TWENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS, 1839-41. 241 



composing each department shall especially be charged with the subjects 

 embraced therein, and communicate to the institution the result of their 

 inquiries ; but every member shall have the privilege of making such com- 

 munications, as he may think proper, on any subject connected with the 

 designs of the institution. 



Article sixteenth. The various collections of the institution shall be 

 placed in the apartments which may be designated for that purpose by a 

 majority of the directors. 



Article seventeenth. This constitution, with the exceptions of articles 

 six, eight, ten, fourteen, and sixteen, or so much thereof as relates to the 

 office of directors, their duties, privileges, or powers, or the purposes or 

 place of keeping of the collections of the institution, shall be subject to al- 

 terations and additions at any meeting of the institution : Provided, Notice 

 of a motion for such alteration or addition shall have been given and 

 recorded at a preceding regular meeting : And provided, further, That no 

 alterations or amendments shall ever be made in the above referred to arti- 

 cles without the consent of a majority of the directors. 



Article eighteenth. A code of by-laws for the regulation of the business 

 of the board of management, and the annual and other meetings of the in- 

 stitution, and for matters relating to non-attendance, privileges, duties of 

 officers, and so forth, shall be prepared by a committee to be appointed for 

 that purpose. 



Article nineteenth. All persons present at the adoption of this constitu- 

 tion shall, if desirous of becoming members of the institution, sign the 

 same as evidence of such desire, and in proof of such membership ; and all 

 members subsequently admitted shall sign the same at the first meeting of 

 the society which they may attend after such admission. 



Article twentieth. The institution shall have power to appoint curators 

 and others for the preservation and arrangement of the collections. 



[S. No. 259.] 



A BILL to invest the proceeds of the Smithsonian fund, and to establish 

 the Smithsonian Institution. 



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 

 States of America in Congress assembled, That the Smithsonian Institution 

 shall consist of one superintendent, with a compensation of dollars 



per annum, and not exceeding six professors, with compensation to each of 

 dollars per annum, with such number of curators and assistants as 

 may be found necessary : Provided, The number of, and the compensation 

 to, the curators and assistants shall be approved by the President of the 

 United States; all these officers to be elected by the board of management 

 of the National Institution for the Promotion of Science, established at 

 Washington, and according to the form and manner prescribed for tho 

 electing of officers of that institution ; but the election of professors shall 

 not be made, until the buildings are prepared for them to enter upon their 

 duties. 



SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the officers of the National Insti- 

 tution for the Promotion of Science, together with the superintendent of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, shall constitute a board of management of the 

 interest of the Smithsonian fund ; and shall have power to plan and erect 

 the necessary buildings, to lay out the grounds, to preserve and repair the 

 same, to procure the necessary books and philosophical instruments, to ar- 

 range the collections, to prescribe the duties of the professors and others 

 belonging to the said Smithsonian Institution, and to establish regulations 

 for the preservation of the property, and for a proper exhibition of the 

 same: Provided, however, That no regulation shall exact a fee from any 

 visitor : And provided, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to 

 prevent any member of the National Institution for the Promotion of 

 Science, from being an officer of the Smithsonian Institution. 



16 



