318 EEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891. 



But we must know our condition, and wliat we have to depend upon. 

 It is essential that we shonhl, and you, as the agent of the Library Com- 

 mittee, are the ordy person from whom we can obtain the desired 

 information. Therefore, of necessity, we had to address ourselves to 

 you, and if 1 understand your answer correctly it is: That you do not 

 consider yourself at liberty to allow any of the persons receiving pay 

 from the United States to give any of their time or attention to the 

 affairs of the Institute, to overluiul or arrange or look after its specimens. 



Both of your predecessors, Dr. King and Dr. Pickering, were also, 

 with the approbation of the executive, curators of the Institute, and 

 gave some attention to itj affairs. We did not, of course, expect that 

 you would take a^ similar trouble upon yourself, and one question in 

 my previous letter was to ascertain if you would allow any of those 

 under you to attend to the Institute collection and property. I under- 

 stand you also as thinking this beyond your power. Under these cir- 

 cumstances the Institute must act, and promi)tly, or its valuable col- 

 lection will be injured. Tiie board of management will soon meet and 

 the matter will be brought before them. 



If in anything I have misunderstood you, I beg that you will not 

 delay to correct me, for be assured that I have no desire to put anyone 

 in the wrong, and least of all the eminent commander of the exploring 

 expedition. 



J. J. A. 



Soon afterwards a more serious conflict of authority began — this time 

 with the Commissioner of Patents, who was actually the official guar- 

 dian, not only of a portion of the collections, but of the hall in which 

 the entire cabinets, both of the society and the Government, were 

 lodged. 



The correspondence referred to in Mr. Ellsworth's first letter evidently 

 related to the great mass of native copper of the Ontonagon (still a 

 prominent feature in the National Museum), which the Secretary of 

 War had placed in the custody of the Institute at its meeting in Octo- 

 ber previous. Mr. Ellsworth was evidently bent upon dislodging the 

 National Institute from the Patent Office. To effect this he pursued the 

 not altogether ingenuous course of belittling the Institute, its work, and 

 the extent of its cabinet, and laying claim to the official possession of 

 more important collections of models, fabrics, manufactures, which, in 

 accordance with the act of 1830, reorganizing the Patent Office, he 

 designates as the "National Gallery," a name which he also applied to 

 the great hall in which all the collections were deposited. 



The Comiuissioner of Patents Avas evidently legally in the right, and 

 the Institute found itself bereft not only of its command of Government 

 collections, but also of its hall. 



The correspondence is here printed. 



