754 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



made in regard to them. This order was subsequently modified by 

 allowing such objects as were required for the use of the Government 

 in Washington or elsewhere to be transferred, as also such as were 

 liable to decay or injury by remaining in a building exposed to cold 

 and dampness. The greater part of these articles are now stored in 

 the Government building at Philadelphia waiting some action on the 

 part of Congress. 



Demolition of Government centennial building soon required. As 

 the contract made by the park commission with the Centennial Com- 

 mission requires the removal of all the buildings within sixty days of the 

 close of the exhibit, it is necessary to take speedy action on this sub- 

 ject; and if Congress does not see fit to erect a building at the present 

 time for the proper display of the collections, measures must at any 

 rate be authorized for their removal to Washington and their storage 

 in some safe place. As the appropriations made to the Government 

 board did not contemplate these foreign and domestic donations in 

 their enormous aggregate, and are 'entirely inadequate to handling 

 them, your committee earnestly recommend that an appropriation be 

 made to convey this large and most interesting collection to Wash- 

 ington City, and for the erection of a suitable building in which to 

 exhibit the same, so that all of our citizens may have free access and 

 abundant opportunity to study the contents of a really international 

 museum. 



No argument is needed to prove the beneficial effects upon the whole 

 people of an intimate knowledge of the great resources of our own 

 and of other nations. And the advantages which will be afforded by 

 the contemplated museum can not be overestimated. 



The location and plans suggested by Professors Henry and Baird 

 seem to your committee convenient and proper. The very nature of 

 the collection suggests its association with the museum of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution; but securing and providing for the display is 

 vastly more important than the selection or adoption of any specific 

 place. 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, January %4, 1877. 



SIR: As chairman of the committee to which was referred so much of the Presi- 

 dent's message as relates to the transfer of the Government collections to Washing- 

 ton, I beg leave to submit to you the following remarks: 



1. Congress, in the organization of the Smithsonian Institution, directed that it 

 should make provision, on a liberal scale, for a museum, which should contain all 

 objects of natural history and of curious and foreign research belonging to the Gov- 

 ernment. In accordance with this direction the Institution erected a building, 

 which has cost upward of $500,000, from the Smithson fund. It has also developed 

 and for many years principally supported this museum, the collections being the 

 property of the Government, while the building was erected out of the Smithson 

 fund. 



