the Legislature, in response to the Petition of a large number of 

 influential Citizens interested in the cause, by an Act in 1S71 

 relative to the Department of Public Parks, authorized the Com- 

 missioners .to erect upon Manhattan Square, a suitable fire-proof 

 building for the purpose of establishing and maintaining the Museum 

 therein, under rules and regulations to be prescribed from time to time 

 by the Commissioners, and in the same connection and by the same act 

 the like provision was made for a similar building for the use of " The 

 Metropolitan Museum of Art," the foundations of which are already 

 being prepared by the Commissioners on the opposite side of the Park. 



By this double act of munificence on the part of the people of the 

 State, the City of New York has been endowed with two institutions 

 of education and ornament which, though now in their infancy, will at 

 no distant day be recognized as of great and permanent public advan- 

 tage, and whatever jealousy may justly pertain to appropriations of 

 public money to private uses can in no way apply to this Museum of 

 Natural History. Its Trustees have no personal objects to serve — no 

 private ends to accomplish. They can gain nothing for themselves 

 from this or from any future endowments which the wise policy of the 

 Legislature may furnish to carry out and perfect this undertaking. 

 Their aims will be all attained, if the people of the City shall justly 

 appreciate its value, and if its accumulating treasures shall be freely 

 and wisely used by all who seek them. 



We should not do entire justice to this occasion if we failed to record 

 the gratitude of the Trustees and the community, to one eminent 

 citizen whose memory is still fresh with us, and will long be kept green 

 by the perennial growth of the charities which he founded and sus- 

 tained. 



To John David Wolfe, the first President of this Museum, we are 

 much indebted for its successful establishment. He entered with zeal 

 into the project of its creation, believing that it would prove an honor 

 to his native City, and an important means of education to its citizens 

 and their children, and dying at a ripe old age, he commended its care 

 and support to those who have the means and the disposition to do 

 something for the public welfare. 



In recalling, with pride, the progress that has already been made 

 towards the realization of their plans, the Trustees desire to place on 

 record their high appreciation of the services of Professor Albert S. 

 Bickmore, whose zealous devotion to the interests of the Institution, 



