20 Report of the President 



ral History, and the members of the Board of Estimate 

 and Apportionment appreciate the urgent necessity of en- 

 largement of the building, they realize that it is imprac- 

 ticable for the City to make any appropriation this year 

 for the Museum because of the very heavy obligations to 

 which the City is committed for other important purposes. 

 The members of this Board, however, are fully alive to 

 the binding nature of the agreement between the Museum 

 and the City, namely, that the City shall continue to add 

 building space as the collections and exhibitions increase, 

 according to the Contract of 1878, and trust that the op- 

 portunity may soon come when building by the City may 

 be renewed. In view of this emergency, the Board desires 

 to make record that if private funds are contributed for 

 the erection of the building the acceptance of such dona- 

 tion shall not be regarded as a precedent to relieve the 

 City of its obligation to continue the extension of the 

 building in the future. 



This action of the Board of Estimate removed the serious 

 objection to the raising of a building fund by subscription. 

 The first contribution to the Museum building fund was a 

 check for $100,000 from Dr. James Douglas, which was fol- 

 lowed by other generous subscriptions from members of the 

 Board of Trustees, amounting, at the time of the Annual 

 Meeting of 19 17, to $617,000. 



To build and equip the Southeast Wing and Court of 

 Ocean Life at the present time, the sum of $1,000,000 is re- 

 quired ; consequently there is still an amount of $400,000 to be 

 contributed. Full acknowledgment of the individual dona- 

 tions will be made when the subscription is complete. 



The Court of Ocean Life is being designed as the most com- 

 plete and beautiful museum unit in the world. 

 Contents of It is planned for exhibitions covering the entire 



New Bmldlngs life and environment, geographic and physio- 

 graphic, of the sea, on the lines of the famous 

 Oceanographic Museum at Monaco and the Fisheries Mu- 

 seum at Berlin. Besides the small forms and phenomena of 



