THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AND U. S. 
NATIONAL MUSEUM 
ORGANIZATION, PLANS, AND BUILDING 
By the Act of the Congress of the United States approved 
August io, 1846, establishing the Smithsonian Institution, it 
was provided : 
“That, so soon as the Board of Regents shall have selected the 
said site [for a building], they shall cause to be erected a suitable 
building, of plain and durable materials and structure, without 
unnecessary ornament, and of sufficient size, and with suitable 
rooms or halls, for the reception and arrangement, upon a 
liberal scale, of objects of natural history, including a geological 
and mineralogical cabinet; also a chemical laboratory, a library, 
a gallery of art, and the necessary lecture rooms”, etc.; 
And also further, 
“That, in proportion as suitable arrangements can be made 
for their reception, all objects of art and of foreign and curious 
research, and all objects of natural history, plants, and geo- 
logical and mineralogical specimens, belonging or hereafter to 
belong, to the United States, which may be in the city of Wash- 
ington, in whosesoever custody the same may be, shall be de- 
livered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of 
Regents to receive them, and shall be arranged in such order, 
and so classed, as best to facilitate the examination and study 
of them, in the building so as aforesaid to be erected for the 
institution,” etc. 
Immediately upon the organization of the Board of Regents, 
in September, 1846, a committee from its membership was ap- 
pointed to digest a plan for carrying out the provisions of this 
act. The committee’s report, submitted on January 25, 1847, 
contained the following recommendations on the subject of the 
fine arts : 
“The gallery of art, your committee think, should include 
both paintings and sculpture, as well as engravings and archi- 
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