ADDRESSES DELIVERED 



AT THE 



Opening of the Auditorium 



OF THE 



American Museum of Natural History, 



Seventy-seventh Street and Central Park West, New York City, 



Wednesday, October jo, igoo. 



Opening Address of Morris K. Jesup, President of the Museum. 



" Members of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 Ladies and Gentlemen : I am commissioned by the Board of 

 Trustees to give you a hearty welcome to this new Auditorium, 

 which has just been completed. It is intended that these exercises 

 shall be brief, in order that you may have an opportunity to visit 

 the adjoining halls of exhibition 



"Before the Trustees can act with reference to this important 

 addition to the Museum Building, it becomes necessary that a 

 formal presentation be made to the Museum authorities by the 

 proper municipal authorities, and therefore, without further cere- 

 mony, I introduce the Hon. George C. Clausen, President of the 

 Department of Parks of the City of New York, and Commissioner 

 of the Boroughs of Manhattan and Richmond." 



Address of the Honorable George C. Clausen, President 

 of the Department of Parks, presenting the building on behalf of 

 the City to the Trustees of the American Museum of Natural 

 History : 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



In a little more than thirty years the Museum of Natural History, in the 

 City of New York, has grown from a very meagre and poorly housed nucleus 

 to the grand and inspiring proportions which you now look upon — proportions 

 of such majesty and beauty as to excite the admiration not only of scientists 

 and art lovers everywhere, but also of all men of taste and refinement. The 

 history of the institution is in many ways unique and in every way interesting. 

 It was in the year 1869 that a little band of public-spirited men, headed by 

 John David Wolfe, Robert Colgate, Benjamin H. Field, Robert L. Stuart, 

 Adrian Iselin, Benjamin B. Sherman, Wm. A. Haines, Theodore Roosevelt, 

 Howard Potter, Wm. T. Blodgett, Morris K. Jesup, D. Jackson Steward, 

 J. Pierpont Morgan, A. G. P. Dodge, Charles A. Dana, Joseph H. Choate and 



