1166 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
session of is suitable for it. While we have vast areas in reserve, 
whenever a public building is to be located for governmental purposes 
the sites owned by the Government are never found to be suitable. 
We are now expending vast sums of money which will run up into 
millions of dollars along the river front here in what is known as the 
Potomac flats improvement. More than 700 acres of land, we have 
been told, are to be reclaimed, and yet under the provisions of this 
very bill, true to the instincts that seem to prompt all efforts on the 
part of certain persons to bring about expenditures of the public money 
here, they go away from that vast area of reclaimed and reclaimable 
land and provide for the purchase of a particular body of land for this 
garden. If there was nothing else in this bill but that, it is enough 
to cause this House to stop and say we will not load down appropria- 
tion bills with all manner of schemes merely under the semblance of 
promoting science, when a little examination is well calculated to excite 
the suspicion, at least, that it is nothing more than a grand raid upon 
the public Treasury. 
Out on the grounds of Rock Creek we are to buy 100 acres of land at 
a cost of you do not know what, and at the very same instant you are 
expending millions of dollars in the reclamation of the Potomac flats, 
in extent about 700 acres. I say, sir, that we have always found when 
we have sought to sell lands of the Government they were always val- 
uable until the Government come into possession of them; but having 
got into possession then the lands were utterly useless for another 
purpose. We have now some hundreds of acres, perhaps—certainly 
we will have before we shall have concluded the reclamation of the 
Potomac flats. Will any gentleman undertake to say that when they 
shall have been reclaimed that land may not be utilized; and could 
not a part of it that has been reclaimed be utilized for that purpose? 
May we not delay this matter until such time as it could be done? I 
trust, sir, that there is no occasion for any alarm about not having 
this zoological garden now. 
Mr. Benton McMrturn. Does my friend think it will be advisable 
to establish a bear garden there after we have the land? 
Mr. Buountr. I do not care to go into a bear garden at all. 
Mr. McMixur. It does not seem to be advisable. 
Mr. Buount. I do not think I have any zeal about purchasing the 
buffaloes and reptiles that my friend from Alabama [Mr. Forney] 
spoke of having to put in there. It may become necessary 
[Here the hammer fell. | 
The Speaker. The time of the gentleman has expired. 
Mr. Newson. Has the time allotted to those opposed to this amend- 
ment expired ? 
The Speaker. It has. 
Mr, Netson. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa. 
