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REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution : 



Gentlemen : Besides the care of all the property of the Institution, and 

 the responsibility of tbei direction of its operations, under the control of the 

 Regents, the secretary is required to give an account, at their annual session, 

 .of the condition of the Institution, and of its transactions during the pre- 

 ceding year. 



In the discharge of this duty on the present occasion, I am happy to 

 inform the Regents that the Institution under their care is still in a prosper- 

 ous condition, and that since their last meeting, it has continued silently, but 

 effectually, to enlarge the sphere of its influence and usefulness, and to elicit 

 from every part of the civilized world commendations, not only of the 

 plan of organization it has adopted, but also of the results it has pro- 

 duced. 



In my last report I gave a brief account of the means employed to iri- 

 •crease the income, so that in addition to the requirements of Congress in 

 regard to the formation of a library and a museum, and the erection of a 

 building on a liberal scale, operations of a more active character could be 

 incorporated into the plan of organization. 



During the past year the same policy has been observed ; and though 

 the officers of the Institution have been subjected to the inconvenience of 

 transacting business in an unfinished building, and in rooms not intended for 

 the purpose, yet this has been considered of minor importance in comparison 

 with the saving of the funds. Every dollar now expended on the building 

 lessens the amount of accruing interest, and diminishes the means of produ- 

 cing results which are to affect the world at large ; hence the importance of 

 an adherence to the plan of finishing it by degrees. Since the last session of 

 the board, it has, therefore, not been thought advisable to urge the contractor 

 to a rapid completion of his work, and all the expenditures on account of 

 the building have been made from the accrued interest of the current year, 

 and from a portion of that of the year preceding. There is consequently 

 still on hand the two hundred thousand dollars of accumulated interest men- 

 tioned in the last and preceding reports. Of this, it will be recollected, 

 $•30,000 are to be applied towards finishing the building, and the remain- 

 der to be invested as part of the principal. 



The importance of increasing the funds and of gradually developing the 

 operations embraced in the programme, was set forth in the last report. 

 The Institution, it is to be hoped, is not one of a day, but is to endure as 

 long as our government shall last : it is therefore necessary, in the begin- 

 ning, that we should constantly look to the future, and guard against the 

 temptation, to which we are continually exposed, of expanding too rapidly. 



By a resolution of the board, at their session in 1849, the Secretary was 

 directed to petition Congress to take from the Institution $150,000, and 

 such other sums, not exceeding in all $200,000, as may have been, or shall 



