24. ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
The Loeb collection of chemical types was increased by 165 speci- 
mens, and the historical collection by 17,256 specimens. 
A number of field expeditions were participated in during the 
year by members of the Museum staff cooperating with private or- 
ganizations or with other governmental agencies. The bulk of the 
accessions to the collections was derived from these activities, which 
are described in Appendix 1. The lecture rooms and auditorium of 
the National Museum were used for 110 meetings covering a wide 
range of activities. Visitors to the Smithsonian Building totaled 
110,975; to the Arts and Industries Building, 355,762; to the Natural 
History Building, 581,563; and to the Aircraft Building, 58,005. 
The Museum published 8 volumes and 49 separate papers during the 
year and distributed 96,804 copies of its publications. 
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 
Attention is again called in the director’s report to the urgent need 
of a separate building for the National Gallery, the estimated cost 
of which would be $8,000,000. Without such a building, and with 
the art works now belonging to the gallery crowded into temporary 
quarters in the National Museum, there has been a marked de- 
crease in gifts and bequests to the gallery in recent years. With a 
suitable building, not only would the people of America again begin 
to add their art treasures to the national collection in Washington, 
but the collections of graphic arts, ceramics, textiles, and American 
history, now exhibited in scattered places in the National Museum, 
could be shown in association with the paintings and sculpture, 
thereby releasing many thousand feet of floor space needed for the 
natural sciences. 
The National Gallery Commission held its fifth annual meeting on 
December 8, 1925. The various affairs of the gallery were con- 
sidered, and attention was given to the year’s accessions, to the pur- 
chases made through the Ranger fund, to the proposed National 
Portrait Gallery, and to the method to be followed in considering 
the acceptance of art works given or bequeathed to the gallery. The 
present officers and members of committees were reelected for the en- 
suing year. The marble statue, the “Libyan Sibyl,” by William 
Wetmore Story, and a marine painting, “The Sea,” by Edward 
Moran, were accepted by the commission as permanent additions to 
the gallery collections. 
A very generous offer was made to Congress by Mrs. John B. 
Henderson during the year, of a large tract of land on Sixteenth 
Street for a national gallery building site. 
Special exhibitions held in the gallery included a loan exhibition 
of early American portraits, miniatures, and silver; an exhibition 
