FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS, 1875-77. 751 



Tnade by General Meigs, the Quartermaster General United States Army. 

 "We beg leave further to represent that to accomplish the purpose there 

 would be need of an appropriation of $250,000. This amount is required 

 not as a first instalment, to be followed by others, but as sufficient entirely 

 to complete the edifice. 



Should this appropriation be made at an early day the building could be 

 .ready for the reception of articles before the next session of Congress. 



M. R. WAITE, 

 T. W. PERKY, 

 H. HAMLIN, 

 J. W. STEVENSON, 

 A. A. SARGENT, 

 HIESTER CLYMER, 

 BENJ. H. HILL, 

 GEO. W. McCRARY, 

 PETER PARKER, 

 ASA GRAY, 

 GEO. BANCROFT, 

 Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 WASHINGTON, February 5, 1877. 



Air. MORRILL. I desire to say to the Senate that the 

 Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds have already 

 had the subject before them and would have made a report 

 before this time, but we understood that the same subject 

 was before a committee of the House, where it was being 

 favorably considered. As I have stated in years past, it has 

 seemed to be a necessity that we should provide for a 

 National Museum. It has been the opinion of the Com- 

 mittee on Public Buildings and Grounds on the part of the 

 Senate, I believe unanimously, for some years, that we 

 ought to take all of the squares next east of the public 

 grounds, throughout the length and breadth on the north 

 and south range of one square, taking one square in depth 

 and the whole length, for the purpose of a National Museum 

 and Congressional Library; and evidently this matter 

 should be provided for at once. The National Armory I 

 understand is already filled from basement to top. 



Mr. SARGENT. With boxes without any opportunity for 

 display. 



Mr. MORRILL. With boxes without any opportunity of 

 displaying their contents : and there are at this time, as I 

 .am informed, at least fifty car-loads of articles that have 

 been given to us by foreign governments. Thirty-two or 

 thirty-three out of the forty nationalities abroad have given 

 us their entire exhibits at the Centennial Exhibition. Their 

 money value is scarcely computable, but if it were to be 

 computed it exceeds our own, as large as our exhibits were 

 there and as creditable to the country. Our own, I believe, 

 in money value have been computed at $400,000. These 

 foreign exhibits are computed, at least in money value, at 



