THE GENESIS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 275 



This invitation was ac<'cptc(l July 17, 1841,* in a letter from Asbury 

 Dickius, secretary, and although no record of any transfer ia to be 

 found in the Bulletin of the National Institution, I have before me a 

 letter from Messrs. John J. Abert, A. (). Dayton, and F. A. Markoe, com- 

 mittee of that society, addressed to the Secretaries of the War and Navy 

 Departments, January 1, 1812, in which, among the other collections 

 in their custody, they mention "the books, minerals, and works of art 

 belonging to the late Columbian Institute," and also the "books, 

 papers, and proceedings of the late American Historical Society," an 

 organization to which also the National Institution stood in the jjosi- 

 tion of an heir. 



To Dr. Edward ( Jutbush is due the preservation of the only state- 

 ment extant of the objects of the Columbian Institute, embodied ap- 

 parently in its constitution, and quoted as follows in his address as its 

 president, delivered January 11, 1817, in Congress Hall, Washington.t 



To collect, cultivate, and distribute the various vegetable productions 

 of this and other countries, whether medicinal or esculent, or for the 

 l)romotion of arts and manufactures. 



To collect and examine the various mineral productions and natural 

 curiosities of the United States, and to give publicity to every discov- 

 ery that the institute may have been enabled to make. 



To obtain information respecting the mineral waters of the United 

 States, their locality, analysis, and utility, together with such topo- 

 graphical remarks as may aid valetudinarians. 



To invite communications on agricultural subjects, on the manage- 

 ment of stock, their diseases, and the remedies. 



To form a topographical and statistical history of the different dis- 

 tricts of the United States, noticing ijarticularly the luimber and extent 

 of streams, how far navigable, the agricultural products, the inij)orts 

 and exports, the value of lands, the climate, the state of the thermometer 

 and barometer, the diseases which prevail in the different seasons, the 

 state of the arts and manufactures, and any other information Avhich 

 may be deemed of general utility. 



To iniblish annually, or whenever the institution shall have become 

 possessed of a sufficient stock of important information, such communi- 

 cations as nuiy be of public utility, and to give the earliest information 

 in the public papers of all discoveries that may have been made by, or 

 communicated to, the institute. 



A remark significant in this connection may be found in a letter 

 witten by Edward Cutbush, m. d., dated Geneva, N. Y., January 20, 



* Proceedins's of the National Institution, .July 12, 1841, Vol. I, ]>. 113. 



t Cutbush, Edward. An address | delivered before the | C<dunibian Institute, | for 

 the Proniotiouof Arts and Sciences, | attheCityof Washington, | on the 11th January, 



1817. I I By Edward Cutbush, M. D., | Hon. Member of the Philadelphia Medi<al 



and Chemical Societies; | Corresponding Member of the Liuntean Society of Phila- 

 delphia; I and President of the Institute. | | Published l)y the request of the 



Columbian Institute, | | Washington. | I'riuted by(ilales»& Seaton. | Six parts | 



1817. 8vo. pp. l-2y. 



A copy of this rare pamphlet is in the library of the Surgeon-General's Office, as 

 well as a nearly complete series of the publications of the two brothers Cutbush. 



