624 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



The amendment to the amendment was agreed to. 

 The Presiding Officer. The question now recurs on the amend- 

 ment as amended. 



Mr. Preston King. What is the amendment as amended? 

 The Presiding Officer. The Secretary will read it. 

 The Secretary read it, as follows: 



For the distribution of the collections of the exploring and surveying expeditions 

 of the Government, and the construction of additional cases to receive such part of 

 said collections as may be retained by the Government, |6,000; such distribution to 

 be made to institutions willing to receive the same at their own expense. 



Mr. Fessenden. That refers merely to the transportation. 



Mr. J. W. Grimes. What is the appropriation of $6,000 for? 



Mr. Fessenden. For putting them in order and arranging- them. 



Mr. Cameron. I move to strike out the appropriation. I have no 

 doubt if these things are of any use scientific people will be glad to 

 get them, and I am willing to let them have them, if they will take 

 them. 



Mr. H. M. KiCE. The question strikes me in two different aspects, 

 a personal and an official one. If we have a right to make an appro- 

 priation for distributing stuffed snakes and the various other things 

 that may be collected and brought here, why have we not a right to 

 make ?n appropriation for distributing the models in the Patent Office, 

 or distributing hoes, plows, and other implements? This has all grown 

 out of an infraction, in my opinion, of the Constitution by distribu- 

 ting seeds. We must stop somewhere. If you can do this under the 

 Constitution, what can you not do? I know that the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution has done great good for the country. I am applied to daily 

 for books published by it, and I know that they are valuable; but it 

 is not, under the Constitution, a Government institution. Let us stop 

 somewhere, and I think we might as well stop here as anywhere. 



Mr. J. P. Hale. I think so, too. I should like the country to know 

 how much we have spent for printing pictures of bugs, reptiles, etc., 

 that these exploring expeditions have brought here. We published 

 eleven or twelve volumes of the exploring expedition, illustrated with 

 pictures of bugs, snakes, and reptiles. It has cost us millions of dol- 

 lars to print those pictures, and now we are going to spend $10,000 to 

 distribute them after spending millions to print pictures of them. 

 The thing is all wrong, sir. 



Mr. Mason. Mr. President, I have been for many years one of the 

 Regents of this Institution, under the appointment of the Senate, in 

 connection with my friend from Maryland. We know that it is a 

 public trust; one, we think, of a sacred character. We know as a 

 fact, and it appears in the records of that Institution, that these speci- 

 mens of natural history, sent from the Patent Office to the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, were sent there against the remonstrances, repeated 



