10 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1803. 



manifest. Exceedingly miportaut material is constantly offered at 

 prices very much below what it would cost to obtain it by collecting, 

 and in many instances, when refused, it is eagerly taken by the museums 

 and institutions of Europe. 



The Museum in its present condition may be compared to a book from 

 which Images here and theie have l)een omitted, so that the narrative is 

 disjointed and incomplete. 



In certain museums of Europe more money is expended annually in 

 purchases than is represented by the entire appropriations for tlie 

 National Museum. There are instances even in this country in which 

 more money is expended for the improvement of private museums. 

 The ofticers of the Museum have repeatedly suffered the chagrin of 

 being compelled to refuse the offer of s])ecimens necessary to complete 

 the collections, and to see them pass into the hands of private insti- 

 tutions in this country or the government museums in Europe. For 

 the purchase of specimens for the South Kensington Museum, from 

 1853 to 1887, 81,586,031 was expended, or a yearly average of nearly 

 $17,000. 



England is equally liberal toward her other museums. Exact 

 statistics are not at hand, but it is quite within bounds to assert that 

 her average exj)enditures for the x^urchase of new objects for museums 

 in London is not less than $500,000 a year. 



The museums of Europe are rich with the accumulations of cen- 

 turies. The National Museum of the United States is young, and has 

 enormous deficiencies in every department. It needs, more than any 

 museum in Europe, the opportunity to increase its resources through 

 purchase. The total amount expended for the purchase of specimens 

 for the National Museum since its foundation has not exceeded $20,000, 

 and never in one year more than $8,500. 



Our treasures are the result of the activities of an enlightened Govern- 

 ment. Through a thousand channels materials for the formation of a 

 museum come into the possession of the (Tovernment, and out of such 

 materials our Museum has been built. A nuiseuni formed in this man- 

 ner, however, suffers sooner or later from immense accumulations of 

 objects of certain kinds and from the absence of others. This is true 

 of the National Museum. At the outset no additions were unwelcome, 

 and the expectation that all important deficiencies would be supplied 

 might i)roperly be indulged in. As the years have passed, however, it 

 has become more and more apparent that many of these deticiences can 

 only be sui)plied by purchase. 



More striking present results might certainly have been attained by 

 limiting the development of the Museum to si)ecial tields. We have, 

 however, had in view the future as well as the present, and no object 

 has been refused a place in the Museum which is likely to be needed 

 even in the remote future, in the development of whatever gnind 

 museum plans the nation may ultimately be willing to promote. 



