1718 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
In addition to the storage within the fireproof buildings there are a 
number of sheds whose capacity is roughly estimated at 170,000 cubic 
feet; which are packed with valuable material, and in which most of 
the workshops are placed. Two of these are immediately south of the 
- Smithsonian building, another at the southeast corner of the Museum 
building, two others to the southwest of the old Armory building, and 
another, temporarily hired, halfway between the Museum and the Capi- 
tol. Until 1888 two floors of the old Armory building were used for 
the storage of Museum material. It then became necessary to give 
up one floor to accommodate the increasing necessities of the Fish 
Commission, and in 1894 to give it up entirely to the Commission. At 
that time an appropriation was made to rent storage rooms in the city. 
Suitable storage rooms can not be rented; we have had to move twice 
and are now being forced to a third move. These moves are destruc- 
tive and expensive. 
The two sheds adjoining the Armory building are getting old and 
some of the timbers are rotting away. They can not be repaired because 
there is no place to put the material they contain while the work is 
being done, and they are so crowded that temporary readjustments for 
this purpose are not possible. 
All of the wooden storage sheds are in constant danger from destruc- 
tion by fire. This isa matter especially serious in connection with two 
long sheds near the Smithsonian building. In his report to the 
Regents, presented to Congress in 1894, Secretary Langley made an 
earnest appeal for relief in the following words: 
I have the assurance of experts that a fire communicated to these rooms would. 
sweep through the entire length of the building, and although the building itself is 
fireproof as against any ordinary danger, it may well be doubted whether any of the 
collections therein exhibited can be regarded as safe if the rooms immediately below 
should be exposed to so peculiarly severe a conflagration as would be caused by the 
ignition of these large quantities of inflammable material. Besides this, these 
wooden sheds, which (as I have already intimated) are used not only for storerooms, © 
but for workshops, for the preservation of specimens, and also as sheds for the car- 
penters, are likewise liable to cause serious losses should a fire be kindled in any of 
them, and all of these, I repeat, are immediately under the windows of the Smith- 
sonian building. 
In a report recently submitted by one of the inspectors of the Association of Fire 
Underwriters, in response to a request from me for a statement as to what insurance 
rates would be fixed upon the sheds in question, the Smithsonian building is referred 
to as an undesirable risk, owing solely to the presence of all this inflammable mate- 
rial underneath and in the adjoining sheds, on which latter insurance can not be 
placed for less than $40 per $1,000. This is, Iam informed, nearly ten times the 
rate which would be charged on an ordinary warehouse. The chief danger, how- 
ever, is not to the sheds themselves or their contents, but to the adjoining collec- 
tions, which, without reference to their scientific interest but merely to their intrinsic 
value, represent a very large sum of money. 
The result of all this crowding and lack of facility for work is that 
what is accomplished for public education by the Museum requires 
