6 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



the duplicates into sets for distribution. Dr. Gray has, however, left the 

 country for an absence of some years in Europe, and Dr. Torrey, who 

 has devoted at least two entire years of his life to these specimens, is 

 unable longer to continue this gratuitous and disinterested service on 

 account of the more imperious duties of his official position, and 

 consequently intimated to us that the botanical specimens would have 

 to be removed from Columbia College, New York, where they have 

 been deposited under his care. To render such a collection of any 

 practical use, and to preserve the plants from decay, the constant super- 

 intendence of a competent botanist is obviously indispensable ; but as 

 the appropriation hitherto made by Congress is far too meagre to meet 

 the cost of the present support of the museum it was necessary to seek 

 some other means of providing for these plants. ISTow, as the Agricul- 

 tural Department requires for continual reference such a collection of 

 plants, and had begun to gather one ; and as, also, in the course of its in- 

 vestigations it has need of the services of a practical botanist, nothing 

 could seem more advisable than to unite the two collections.- By this 

 arrangement not only are the series of plants themselves rendered more per- 

 fect and more readily accessible, but the Institution is in the same degree 

 relieved of the burden imposed upon it in the support of a multifarious 

 and rapidly increasing museum. The transfer, however, is made with 

 the understanding that the superintending botanist shall be approved 

 by the Institution, that the collection shall be accessible to the public 

 for practical or educational purposes, and to the Institution for scientific 

 investigation or for supplying any information that may be asked for by 

 its correspondents in regard to the names and character of plants. It 

 is further stipulated that due credit shall be given to the Institution in the 

 publications of the department for the deposit of the original specimens 

 as well as for the additions which from time to time may be made to them 

 by the Institution. 



Agreeably to the policy above mentioned, the Institution has also entered 

 into an arrangement with the medical department of the United States 

 army by which it was thought mutual convenience and harmonious co-op- 

 eration would be promoted. By this arrangement the Institution transfers 

 to the museum in charge of the Surgeon General its large collection of 

 hum an crania, and also all its specimens pertaining to anatomy, physi- 

 ology, medicine, and surgery, while it takes, in return, from the medical 

 museum all the collections which more properly relate to ethnology. 

 It will be seen that the object kept constantly in view in these trans- 

 actions is to render the various collections in Washington, which have 

 been made under the direction of the government and the Institution, 

 definite parts of one harmonious system, and at the same time to avoid 

 tl loss of labor and of means, in duplicating and preserving articles of 

 a similar character in separate establishments. 



The disposition, which up to this time, has been made of the plants 

 illustrates the plan which was adopted, from the first, in order to pro- 



