Chapter 6 



Affiliated 

 Organizations 



IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT THE Smithsonian Institution 

 helped focus scientific endeavors that eventually re- 

 sulted in the founding of various government scientific 

 agencies. The Weather Service is cited as the classic 

 example, but similar developments occurred in natural 

 history. The "museum community" includes many in- 

 dividuals who are in the Museum but not of it, and for 

 the first fifty years at least, about half of the scientists 

 and support staff in the new building were paid by 

 other government organizations. 



Most people both inside and outside the building are 

 still unaware of any distinction between Museuin mem- 

 bers and those of associated agencies, the primary dif- 

 ference often being the day on which they are paid. 

 The ultimate confusion occurred a few years ago when 

 an assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior 

 wrote the Secretary of the Smithsonian, congratulating 

 him on a staff publication that would be of considerable 

 use to his department. The item, it turned out, was one 

 prepared by Interior Department employees within the 

 Museum. 



Geological Survey 



The easiest administrative history to follow is that of 

 the U.S. Geological Survey. After the Civil War, the 

 tradition of government-supported exploration of the 

 western United States resulted in four simultaneous 

 territorial surveys.' In addition to making maps and 

 studying the rocks, they followed the pattern of earlier 

 government explorations by examining, to varying de- 

 grees, other aspects of natural history. Eventually sev- 

 eral of the survey parties crossed paths in the field. 

 Congress rectified what was judged to be duplication 

 of effort by discontinuing three of the surveys; the 

 fourth, a survey of the fortieth parallel, had been fin- 

 ished. 



John Wesley Powell in his office in the Bureau of 

 Ethnology on F Street, 1894 or earlier. Explorer of the 

 Grand Canyon, first director of the Bureau of Ethnology, 

 and second director of the Geological Survey, Powell is 

 representative of all the American scientists who were and 

 are affiliated with the Museum. 



In March 1879, the United States Geological Survey 

 was created, under the Department of the Interior, to 

 carry on the geological facets of this work in a more 

 systematic manner. The same act, the Sundry Civil Ex- 

 pense Bill, also created the Bureau of Ethnology and 

 placed it under the jurisdiction of the Smithsonian.'^ 

 John Wesley Powell, who had explored the Colorado 

 River and had headed one of the four territorial sur- 

 veys, became the director of the bureau. The U.S. Geo- 

 logical Survey was organized with Clarence King as 

 director, but within two years he left. Powell became 

 director of that agency as well, and rode both horses 

 for thirteen years. 



Within the section of the act establishing the Geo- 

 logical Survey appears the following sentence: "And all 

 collections of rocks, minerals, soils, and fossils, and ob- 

 jects of natural history, archaeology, and ethnology, 

 made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological 

 Survey, or by any other parties for the Government of 

 the United States, when no longer needed for inves- 

 tigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National 

 Museum.'" This is potentially a powerful piece of law- 

 making; tradition ascribes its wording to Powell. Assis- 

 tant Secretary Baird had always maintained — an ar- 

 guable point — that the congressional action establishing 

 the Smithsonian had made it the keeper of the nation's 

 collections. The wording of the 1879 law expunged 

 doubt as to the final destination of all federal collec- 

 tions. It also established tangible bonds between the 

 Museum and a group of other organizations. 



The Geological Survey made its headquarters in the 

 National Museum when the brick building opened in 

 1881, but in a few years the director moved to the Hooe 

 Iron Building, on F Street between Thirteenth and 

 Fourteenth. Laboratories had been set up in the north- 

 east tower of the National Museum, so the chemists and 

 physicists stayed a few years longer. But the paleon- 

 tologists in residence at the Museum stayed put, with 

 their ever-increasing collections, because of the diffi- 

 culty of moving so many fossils. As the Survey grew, 

 more paleontologists were added to the staff in the 

 Hooe Building, and their collections were kept there 

 because of tight quarters in the National Museum. As 



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