REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1908. ney 
authorized by Congress in the sundry civil act for 1904, its limit of 
cost being fixed at $3,500,000. The preliminary plans received the 
approval of a committee of the Board of Regents on January 27 
of that year, but it was not until several months later that the work- 
ing drawings were sufficiently advanced to make the initial contracts. 
The ground was first broken on June 15 by the Secretary of the 
Institution in the midst of an informal gathering. The necessary 
excavations were completed during the summer and the heavy con- 
crete foundations on November 9, 1904. Since then the work would 
have gone on continuously and rapidly but for the delays occasioned 
by the slow delivery of granite, as most other contracts have been 
satisfactorily complied with. About four years, therefore, have 
already been consumed in the building, and to these it now appears 
certain that another will be added. 
The importance of this new building will be appreciated by all who 
have kept in touch with the growth of the National Museum and the 
progress of its activities, as described in these reports from year to 
year. The number of specimens received has been enormous, aver- 
aging nearly a quarter of a million annually, while the value of 
the material thus brought together is beyond calculation. Nature, 
as comprehended in the subjects of zoology, botany, geology, eth- 
nology, and archeology, predominates over art in a very marked 
degree, both in the extent and value of the collections and in the 
progress made in their study, classification, and exhibition. It was 
for the accommodation of these collections, whose diversity and 
importance are elsewhere explained and which illustrate the resources 
and many economic problems primarily of the territory of this coun- 
try, that a new building was most urgently demanded and the one in 
question has been planned. When the transfer has been accomphshed, 
the present Museum building can be wholly given over to the arts 
and industries, for which it was mainly constructed and has been 
partly utilized. 
The new building is located on the Mall directly in front of the 
Smithsonian building, which it faces. It is a massive and dignified 
granite structure, four stories high, with a frontage of 561 feet, a 
depth of 365 feet, and a height of 82 feet. Its shorter axis is in a 
line with the center of Tenth street, through which it may be reached 
from Pennsylvania avenue, distant only three blocks. The principal 
external feature of the building is a large square pavilion at the 
middle of the south side, terminating in four pediments, one on 
each face, at some distance above the main roofs. Inclosed by the 
pavilion is a rotunda 80 feet in diameter, with four massive, orna- 
mental piers to be surmounted by a curved ceiling reaching a height 
of 127 feet 7 inches. The exterior structure of the rotunda will be 
