REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The National Museum was established by the Government in 1842, at 

 ■which time it consisted principally of specimens collected by the Wilkes 

 exploring expedition. It was transferred from the Patent Office to the 

 care of the Smithsonian Institution in 1858, where it has been enlarged 

 by all the collections made by exploring and surveying parties of* the 

 several bureaus of the War, Navy, Treasury, and Interior Departments, 

 and those of the Smithsonian Institution. At first $4,000 only was an- 

 nually allowed by Congress for the care and exhibition of the specimens. 

 In 1871 the appropriation for this purpose was increased to $10,000, in 

 1872 to $15,000, and for the last two years to $20,000. Nothing, how- 

 ever, has been allowed for the rent of the building, which was erected 

 exclusively out of the income from the bequest of Smithson. 



The following report from Professor Spencer F. Baird, assistant sec- 

 retary, gives an account of the additions to the museum and the various 

 operations connected with it during the year 1876 : 



REPORT OF PROF. SPENCER F. BAIRD ON THE ADDITIONS, &C, TO THE 



MUSEUM IN 1876. 



Increase of the Museum. — At no period in the history of the National 

 Museum, from the time when it was organized to the present, has the 

 increase been so great as during the year 1876. A sudden and abrupt 

 augmentation began in 1875, reaching its culmination in 1876. In the 

 absence of funds for the purchase of collections, the ordinary means of 

 increase have been derived, first, from the contributions of Smithsonian 

 correspondents, either spontaneous, or invited with a view of securing 

 material for some particular research ; second, from the specimens col- 

 lected by the various Government surveys and exploring expeditions and 

 transferred to the Smithsonian building in accordance with the law of Con- 

 gress ; and, third, by the exchange of specimens with private individu- 

 als or public establishments at home and abroad. 



During the two years just past the most important means of increase 

 has been the United States International or Centennial Exhibition of 

 1876, which has just passed into history as the most extensive and suc- 

 cessful of world's exhibitions of natural products and general industries. 



In addition, however, to the sources of increase to the Museum 

 during the years 1875 and 1876, mentioned above, still another presented 

 itself of perhaps even greater productiveness, viz, acquisitions from 

 foreign exhibits. With scarcely an exception, the best and most im- 

 portant of these were presented to the United States at the close 

 of the exhibition, embracing, as they did, many complete series 

 of objects, illustrating the geology, metallurgy, the ethnology, and the 

 general resources of all nations. - Of about forty governments and 



