22 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



selves are merely temporary structures, neither fireproof nor entirely 

 safe in other particulars, and tliese are not only so crowded that they 

 can hold no more, but their use has thus been perverted from tlie pur- 

 poses for which they were built, i. e., for temporary workshops, and as 

 packing- and unpacking rooms. So great, liov>^ever, has been the neces- 

 sity of economizing all available space, and of finding some x>lace for 

 the storage of specimens preserved in dilute alcohol, that the ^Museum 

 has been comx)elled to use the sheds for intlaminable material for which 

 there is no room elsewhere. In the basement of the building itself 

 are large alcoholic collections in bottles containing, in the bulk, many 

 thousands of gallons of alcohol. These last specimens are not on exhi- 

 bition, but for want of space are stored immediately under the large 

 exhibition halls of the Smithsonian building. 



I have the assurance of experts that a fire communicated to these 

 rooms would sweep through the entire length of the building, and 

 although the buihling itself is fireproof as against any ordinary dan- 

 ger, it may well be doubted whether any of the collections therein 

 exhibited can be regarded as safe, if the rooms immediately below 

 should be exposed to so peculiarly severe a confiagration as would be 

 caused by the ignition of these large quantities of iufiammable material. 

 Besides this, these wooden slieds, which (as I have already intimated) 

 are used not only for storerooms, but for workshops, for the preserva- 

 tion of specimens, and also as sheds for the carpenters, are likewise 

 liable to cause serious losses, should a tire be kindled in any of them, 

 and all of tliese, I repeat, are immediately under the windows of the 

 Smithsonian building. 



In a report recently submitted by one of the ins])ectors of the Asso- 

 ciation of Fire Underwriters, in response to a request from me for a 

 statement as to what insurance rates would be fixed upon the sheds in 

 question, the Smithsonian building is referred to as an undesirable 

 risk, owing solely to the presence of all this inflammable material 

 underneath and in the adjoining sheds, on which latter insurance can 

 not be placed for less than $40 per $1,000. This is, I am informed, 

 nearly ten times the rate which would be charged on an ordinary ware- 

 house. The chief danger, however, is not to the sheds themselves or 

 their contents, but to the adjoining collections which, without refer- 

 ence to their scientific interest but merely to their intrinsic value, repre- 

 sent a very large sum of money. 



I repeat that this condition of affairs is one which urgently demands 

 immediate relief, and with this unreserved expression of luy opinion it 

 seems to me that I have said all that I can. 



Apart from the dangers incurred by the storage of inflammable 

 material in and adjoining the Smithsonian building, the Museum is 

 still confronted with the problem of caring for the numerous collections 

 which can not be now exhibited, and which, as I have shown, are at 



