7 
inadequate for the purpose to which they were devoted, and accordingly 
the Legislature, in response to the Petition of a large number of 
influential Citizens interested in the cause, by an Act in ISYl 
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 establishhig 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 Hke provision was made for a similar building for the use of " The 
Metropohtan 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, tbough 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 pohcy 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 liy 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 Wolff., the first President of this Museum, we are 
much iQdebted 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 cliildren, 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 llie public welfare. 
In recalling, witli pride, the progress that has already been made 
towwda the realization of their plans, the Trustees desire to place on 
