28 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
As the natural history building was closed and every available 
foot of space in it assigned to the Treasury Department, it became 
necessary to install the material received during the year for the 
war collections in the arts and industries building, and to place the 
large and heavy objects in the open to the west of this building. At 
the close of the year material for the war collections was coming in 
steadily, and it had become necessary also to assign to this subject 
all of the central portion of the ground story and the rotunda of the 
natural history building — space usually reserved for special exhi- 
bitions. 
The Museum is particularly fortunate in having a very excellent 
series of objects showing the development of the airplane, beginning 
with the Langley models, which have been in its possession for a 
number of years, and the first Government-owned aeroplane of the 
world purchased by the United States from Wright Brothers in 1909. 
Through the director of military aeronautics. Bureau of Aircraft 
Production, two types of planes used by the French at the front in 
1917 were received during the past year, and a Curtiss training plane, 
such as used at all the training fields in the United States, and the 
first battle plane constructed in this country for the United States 
Government — the DH^, made by the Dayton-Wright Airplane Co. 
in 1917. This plane has flown over 100,000 miles and been in the air 
over 1,000 hours. 
Through arrangement with the Army and Navy the Museum is 
planning to exhibit examples of every plane, engine, radio apparatus, 
and other accessory in production in the United States at the time 
of the armistice, and has secured for this exhibit the temporary 
metal structure erected on the Smithsonian grounds in 1917 by the 
War Department for the use of the Air Service. 
Immediate needs of the Museum. — As pointed out in the report of 
three years ago, the pressing needs of the Museum are those for addi- 
tional space for the accommodation of collections and for increase 
in the scientific and technical staff. It is clearly manifest that these 
needs must be met if the institution, with its numerous departments, 
is to keep reasonable pace with the development of the country as 
a whole. The space congestion especially becomes more pronounced 
and embarrassing with each passing day. 
The natural history collections and the laboratories connected 
therewith require for their reasonable accommodation and adminis- 
tration the entire natural history building, a structure erected 
especially for this particular purpose. To-day, however, large areas 
in the building are assigned — and that from necessity — to the rap- 
idly growing collections of the National Gallery of Art, and in larger 
measure even to the great accumulations of historical material relat- 
ing to the late war which are just now demanding adequate atten- 
