KEPOET OF THE SECRETARY. 29 



have before us a lot of specimens from one Government officer on which 

 postage of upward of, thirty dollars is charged. Unless provision is 

 made for the transmission of these to the Institution through the mails 

 free of cost, as it was in the case of the Land-Office, we shall be obliged 

 to decline receiving them. 



By the will of Henrietta Jane Bedford, of Wilmington, Del., daugh- 

 ter of Hon. Gunning Bedford, jr., one of the framers of the Constitu- 

 tion of the United States, aid-de-camp to General Washington, and 

 first district judge of the United States for the district of Delaware 

 under the Constitution, a bequest was made to the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion of a pair of pocket-pistols, presented to her father by General 

 Washington ; also a silver punch-strainer, said to have been made out 

 of a silver dollar earned by Benjamin Franklin on the first day news- 

 papers were carried round the city of Boston for sale. In case these 

 bequests should not be accepted by the Institution, they were to be given 

 to the Historical Society of Delaware. 



While the motive which induced this bequest is fully appreciated, the 

 objects, not being of a kind now in its collections, which relate more 

 especially to natural history and anthropology, the Institution preferred 

 that they should be presented to the Historical Society of Delaware. 



At the request of the ladies in charge at Mount Vernon it has been 

 thought proper to deposit with them the model of the Bastile of Paris, 

 presented to General Washington ; an iron stirrup of a saddle used 

 by Mrs. Washington ; and a small picture of Mount Vernon. These 

 articles came into the possession of the Institution from the effects of 

 the National Institute, and can be reclaimed for the National Museum 

 at any time it may be thought important to obtain possession of them. 



It was mentioned in the last report that a portion of the large room 

 in the second story of the building was used for the exhibition of the 

 cartoons or original sketches of Indian life, made by the celebrated 

 Indian student, George Catlin. Mr. Catlin continued his exhibition of 

 these pictures during the summer, and devoted all his time not occupied 

 in explaining his pictures to visitors, to finishing the sketches. Unfor- 

 tunately, in passing between the Institution and his boardiug-place, 

 which were separated by the distance of more than a mile, he exposed 

 himself to the heat of the unusually warm summer, and was seized with 

 a malady which terminated his eventful life on the 23d of December, 

 1872, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. 



Since the subject will again come before Congress, I may here repeat 

 what was said in my report last year relative to the purchase by Con- 

 gress of the Catlin collection: "The entire collection, which comprises 

 about twelve hundred paintings and sketches, was offered. by Mr. Catlin 

 to the Government in 1846, and its purchase was advocated by Mr. Web- 

 ster, Mr. Poinsett, General Cass, and other statesmen, as well as by the 

 principal artists and scholars of the country. A report recommending 



