, appropri- 

 tions may be made for carrying on the catalogue system ; for printing reports on 

 libraries ; for the publication of a library manual ; for the preparation and publica- 

 tion of bibliographies ; for completing sets of transactions, and the purchase of other 

 books for the operations of the institution ; also, for printing a catalogue or list of 

 books in the library. 



" In addition to the sum which will be necessarily required for the cases and furni- 

 ture of the museum, a small sum may annually be appropriated for collecting partic- 

 ular desiderata in natural history, to be presented to other institutions as well as 

 preserved in this ; for purchasing instruments and models to illustrate particular 

 branches of knowledge, or to assist in the prosecution of special lines of research, 

 which may serve as samples to artisans in this country, or be used in investigations. 



" Models may also be obtained for multiplying casts of the most celebrated speci- 

 mens of ancient and modern art. 



"Appropriations for all these objects cannot be made in the same year, but discre- 

 tion, as I have said before, should be used as to the time when it would be the most 

 advisable to make the expenditure in each particular case. 



" As few operations as possible ought to be carried on in the building of the insti- 

 tution. Printing, stereotyping, engraving, &c, can be done at a cheaper rate by 

 contract ; these require expensive superintendence ; and workmen, as a general rule, 

 cannot be expected to do as much for public institutions as for a private individual. 

 Besides this, much time must be lost in the interval of the publication of the different 

 articles ; and when it is necessary, on account of the exhaustion of the appropriation, 

 to stop for the year, this can only be done by disbanding the workmen, while the in- 

 terest on the cost of the apparatus remains. 



"These remarks also apply to calculations and reductions of observations, which, 



