1724 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
numberless objects of interest, are fireproof, and all are dangerously 
combustible. 
It is now just a half century since the establishment of the Smith- 
sonian Institution, and its work has been a continuous honor to the 
United States. It is the custodian of the National Museum, which is 
the only lawful place of deposit of ‘‘all objects of art and of foreign 
and curious research, and all objects of natural history, plants, and. 
geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United States.” 
The idea has been suggested that possibly it might have been wiser 
to have originally selected a site where a much larger structure for 
the Museum could have been erected; but its removal from the neigh- 
borhood of the Smithsonian building would have made it impracticable 
for Secretary Baird, in whom Congress reposed the utmost confidence, 
to have had anything to do with it, and far less to have been the per- 
sistent and efficient guide and promoter of a great national museum, 
as much to his personal honor as even the national fish hatchery has 
proved to be. . 
The additional building now earnestly sought will be equal to the 
preservation and exhibition of a very large amount of accumulated 
material now unhappily stored away, and will also provide some space 
for future accumulations that should not longer be neglected. 
The agents of great museums abroad are reported to be regularly 
employed here, with authority to purchase any American curios and 
antiquities, and in some directions they are supposed to have already 
obtained better specimens for exhibition than have been left for us to 
find. 
The New World, of which the United States forms so important a 
part, in its prairies and mountains, hills and forests, with their exten- 
sive minerals, rocks, and marbles, lakes and rivers, with the animals, 
game, birds, and fish, the story of the prehistoric race, the legends of 
~ the Indian tribes, as well as the notable modern history and life of the 
present inhabitants, all seem to have distinctive features of their own 
which belong almost exclusively to the western half of the globe, dis- 
covered by Columbus. This vast and comparatively ungathered con- 
tinental field, with its abounding American treasures, should be har- 
vested by our National Museum and not surrendered to the more dili- 
gent foreign explorers to adorn and enrich only European museums. 
As long as it shall be conducted by the Smithsonian Institution its 
broad nonpartisan reputation as a national museum of the highest char- 
acter will not be likely ever to be disputed or impeached. 
While this additional building, with its additional story and cellar, 
will more than double the capacity of the present Museum, it is prob- 
able as the years go by that it will be necessary to keep step with the 
research, progress, and record of the American people, and as early as 
1926, when our population will be not less than 140,000,000, it may be 
expected that another and grander building in the rear of the Smith- 
