2s ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1948 
fusion of knowledge cannot remain static. Its scientific studies in 
various fields and its great and growing collections in all fields of 
natural history and of human endeavor demand the constant attention 
of an adequate staff. Laboratories and large research collections 
without sufficient personnel for their scientific study cannot increase 
knowledge. It is only as collections are correctly classified, new forms 
discovered and described, and groupings and relationships analyzed 
and reassesssed that new knowledge emerges for the benefit of man- 
kind. For example, with an insufficient number of trained workers 
in various divisions of the National Museum, the actual care of the 
collections requires such a large proportion of the time of those now 
available that research is restricted. In some museum divisions, and 
in our other laboratories our efforts have brought about some increase 
of personnel, but in others the situation is still acute. Such efforts 
will be continued until an adequate staff for all divisions is assured. 
The matter of space shortage is even more serious. The latest 
permanent building in the Smithsonian group—the Natural History 
Building of the National Museum—was opened to the public in 1911. 
In that year the number of visitors to the Smithsonian buildings to- 
taled 525,207, and the total number of specimens in the National 
Museum was estimated at 6,328,660. For the fiscal year 1948 the 
number of visitors was 2,393,499—an increase of more than fourfold 
over 1911—and the total number of specimens reached 25,470,827— 
also a fourfold increase. In other words, the Smithsonian Institution 
has today the same amount of space that it had in 1911 in which to 
accommodate four times as many visitors and four times as many 
specimens. The inevitable result is a greatly overcrowded condition 
in the exhibition halls and in the study collections and laboratories, 
making expansion of public exhibits impossible and hampering 
scientific research. 
The Smithsonian group of buildings is near the top of the list of 
Washington points of interest for visitors to the Nation’s Capital 
from all parts of the country, and the public exhibits should be housed 
in modern buildings without crowding and with room for expansion 
as new material comes in. In the fiscal year 1946, a Public Buildings 
Act was introduced in Congress in which was included provision for 
several new Smithsonian buildings, among them a historical museum 
and a building for the engineering and industrial collections. The 
bill, however, failed of passage. In the year 1947, Congress passed 
a bill establishing the National Air Museum as a bureau of the Insti- 
tution; this will require an adequate building. ‘These matters are of 
vital concern to the proper functioning of the Institution, and the 
attempt to obtain adequate and up-to-date buildings will continue to 
be a primary concern of your Secretary. 
A number of organizational changes were made during the year in 
