8 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1912. 



geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United 

 States," thus stamping the Museum at the very outset as one of the 

 widest range and at the same time as the Museum of the United 

 States. It was also fully appreciated that additions would be neces- 

 sary to the collections then in existence, and provision was made for 

 their increase by the exchange of duj)licate specimens, by donations, 

 and by other means. 



If the wisdom of Congress in so fully providing for a museum in 

 the Smithsonian law challenges attention, the interpretation put 

 upon this law by the Board of Regents within less than six months 

 from the passage of the act can not but command admiration. In 

 the early part of September, 1846, the Regents took steps toward 

 formulating a plan of operations. Tlie report of the committee ap- 

 pointed for this purpose, submitted in December and January fol- 

 lowing, shows a thorough consideration of the subject in both the 

 spirit and letter of the law. It Avould seem not out of place to cite 

 here the first pronouncement of the board with reference to the char- 

 acter of the Museum : 



" In obedience to the requirements of the charter,^ which leaves 

 little discretion in regard to the extent of accommodations to" be pro- 

 vided, your committee recommend that there be included in the 

 building a museum of liberal size, fitted up to receive the collections 

 destined for the Institution. * * * 



"As important as the cabinets of natural history by the charter 

 required to be included in the Museum your committee regard its 

 ethnological portion, including all collections that may supply items 

 in the physical history of our species, and illustrate the manners, 

 customs, religions, and jDrogressive advance of the various nations 

 of the world; as, for example, collections of skulls, skeletons, por- 

 traits, dresses, implements, weapons, idols, antiquities, of the vari- 

 ous races of man. * * * In this connexion, your committee 

 recommend the passage of resolutions asking the cooperation of 

 certain public functionaries, and of the public generally, in further- 

 ance of the above objects. 



" Your committee are further of opinion that in the Museum, if 

 the funds of the Institution permit, might judiciously be included 

 various series of models illustrating the progress of some of the most 

 useful inventions; such, for example, as the steam engine from its 

 earliest and rudest form to its present most improved state ; but this 

 they propose only so far as it may not encroach on ground already 

 covered by the numerous models in the Patent Office. 



^ Since the Institution was not cbartered in a legal sense, but established by 

 Congress, the use of the word " charter " in this connection was not correct. 



