THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 129 



:fine lecture room, but of the whole costly building erected on " The 

 Mall," at Washington, might be received with less regret than would 

 ordinarily pertain to the loss of an edifice specially set apart for 

 such purposes as it was devoted to ; for the building, with its lecture 

 room, galleries, library, and museum, was the practical exposition of 

 ideas relative %) the application of the founder's bequest, which 

 many looked upon with apprehension, as destined to squander the 

 fund on purely local and popular purposes. One class of advisers 

 advocated the founding of a large library at Washington, on which 

 the whole bequest should be expended. A great public museum in 

 the same city found another equally zealous body of advocates. A 

 third class proposed to devote the fund to secure the services of 

 lecturers, whose prelections on science and literature should be 

 extended to all the chief cities throughout the States. The advice 

 of a fourth class was urged in favour of a series of popular tracts, 

 to be published and distributed among the million. It is a subject 

 of gratulation frequently referred to in notices of the Institution, 

 that the bequest of Smithson was brought over from England in 

 British sovereigns, and these, after being deposited in the United 

 States Mint, were recoiued into American eagles, and so converted 

 into part of .the currency of the country. But, so far as the special 

 destination of the bequest had been indicated by the testator, it 

 seemed to run no slight danger of being frittered away on ephemeral 

 popular gratifications, and effectually lost to its purpose of increas- 

 ing and difi'using knowledge throughout the world. The Act of 

 Congress which determined, as far as legislation has done so, the 

 mode of carrying out the trust, aimed, apparently, at a compromise 

 between the various conflicting schemes. It directs the formation 

 of a library, a museum, and a gallery of art ; authorizes the delivery 

 -of courses of public lectures ; and provides for the erection of a 

 building, on a liberal scale, to supply the accommodation requisite 

 for all those varied purposes. 



The building, which has to a great extent perished in the recent 

 conflagration, was the first result of this Act of Congress. It ia 

 described in the Guide Book as a structure " in the style of archi- 

 tecture of the last half of the twelfth century, the latest variety of 

 the rounded style, as it is found immediately anterior to its merging 

 into the early Gothic, and is known as the JVorman, the Lombard, 

 or Eomanesque." In reality, however, it might rather be described 



Vol. X. I 



