466 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



AMENDMENT TO ACT OF ORGANIZATION. 



March 13, 1848— House. 



Mr. Elisha Embree offered the following preamble and resolution: 



Whereas Jame,s Smithson, esq., by his last will and testament, having given the 

 whole of his jiroperty, now amounting to more than $700,000, to the United States 

 to found an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, 

 and Congress, to carry out the liberal designs of the donor, having passed an act 

 entitled "An act to establish the Smithsonian Institution for the increase and diffu- 

 sion of knowledge among men," approved August 10, 1846; and whereas officers have 

 been appointed under said act and are proceeding to erect a building which, with the 

 improvements attached, according to their estimate, is to cost about $250,000; and 

 said officers are about to establish in said building, with the funds of the Institution, 

 a library to contain 100,000 volumes, a museum on a large scale, a chemical labora- 

 torv, lecture rooms for the purpose of delivering lectures, and a gallery of art; and 

 whereas all of said objects are local in their nature and confined to the city of Wash- 

 ington and its vicinity, when the design of the liberal donor was not only the increase 

 of knowledge but the diffusion of it ainongst men for the general good; and whereas 

 said act provides "that there is reserved to Congress the right of altering or amend- 

 ing, adding to, or repealing any of the provisions of this act:" Therefore be it 



Resolved, That the Committee of the Library inquire into the expediency of so chang- 

 ing and modifying said act as to establish a department in said Institution for the 

 purpose of collecting and arranging information on agriculture, common-school edu- 

 cation, political economy, and the useful arts and sciences; which information, 

 together with the useful lectures that may be delivered in said Institution, shall be 

 published and circulated gratuitously among the people, so as to carry out the design 

 of the testator in diffusing useful knowledge amongst men, and that said committee 

 report by bill or otherwise. 



Adopted. 

 August 8, 1848— House. 



Mr. W. C. Preston, from the Committee on the Librar}^ to which 

 was referred the resolution of the House of March 13, 1848, relative 

 to the Smithsonian Institution, reported the following resolutions: 



Resolved, That it is inexpedient to change and modify the act establishing the 

 Smithsonian Institution in the manner proposed in said resolution. 



Resolved, That the committee be discharged from the further consideration of said 

 resolution, and that it be laid upon the table. 



Agreed to. 



INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES. 

 June 26, 1848. 



Be it enacted., etc., That the joint committee on the Library shall 

 appoint such agents as they may from time to time deem requisite, to 

 carry into effect the donation and exchange of such documents and 

 other publications as have been, or shall be, placed at their disposal for 

 the purpose. 



Sec. 2. And he it further enacted. That all books transmitted through 

 such agents for the use of the government of the United States, or of 

 any government of a State or of its legislature, or of any department 

 of the government of the United States or of a State, or of the Academy 



