REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 23 



the present time massed together iu sheds and basements. During 

 the past year the disadvantages to the Museum, which have grown 

 out of this state of affairs, have beeu esi^ecially apparent. Very many 

 valuable collections which were brought to Chicago by foreign govern- 

 meuts for exhibition at the Woild's Fair would have been offered to 

 the ISTational Museum had not the fact been so generally known that 

 they could not be properly accommodated in Washington. The few 

 collections which were aciquired by the Museum at the close of the 

 Exposition, though not of very great bulk, were exceedingly valu- 

 able, but it must be said that the care of even these has largely 

 increased the congestion and has been the cause of considerable 

 additional embarrassment. I may add that everything that it is pos- 

 sible to do has already been done in the way of rearranging the collec- 

 tions, with a view to economizing space, and of withdrawing from the 

 exhibition series objects which could best be spared from the halls. 



I now recur to the other topics of importance connected with the 

 Museum. 



The Museum in its present condition is by no means advantageously 

 arranged, with regard either to the general interests of the Institution 

 or to its own importance, owing in part to the fact that some of the col- 

 lections, under theiiressure of overcrowded conditions, now occupy halls 

 which were intended for quite other jiurposes, such as the so called 

 "Chapel" in the Smithsonian building, or which are unsuitable for the 

 exhibition of specimens, as is indeed the whole of the lower hall in the 

 Smithsonian building. Still more unfortunate is it that it is impossi- 

 ble to install different departments iu halls by themselves. In the 

 Museum building, in many instances, widely distinct collections are of 

 necessity exhibited in the same hall, and an appearance of confusion 

 and lack of system, which is much to be deprecated, results. 



There is i)robably no museum iu the world iu which so small a pro- 

 portion of the objects worthy of exhibition are visible to the public, 

 and in which the objects exhibited are crowded together so closely. 

 This crowding, indeed, has of necessity been carried to such an extent 

 in many of the halls that there is no space to pass between the cases, 

 except along a few principal aisles, and the storage rooms already 

 contain, mounted and labeled for exhibition, enough material to fill 

 several halls niore. It is no exaggeration to say that if there were 

 another building as large as the present one it could within a very 

 slKU^t time be filled with specimens already here, and that the two 

 buildings together would seem as fully occupied as do now the buildings 

 of most other museums, 



I earnestly call attention to the proper inference from these state- 

 ments, which is, not that one ])uilding can be made, or is being made, 

 to do the work of two, but that the one building in questiou is almost 

 ceasing to fulfill its proper function, and tends more and more to the 

 ponditiou of a warehouse, to the detriment of its proper museum uses, 



