674 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



foreign museums to which it has been a liberal contributor, and which may be 

 obtained as soon as means are provided for their transportation and accommodation. 

 It may also be mentioned that the Institution has rendered important service to 

 the Government through the scientific investigations it has made in connection with 

 the operations of the different departments, and it is not too much to say that through 

 the labors of its officers it has been the means of saving millions of dollars to the 

 National Treasury. 



In conclusion, your memorialists beg leave to represent on behalf of the Board of 

 Regents that the usual annual appropriation of $4, 000 is wholly inadequate to the cost 

 of preparing, preserving, and exhibiting the specimens, the actual expenditure for that 

 purpose in 1867 having been over $12,000, and they take the liberty of respectfully 

 urging on your honorable body the expediency of increasing it to $10,000, and that a 

 further sum of $25,000 be appropriated at this session of Congress toward the com- 

 pletion of the hall required for the Government collections. 

 And your memorialists will ever pray, ete. 



S. P. CHASE, 

 Chancellor Smithsonian Institution. 



JOSEPH HENRY, 

 Secretary timitlisonian Institution. 



May 2, 1868 Senate. 



The President pro tempore (Mr. B. F. WADE) laid before the 

 Senate a communication from the Board of Regents of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. 



Referred to the Committee on Appropriations, and ordered to be 

 printed. (See House, May 1, 1808.) 



July 20, 1868. 



Sundry civil act for 1869. 



Smithsonian Institution: For the preservation of the collections of 

 the exploring and surveying expeditions of the Government, $4,000. 



(Stat., XV, 115.) 

 March 1, 1869 House. 



The miscellaneous appropriation bill being under consideration, an 

 amendment was read : 



For the preservation of the collections of the exploring and surveying expeditions 

 of the Government, $4,000. 



Mr. J. A. GARFIELD. I move to amend this paragraph by striking 

 out "$4,000" and inserting "$10,000." And I wish briefly to call the 

 attention of the Committee of the Whole to the facts upon which I 

 base my motion. 



In 1846, when the Smithsonian Institution was founded, the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States, by a law of Congress, transferred to 

 that Institution all the articles now belonging to the museum which the 

 Government then owned. At that time it was costing $4,000 a year 

 to take care of and preserve those articles. Since then a great num- 

 ber of exploring expeditions have been sent out by the Government 

 and large additions have been made to the museum, and the actual 

 cost of taking care of and keeping the articles which the Government 



