HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM 
Constitution. The Trustees at once, on motion of Charles A. Dana, at the same 
meeting in which the Act of Incorporation was accepted, appointed 
a committee of three to draft a constitution. This committee was 
composed of Messrs. Charles A. Dana, Theodore Roosevelt, and Joseph 
H. Choate. 
The Constitution of The American Museum of Natural History was 
carefully framed and was adopted May 4, 1869, precisely as originally 
drafted by Mr. Choate. It was a document embodying fundamentally 
the aim of the founders of the Museum to restrain and limit all gov- 
ernment of the Museum within the body of Trustees. This design 
appears throughout the document, and its wisdom has been amply 
illustrated in the whole subsequent history of the institution. The 
Constitution was a simple and adequate fabric. It was purely regu- 
lative, and its provisions have met the requirements of nearly forty 
years. 
Subscriptions. Meanwhile the financial outlook was unexpectedly promising, and 
the response to solicitation generous. The personal prestige repre- 
sented in its Trustees, their own pledges and the quick appreciation 
of the educational purposes of the Museum, established at once a basis 
of appeal that was irresistible. By November of the first year (1869) 
of the Museum's corporate existence $44,500 had been subscribed. 
Collections. Several large collections had been offered and negotiations were 
opened for their purchase. The Trustees finally acquired the col- 
lection of American birds of the ornithologist, D. G. Elliot, consisting 
of about 2,500 specimens; the important collections of Prince Maxi- 
milian of Neuwied on the Rhine above Bonn, comprising 4,000 
mounted birds, 600 mounted animals, and about 2,000 fishes and 
reptiles mounted and in alcohol, and the principal parts of the Ver- 
reaux and Vedray collections— the former embracing 2,800 mounted 
birds, 220 mounted animals and 4,000 mounted skeletons of mammals, 
birds, reptiles, and fishes, and the latter, 250 specimens of mounted 
mammals and birds of Siberia. These four collections formed the 
nucleus about which the Museum has grown. 
[18] 
