Appendix 1. 



REPORT ON THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the opera- 

 tions of the United States National Museum for the fiscal year end- 

 ing June 30, 1916 : 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Seventy years ago Congress first definitely recognized the national 

 collections and directed their segregation and preservation under 

 the custody and supervision of the Smithsonian Institution in the 

 building to be erected for that establishment. By 1850 arrange- 

 ments had been sufficiently perfected to justify the appointment of an 

 assistant in charge of museum matters and to begin the acquisition 

 of natural-history specimens, but it was not until 1858 that the 

 extensive collections which had previously accumulated at the 

 Patent Office could be accepted. With an influx of material rela- 

 tively as phenomenal as in more recent years, the Museum rapidly 

 spread beyond the boundaries originally assigned to it and by 1875 

 was practically in possession of all parts of the Smithsonian building 

 not required for the offices of the parent institution. But even so, 

 there was a condition of great congestion from which relief was 

 only obtained in 1881, the year of the completion of the second 

 building. Though specially designed for displaying the many im- 

 portant donations in numerous branches of the industrial arts from 

 the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, the latter had also to serve for 

 the overflow in natural history, a combination which fully taxed 

 its capacity in less than three years. Then followed nearly three 

 decades during which about as much material was assembled in 

 outside storage as found lodgement within the two structures. 



The problem as regards the departments of natural history was 

 solved when the new large granite building was made ready for 

 occupancy in 1911, except that it lacked accommodations for the 

 division of plants, or National Herbarium. As the depository for the 

 Department of Agriculture and other establishments conducting 

 extensive botanical explorations, this branch of the Museum has 

 about outgrown its provisional quarters in the Smithsonian building, 

 and its future requirements should not long go unheeded. 



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