772 CONGEESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



mission received $10,000, and the Indian Bureau $31,370.55 for the 

 purpose referred to, making a total of $141,370.55. Of this a consid- 

 erable portion was rec^uircd toward the construction of the Govern- 

 ment buildings, the maintenance of guards and police, the salaries of 

 persons employed in the building, etc. The expenditures tending 

 directly toward the increase and perfection of the collection amounted, 

 however, to at least $120,000, this sum being disbursed exclusively in 

 the collection, preparation, and display of objects belonging to the 

 Territories of the United States, and having no reference whatever to 

 those of foreign countries. 



In the appendix will be found a general statement of the collections 

 thus exhibited, although full details would be too extended for the 

 present report. It is estimated that a simple enumeration of the 

 objects displayed under the head of the animal and fishery division 

 alone will occupy a volume of 600 octavo pages, the catalogue of the 

 mineral and ethnological divisions requiring scarcely less space in 

 addition. 



The entire space in the Government buildings at Philadelphia occu- 

 pied by the various collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the 

 United States Fish Commission, and the Indian Bureau amounted to 

 about 33,500 feet, or about one-third of the whole. 



It is satisfactory to know that the efforts of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, with the cooperation above referred to, to carry out the wishes 

 of Congress were entirely successful and that there was but one 

 opinion, both by Americans and foreigners, as to the completeness and 

 value of the exhibition. 



During the progress of the Centennial Exhibition it was intimated 

 to the Smithsonian Institution that a number of foreign collections 

 would be presented to the United States Government at its close, but 

 the number and magnitude of these donations proved to be vastly in 

 excess of any anticipations that could have been formed. Many of the 

 foreign commissioners had intended to divide their collections among 

 different establishments in the United States, but as this promised to 

 involve serious complications with the custom-house authorities it was 

 thought expedient by most of them to present the entire series to the 

 United States, which, of course, would receive them free of duty, and 

 with the understanding that any duplicates not needed for the National 

 Museum might be distributed among the various educational and 

 scientific establishments of the country. Accordingly, out of forty 

 countries which made Government exhibits at Philadelphia thirty-four 

 presented the greater part or the whole of their collections to the 

 United States. These represented an aggregate of great magnitude 

 and value, including a variety of valuable ores and samples of the 

 metals derived from them, with their simpler applications in art and 

 industry, building stones, pottery and porcelain earths, terra cottas, 



