ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 61 



and Sciences, then extinct. The supposition is tenable that the 

 primary reason for locating here was that there were still in existence 

 some traces of the former garden. 1 The naval appropriation act of 

 May 14. 1836, authorized the President to send a surveying and ex- 

 ploring expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas in Gov- 

 ernment vessels. 



Congress granted $100,000 and authorized the use of any other 

 moneys in the control of the Navy Department, not exceeding an ex- 

 penditure of $150,000. After numerous delays the expedition, con- 

 sisting of six Government ships under Lieut. Charles Wilkes, United 

 States Navy, sailed from Hampton Roads August 18, 1838. The ex- 

 pedition returned to New York June 10, 1842, bringing a large collec- 

 tion of natural history specimens. 



On August 26, 1842, the Committee on the Library requested Lieut. 

 "Wilkes to prepare a narrative of his voyage, and appointed the 

 naturalist of the expedition "to arrange and class the various objects 

 of natural history," later appropriating $20,000 for this purpose. 

 The horticulturist and assistant botanist of the expedition were 

 charged with the duty of preserving the horticultural and botanical 

 specimens. 2 These objects were for a time on exhibition in that por- 

 tion of the Patent Office Building then constructed and in green- 

 houses in the square behind the building, but upon the extension of 

 the Patent Office Building, begun in 1849, Avere in 1850 removed to the 

 present area. 3 



In May, 1850, Congress appropriated $5,000 for a new greenhouse 

 and the removal thereto of the plants of the exploring expedition, 

 and during the same month the present site, upon which the new 

 greenhouse was built, was selected by the Joint Committee on the 

 Library. This ground was thereafter commonly known as the Bo- 

 tanic Garden, but the term was not officially applied to the location 

 until August 18, 1856. when its maintenance was sDecifically placed 

 under the direction of the Joint Committee on the Library. 



From 1851 to the present time approximately $387,977 has been 

 appropriated for repairs and equipment of buildings and grounds. 

 From 1857 to the present time there has been appropriated for trees, 



1 The charter of the Columbian Institute established for the promotion of arts and 

 sciences, approved by the President in 1820, was as follows : 



"Be it enacted, etc., That there be granted, during the pleasure of Congress, to the 

 Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, the use and improvement 

 of a tract of public land in the city of Washington, not exceeding five acres, to be located 

 under the direction of the President of the United States, for the purpose of enabling 

 the said Columbian Institute to effect the object of their incorporation : Provided, That 

 whenever the said institute shall be dissolved, or cease to exist, or to employ the said 

 tract of land for the purposes aforesaid, all right, title, and interest, hereby granted to 

 the same, shall revert to, and vest in, the United States, as completely as if such grant 

 had never been made." C16th Cong., 1st sess. From Private Statutes at Large, United 

 States of America, 1789-1845, vol. 6.) 



Adverting to this institute and its connection with the then Botanic Garden, Richard 

 Rathbun, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in his monograph on the 

 Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences (Smithsonian Institution 

 Bulletin 101, 1917) says : " Ceasing to exist as an active organization in 1837, the fact 

 that it had established and maintained a botanic garden for nearly two decades seems 

 almost immediately to have been forgotten, and the selection of the identical tract for 

 the United States Botanic Garden 13 years later would, therefore, appear, so far as 

 shown by any of the records now available, to have had no relation to its former occu- 

 pation by the Columbian Institute." 



2 Up to 1852 sums amounting in all to $158,753 were appropriated for the salary of the 

 scientific corps, caring for the collection and for preparing and publishing the works on 

 the expedition. From 1844 to 1875 a series of appropriations for greenhouse and garden 

 construction amounted to about $114,861 additional. 



3 For a detailed account of the beginning's of the Botanic Garden on this site see 

 Bulletin 101 of Smithsonian Institution, by Richard Rathbun, Assistant Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution in charge of United States National Museum, Appendix, p. 136. 



