932 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



number, of which one of small size should adjoin the la b- 

 oratory, and another might be large enough to receive an 

 audience of a thousand persons.* 



As important as the cabinets of natural history, by the 

 charter required to be included in the museum, your com- 

 mittee regard its ethnological portion, including all collec- 

 tions that may supply items in the physical history of our 

 species, and illustrate the manners, customs, religions, and 

 progressive advance of the various nations of the world : as 

 for example, collections of skulls, skeletons, portraits, dresses, 

 implements, weapons, idols, antiquities, of the various races 

 of man. 



In the accumulation of these collections, the institution 

 has at command great facilities. The collections of the ex- 

 ploring expedition, which already belong to its museum, 

 furnish an ample commencement, especially as regards 

 Polynesia. Through the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 

 and the various agencies under his control, the North 

 American race can be reached ; and, at small expense, the 

 collection of Indian curiosities already begun at the Patent 

 Office may be rapidly extended. So, through our army and 

 navy officers, and our consuls in foreign nations, European 

 and South American collections (the latter so recently en- 

 riched by modern discovery) might be gradually brought 

 together. 



In this connection your committee recommend the pas- 

 sage of resolutions, asking the co-operation of certain public 

 functionaries, and of the public generally, in furtherance of 

 the above objects. 



Your committee are further of the opinion that, in the 

 museum, if the funds of the institution permit, might ju- 

 diciously be included various series of models illustrating 

 the progress of some of the most useful inventions; such, 

 for example, as the steam engine, from its earliest and rudest 

 form to its present improved state ; but this they propose 

 only so far as it may not encroach on ground already cov- 

 ered by the numerous models in the Patent Office. 



Specimens of staple materials, of their gradual manu- 



* The plan of building adopted by the Board, out of thirteen different de- 

 signs submitted to them by various architects, is that of Mr. James Ren- 

 wick, Jr., of New York. It comprises a museum 200 feet by 50 ; a library 

 80 feet by 50 ; a gallery of art 125 feet long ; two lecture rooms, of which 

 one is capable of containing an audience of 800 to 1000 persons ; and the 

 other is connected with the laboratory, together with several smaller rooms. 

 The style selected is the later Norman, or rather Lombard, as it prevailed 

 in the twelfth century chiefly in Germany, Normandy, and in Southern 

 Europe, immediately preceding the introduction of the Gothic. 



