718 The Smithsonian Institution 



called museum material, the law was not made operative 

 till many years afterward. Meanwhile, the collections made 

 by the Wilkes Exploring Expedition and some minor ac- 

 cumulations remained in the Patent Office building under no 

 scientific supervision, and suffering from lack of care and 

 want of appreciation of their value. Tradition relates that 

 an occasional friendly visitor interested in conchology might 

 even be allowed to carry off desiderata for the increase of his 

 own collection. Little regard, too, was had for the labels or 

 tickets which had been applied by the describers to the spe- 

 cimens returned. In other ways the collections deteriorated. 

 It was not till 1856 that the Institution took advantage of its 

 right to secure what remained. 



The original museum administered by the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution had grown up from humble beginnings and in spite 

 of adverse conditions. Its nucleus was a collection of verte- 

 brates of Pennsylvania and some other regions of the neigh- 

 boring States which Professor Baird had made in his stu- 

 dent days and while he served as a professor of natural 

 sciences in Dickinson College. This collection consisted 

 chiefly of skins of birds and mammals, as well as reptiles and 

 amphibians preserved in alcoholic spirits, and skeletons or 

 skulls of mammals, some of birds, and a few of reptiles, am- 

 phibians, and fishes. These were by small accessions grad- 

 ually added to by Professor Baird himself, and by many 

 amateur collectors. 



In the ninth annual report it was even claimed that "a 

 museum, the most complete of any in existence in several 

 branches of the natural history of the North American conti- 

 nent, has been collected, which has been valued at $30,000." 

 But the then chief of the Institution (Professor Henry) did 

 not view with favor the employment of the funds of the 



1 " Smithsonian Report," 1854, page 9. 



