REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 29 



remarked, one of the most expensive buildings in proportion to its in- 

 terior capacity which could have well been devised; expensive not only 

 in its first construction, but also in the repairs which are continually 

 required to protect it from the influence of the weather, which is obvi- 

 ous when the number of projections, towers, and exposed angles is 

 considered. 



The building, which from the first has been a drain on the Smithson 

 funds, still requires an appropriation for heating-apparatus, and for 

 annual repairs, which, in justice to the bequest, we trust will be provided 

 by Congress. 



For defraying the expenses of the care and exhibition of the National 

 Museum, Congress has annually, for the last two years, appropriated 

 $10,000. Although this appropriation was more than double that of 

 previous years, still it fell short of the actual expenditure. The amount 

 of items chargeable to the museum during the past year, independent 

 jof the rent which might have been charged for the rooms occupied, or 

 for repairs of the building, was a little more than $13,000. Deducting 

 from this sum the $10,000 appropriated by Congress, and there re- 

 remains $3,000, which was paid from the income of the Smithson fund. 



A statement of this deficiency has been presented to Congress, and 

 we trust that the sum of $15,000 will be appropriated for the same 

 purpose for the ensuing fiscal year. 



By the completion of the large room in the second story and the 

 appropriation of the west wing and connecting range to the same pur- 

 pose, the space allotted .to the museum in the Smithson building has 

 been increased to about threefold. It is proposed, as was stated in the 

 last report, to devote the room in the west wing to specimens of geology 

 and mineralogy, and the large room in the second story to specimens of 

 archaeology and palaeontology. As preparatory to the fitting up of 

 these rooms, a series of designs has been prepared at the expense of 

 the Institution by B. Waterhouse Hawkins, the well-known restorer of 

 the ancient animals which illustrate the palaeontology of the Sydenham 

 Palace, near London. 



A commencement has also been made in the furnishing of the large 

 room with casts of some of the larger extinct animals. 



The cast of a skeleton of the Megatherium cuvieri, generously pre- 

 sented by Professor H. A. Ward, of Eochester, has been set up in the 

 middle of the room. This gigantic fossil was first made known to 

 the scientific world in 1789. It was discovered on the banks of the 

 river Luxan, near the city of Buenos Ayres, and was subsequently 

 transmitted to Madrid. The original bones, of which this specimen is 

 a copy, were found in the same Pampean deposit, between the years 

 1831 and 1838, and belong partly to the Hunterian Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, and partly to the British Museum. Cuvier, who gave 

 it its generic title, thought it combined the character of the sloth, 



