1492 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
state that in the plan to which the above estimate refers no ornamental gardening is 
had in view. Except a moderate amount of planting of common trees, bushes, and 
native hardy perennials, the only work provided for, other than that of necessary 
constructions in the form of roads, walks, gutters, drains, sewers, means of water 
supply and distribution, and other utilitarian features, is such grading as, in our 
judgment, is required to prevent these artificial elements of the park from becoming 
excessively conspicuous and harshly discordant with the native grace of the natural 
topography. 
In estimating the cost of grading, sewerage, and drainage, we have assumed that 
wherever the preliminary part of the work can be made to conform to the intention 
of the general and final plan such work should be of a permanent character. 
It may be questioned whether a saving could not be made in the quantity of earth- 
work had in view in the estimate. It could, but only by giving the slopes of the 
roads, for instance, a greater degree than we think desirable, of the manifestly arti- 
ficial character which railroad embankments and military earthworks usually have, 
and which, in this case, in order to preserve an effect of natural topography, it is 
essential to avoid. 
The only items of the estimate that can, in our judgment, be materially reduced 
are these: 
1. The water supply, by omitting the underground reservoir and the main leading 
to it from the buffalo house. 
2. The fence, by providing smaller inclosures, and by having smaller and fewer 
paddocks, and perhaps, also, by using a form of construction that would require to 
be replaced after a few years. 
3. The bear pits, by leaving them at their present level, subject to be overflowed 
by unusual freshets. 
4, The bridge approaches, by substituting trestles for the earth filling had in view 
in the estimate. 
5. By cultivating and otherwise preparing a somewhat smaller area of ground than 
that had in view. 
We are, very respectfully, your obedient servants, 
F. L. Otmstep & Co. 
Prof. 8S. P. LANGLEY, 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES. 
January 22, 1890—Senate. 
Mr. Wim P. Frye. I am instructed by the Committee on For- 
eign Relations to report a joint resolution (S. 49), and I am also 
instructed by the same committee to ask for its present consideration: 
That for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of the convention 
between the United States of America, Belgium, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Servia, and 
Spain, concluded at Brussels March 15, 1886, and ratified by the President July 19, 
1888, the Public Printer is hereby authorized to supply to the international exchange 
office with due promptness a sufficient number of public documents, and that, to 
meet the additional expense entailed for clerk hire and postage, the sum of $2,000, 
or so much thereof as may be necessary, be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, 
out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be expended under 
the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 
Passed. 
