3 26 The Smithsonian Institution 



appointed a government board to have general charge. The 

 Smithsonian Institution was represented by Professor Baird. 

 In the first plans of the board the National Museum exhibit 

 was included under that of the Institution, and the Fish Com- 

 mission apparently under the Interior Department. They 

 included also an item of $200,000 for an exhibition building 

 which should be "capable of removal to Washington after 

 the close of the Exhibition, to be used as a National Museum 

 at the capital of the nation." 1 Congress, however, saw fit to 

 modify these plans and provided for the erection of a general 

 government building, to be paid for pro rata from the ap- 

 propriations of the several departments and bureaus, and to 

 be sold at the close of the Exhibition. An appropriation 

 of $67,000 was made for the Smithsonian Institution, and 

 of $5000 for the Fish Commission, the provision for the 

 National Museum being included in the former. When the 

 several officers of the Board began to examine the situation 

 in detail it became apparent that different bureaus would 

 duplicate one another's exhibits unless some compromise were 

 made. Accordingly the exhibits of the Institution, the Na- 

 tional Museum, and the Fish Commission were merged into 

 one comprehensive exhibit; while, on the other hand, the 

 National Museum cooperated with the Indian Bureau of the 

 Interior Department in an exhibit representing North Amer- 

 ican anthropology. The combined exhibit was divided into 

 five sections Smithsonian Activities, "Animal Resources," 

 Fisheries, Mineral Resources, Anthropology. 



In the preparation of the exhibits of "animal resources" 

 and fisheries Professor Baird (then " Curator of the National 

 Museum") had the assistance of G. Brown Goode ("who held 

 the position of Assistant Curator of the National Museum "), 

 Tarleton H. Bean, and H. C. Chester; in ethnology, Charles 



1 "Smithsonian Report," 1875, page 59. 



