REPORT OP THE SECRETARY. 17 



to the means at disposal for this it lias been almost at the foot of all 

 American museums, being surpassed by every municipal museum of note. 



In the earlier years of the Museum this was not of very great moment, 

 as numerous American natural-history specimens came in from the 

 various Government expeditions. It became evident later that for a 

 proper understanding' of native products it was necessary to compare 

 them with those of other parts of the world. To obtain these exotic 

 specimens no adequate means have ever been provided, and it is not to 

 be expected that valuable, specially-selected specimens from foreign 

 lands will ever be procured in large numbers except by purchase or by 

 the sending out of expeditions. 



The result of years of accumulation unsupported by purchases has 

 been that the collections of the National Museum are very unsymmetri- 

 cal — full and rich in some directions, especially in North American 

 natural history, surpassing all other museums, and exceedingly poor 

 in others. 



In the meanwhile museums have sprung up in some of the large 

 cities of the United States, with liberal means for the acquisition of 

 specimens by purchase and the sending out of expeditions, and these 

 are outstripping the National Museum in many of its departments by 

 the wealth of their collections. 



From such causes the National Museum, while truly national in the 

 sense of possessing very full collections of the natural products of the 

 United States, maintains, with increasing difficulty, its supremacy in 

 this special respect over the wealthier private museums, and compares 

 very unfavorably, as regards the breadth of its collections, with the 

 national museums of Europe — in London, Paris, Berlin, St. Peters- 

 burg, Vienna, and Florence. 



I called attention to this matter in a former report when I remarked 

 that the American Museum of Natural History in New York expended 

 $23,552.89, in 1892, for filling out its natural-history collections alone, 

 while the National Museum in the fiscal year 1892-93 expended only 

 $5,709.75 for specimens of all kinds. 



The discrepancy has grown greater in succeeding years. In the 

 past fiscal year, for example, the National Museum expended $3,336 

 for all collections, while the expenditures of the American Museum of 

 Natural History, for acquiring natural-history collections alone, were 

 s \ 1 ,959.65, or fully thirteen times as much as expended by the National 

 Museum, although the total amount of money available for the two 

 was not greatly different, that for the National Museum being in fact 

 the larger. 



The causes of this discrepancy are not far to seek. The income of 

 the local museum is usually devotable wholly to its collections (which 

 in the case cited are housed in adequate buildings) and to their increase 

 and care, which include the services of officers and employees in charge 

 of them and who are devoted only to them. 

 SM 90 2 



