34 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



as to increase the available capacity of the apartment. The whole 

 arrangement produces a pleasing architectural effect, while from the 

 size of the eases instruments may frequently be used in the way of 

 experiment without bringing them out into the room, or exposing 

 them to the handling of visitors. 



Collections of Specimens of Natural History , &c. — In the last two re- 

 ports a distinction was drawn between the large collections of speci- 

 mens of natural history, &c, which have been made through the 

 agency of this Institution and what is called the Smithsonian Museum. 

 This distinction has become necessary in order to separate more 

 clearly in the public mind two objects, which, although they are gen- 

 erally confounded, are in the case of this Institution essentially dif- 

 ferent. The object of making large collections of duplicate speci- 

 mens is twofold, first, to advance science by furnishing to original 

 investigators, wherever they may reside, new materials for criti- 

 cal study; and second, to diffuse knowledge by providing colleges, 

 academies, and other educational establishments with the labelled 

 specimens necessary to give definite ideas of the relations and diver- 

 sities of the various productions of nature. The principal end 

 attained by the public museum of the Institution has been the grati- 

 fication and incidental instruction of the visitors to the city of Wash- 

 ington. It is true that there are preserved in the museum the type 

 specimens cf the species and genera which have been described, and 

 of which accounts have been published at the expense of the Smith- 

 son fund, or by other means; but for the preservation of these there 

 is required no costly building nor corps of attendants, and, indeed, 

 the charge of them might well be assumed by other establishments. 



From the foregoing exposition it will readily be seen that while 

 the collecting and distributing of large numbers of specimens is an 

 important means of increasing and diffusing knowledge, and as such 

 is in strict accordance with the will of the founder of this Institution, 

 the support of a public museum, the effects of which must of neces- 

 sity be in a great degree local, is not so consistent with the liberal 

 intention of the bequest. 



It should not be inferred from the foregoing remarks that I mean to 

 disparage the establishment of a general collection of objects of na- 

 ture and art, like that of the British Museum or the Garden of Plants, 

 which includes in its design the encouragement of original study as 

 well as of popular instruction and amusement. On the contrary, I 



