2 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1905. 



tut ion by small appropriations for constructing cases and caring for 

 the collections, and some twenty years later the entire expense 

 on this account was assumed by the Government. 



It should be explained, however, that beginning as early as 1850 

 important materials for a museum were being assembled by the 

 Smithsonian Institution, at its own cost, through the activities of 

 its assistant secretary, Prof. Spencer F. Baird, whose personal bent 

 was toward the collection and study of natural history specimens. 

 With the approval of Secretary Henry he put into operation exten- 

 sive plans for accomplishing this purpose, which were soon yielding 

 abundant returns. Professor Baird's own vacations were spent in 

 field work. Officers of the Army and Navy and of other branches of 

 the Government service, iishermen, fur traders, private explorers, 

 and such powerful organizations as the Hudson's Bay Company and 

 the Western Union Telegraph Company were enlisted in the work 

 and rendered valuable assistance. The influence exerted by these 

 beginnings has, moreover, been lasting and widespread, as shown in 

 the extensive natural history operations of subsequent national and 

 State surveys, the organization of the Bureau of Fisheries and 

 Bureau of Ethnology, and the support given to scientific collecting 

 by many other bureaus of the Government. 



The discussion of plans for the organization of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, which devolved upon the first Board of Regents, led, in 

 January, 1S47, to the unanimous adoption of the following resolu- 

 tion expressing approval of the museum feature as one of its impor- 

 tant functions: 



Resolved, That it is the intention of tin- act of Congress establishing the Institution, and 

 in accordance with the design of Mr. Smithson, as expressed in his will, that one of the prin- 

 cipal modes of executing the act and the trust is the accumulation of collections of speci- 

 mens and objects of natural history and of elegant art , and the gradual formation of a library 

 of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge, to the end that a 

 copious storehouse of materials of science, literature, and ait may be provided, which shall 

 excite and diffuse the love of learning among men. and shall assist the original investiga- 

 tions and efforts of those who may devote themselves to the pursuit of any branch of 

 knowledge. 



In 1S7 ( .>, when most of the existing Government surveys, whose 

 work included the collecting of specimens in the held, had been estab- 

 lished, Congress deemed it important to practically reenforce the 

 provisions of the act founding the Institution, in order that there 

 might be no doubt as to the proper disposition of the material derived 

 from these sources, by the following item in the sundry civil appro- 

 priation act for 1880: 



All collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, archeology, 

 and ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological Survey, or by any 

 other parties for the Government of the United States, when no longer needed for investi- 

 gations in progress shall be deposited in the National Museum. 



