78 General Notes. 
with less interest, or care or attention, if we measure these things 
by the appropriations made, than do the third-rate powers, such as 
Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, etc. Yet the area of the 
United States is as rich and as new, and will pay as largely for cul- 
tivation, as any like area in Europe. The States of Ohio, or \Yis- 
consin, or West Virginia, or Mississippi, not to mention New York 
or New England, have either of them within their borders as much 
unstudied, unsearched, and unclassified archaeologic riches as has any 
one of the great countries of Europe : England, France, Germany, 
Spain, or Italy. Yet these countries, each of them, do more for 
their archaeology than equals the combined efforts of the United 
States and all the State governments. 
I confess to a feeling of depression when, on visiting the Prehistoric 
Museum at Salisbury, England, I found there stored and displayed, 
beautiful building, erected in the midst of a lovely park, for its 
occupancy, the prehistoric collection of Squier and Davis, 
3y them from the mounds of the United 
^lississippi valleys. It went begging throuj^ 
States, knocked at the door of Congress, and besought a purchaser 
gathered by them from the mounds of the United States in the 
~lississippi valleys. It went begging through the United 
ttt 
And in disgust with their countrymen, and in despair of ever being 
Ohio and Mississippi valleys. It went begging 
States, knocked at the door of Congress, and besoug 
at the ludicrous price of $1000, but without finding a respon 
able to interest their Government or fellow-citizens, they sold their 
collection to England and retired from the field of archaeologic 
investigations. 
The National Museum courts the fullest investigations into its 
mode of conducting business. It is willing to be held to the 
strictest accountability for its expenditures. These should be made 
imperatiye. But it should receive at the hands of Cong] 
telligent co-operation and a generous response to its effo 
elevation and education of our peoph 
The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and Director of the 
National Museum has labored with all zeal to establish a zoological 
park and garden in the environs of Washington for the preservation 
and display of our native wild animals, now rapidly on the road to 
extinction. Looking in that direction, a few of these animals have 
been received as gifts under the promise that they would be pro- 
tected and cared for. And they have been established in temporary 
wooden buildings, and a park, with a wire fence around it, as big as 
an onion patch, in the Smithsonian grounds, in expectation that 
they might form the nucleus of a future zoological park and garden. 
The House Committee on Appropriations seem to calculate or figure 
how much refuse meat, how many bushels of com and bales of hay, 
how little of provision would support these animals, keeping them 
from starvation during the coming year, and so has reduced the ap- 
propriation by one-half from the estimates. One might suppose 
that the Secretary, meeting with such responses, would grow weary 
of his efforts in well-doing and retire from the further contest dis- 
appointed, if not in despair. . 
However, the people of the United States are not niggardly m 
