Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-12
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it's exhibits have multiplied thirty fold. I'M
til they today include over 100000 OBJ
jects. Its space being entirely inadequate,
new building is now in course of cree
ton, and its total cost. will be So 5000
1t is proposed to convert the present mu-
scum building into a National museum of
Mechanic Arts, an outgrowth of the section
of mechanical technology in the National
Museum. AS soon as the new building has
been completed it will receive the overflow
museum collections. After these spaces
have been cleared and reconstructed it is
probable that the present nucleus of the
National Gallery of Art, consisting Of the
Johnston collection of masterpieces in Oil.
the Marsh collection of engravings and
other valuable collections, will be installed
therein. Included in the general scheme
Of the national gallery will be the separate
building for which Charles L. Freer Of De-
troit has bequeathed $5UO,00o to the Smith
sonian for the installation of his SS5 Whis-
tier paintings, his peacock room by Whis-
tier, his fifty additional framed canvases.
over half hundred treasures of China and
japanese art and nearly thousand pieces
of ancient oriental pottery This great col
lection is now valued at 100000, and Mr..
Freer agrees to make additions to the ex-
tent of 100000, so that at his death the
Smithsonian will receive a million dollar
collection besides the $500 600 building to
shelter it. The success of the hitherto I'M
developed National Gallery of Art being
now assured, Americans have a repository
for such private collections as they wish to
bequeath to the nation as a whole rather
than to a city or a state.
So the secretary of the Smithsonian
will have the added responsibility of this
art gallery of the create National Museum
and the Museum of Mechanic Arts He
will be ex-officio director of the astrophysi-
cal observatory, just south of the Smith
sonian. This was organized by Prof. Lang
ley, whose great invention, the bo.ometer,
is constantly measuring therein the radia-
tionS of the sun, to millionth OF a degree.
Here the great physicist also made his
great discoveries in the before uneXplored
region below the red Of the solar spectrum.
The bureau Of American ethnology, one OF
the other government institutions under
the protecting wing of the Smithsonian,
sends it's trained ethnologists into many
fields to study our live Indians of today
or to eXcavate the ruins of past peoples.
The National Geological Park, organized
by Prof. Langley, is the largest preserve
of the kind in the country, and since our
consuls throughout the world are under In
structions to collect valuable animals for
it. its collection Is destined to eclipse any
other in the country, If not in the world.
The international bureau of exchanges,
also under the secretary of the Smithso-
MAN, is the clearing house through which
the government sends out its reports and
those of the Smithsonian to all countries
of the earth and through which it receives
in return for distribution throughout
America, the publications of these foreign
countries and of their scientific institutions.
About 175OO0 packages of literature are
annually handled here for about 1880 cor
respondents.
JOHN ELFRETH WATKINS.