23 



" It was proposed at the last session of Congress to establish Magnetic station?, 

 and to institute a series of corresponding observations in the United States. Per- 

 manent stations for this end have been established by nearly all civilized nations ; 

 and not only have they been extended into Asia, Africa, and America, but expe- 

 ditions have been undertaken to the Antarctic seas, for the purpose of pursuing 

 these researches. Our exploring squadron was likewise furnished with the neces- 

 sary instruments, and our officers instructed to avail themselves of every opportu- 

 nity to make magnetic observations, while similar and corresponding observations 

 were directed, and have been carried on, at Boston and at Washington. 



. " We trust that the Government of the United States will not withhold its fur- 

 ther co-operation, but will enable some of its officers to carry out the views of the 

 learned societies throughout the world, and give its aid to the efforts now univer- 

 sally making to determine, with precision, the laws of terrestrial magnetism." 



* * • » • 



" Natural History, Agriculture, Commerce, and the Useful Arts, go hand in hand ; 

 wherever the first is encouraged, the other branches, which depend much upon it 

 for their support, will flourish ; but wherever it is neglected, or lightly regarded, 

 the other branches languish and lose their value. How many substances of rare 

 materials grow throughout this vast region which are unknown to the United 

 States, but which might become articles of extended commerce, if every State in 

 the Union would seriously set to work to explore its resources in the three great 

 kingdoms of nature. 



" It is true that some of the States have set the example of Geological surveys, 

 and have made collections of Mineral and Geological specimens ; but what, for the 

 most part, has become of these collections ? They are dispersed where neither 

 the Government nor the people generally can make use of them. For the promo- 

 tion of science and the useful arts, we require a central institution, in which all 

 the natural productions of this vast territory may be exposed to public view, for 

 the benefit of the people, and which may contribute to the advancement of the 

 sciences, by aflbrding the means ot comparison with natural and analogous pro- 

 ductions of other parts of the world." 



# * * # # 



" It is to the study of the zoology of America that the eflbrts of the Institution 

 ought to be chiefly directed. No other country presents greater or more interest- 

 ing varieties in the animal creation, and none more abounds in fossil remains. 

 Many of the former are fast fading away before the hunters and trappers, who pur- 

 sue them for food or for furs; and their extinction will solve the important prob- 

 lem, whether the hunter tribes can become purely agricultural, and maintain them- 

 selves by the sweat of their brow. 'J'he red man of our forests, and the hunter 

 tribes of South America, are, as far as I have been able to observe, different from 

 the agricultural Indians that inhabit Mexico, Peru, and Chile. The former are 

 the descendants of uncivilized men, hunters like themselves, and whether they are- 

 susceptible of the moral culture of the agricultural race, remains yet in doubt; the 

 latter, on the contrary, have tilled the earth, and subsisted on the product of their 



