A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE BUILDING RECENTLY 

 ERECTED FOR THE DEPARTMENTS OF NATURAL HISTORY 

 OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



By RiCHABD Rathbun 



Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Charge of the United 



States National Museum 



INTRODUCTION 



The building recently erected in the Smithsonian Park in Wash- 

 ington for the natural history collections of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum, as the latest of the great museum buildings of the 

 world, and embodying many new and important features, has at- 

 tracted wide attention and given rise to repeated inquiries regarding 

 its construction and arrangement. The present paper has been pre- 

 pared to meet this demand, a demand largely inspired by the excep- 

 tional activity in museum enterprise which for several years past 

 has prevailed throughout the country. 



Of the two older buildings, now to be devoted in greater part to 

 the arts and industries and American history, a descriptive account 

 was given in the annual report of the National Museum for 1903.^ 



By the terms of its fundamental act, dated August 10, 1846, the 

 Smithsonian Institution was made the custodian of the national col- 

 lections which virtually had their beginning in the results of the 

 United States Exploring Expedition around the world from 1838 to 

 1842. This act provided that the Board of Regents " shall cause to 

 be erected a suitable building, of plain and durable materials and 

 structure, without unnecessary ornament, and of sufficient size, and 

 with suitable rooms or halls, for the reception and arrangement, upon 

 a liberal scale, of objects of natural history, including a geological 

 and mineralogical cabinet; also a chemical laboratory, a library, a 

 gallery of art, and the necessary lecture rooms ;" and further, " that, 

 in proportion as suitable arrangements can be made for their recep- 

 tion, all objects of art and of foreign and curious research, and all 

 objects of natural history, plants and geological and mineralogical 

 specimens, belonging, or hereafter to belong, to the United States, 

 which may be in the city of Washington, in whosesoever custody the 

 same may be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized 

 by the Board of Regents to receive them, and shall be arranged in 

 such order, and so classed, as best to facilitate the examination and 



1 The United States National Museum : An Account of the Buildings occupied by the 

 National Collections, By Richard Rathbun. Pages 177-309, with 29 plates. 



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