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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION  848
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Smithsonian Institution

May 29, 1930.

Dear Mr. Chancellor: 
 
I am sending you herewith the resolution authorized by the Board and a statement regarding the proposed extensions of the Natural History Building of the United States National Museum. If there should be any other information on the subject that you desire, I shall be happy to furnish it.

Very sincerely yours,
(Signed) C. G. ABBOT,
Secretary.

The Honorable Charles Evans Hughes,
Chief Justice of the United States,
Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.

EXTENSIONS OF THE NATURAL HISTORY BUILDING OF THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM.

1. The U. S. National Museum is a treasure house of the products of the United States in fauna, flora, mineralogy, and archeology. The collections have cost $120,000,000, could not be replaced for $400,000,000, and many of them are unique and irreplaceable.

2. The progress of events is continually obliterating opportunities to collect specimens now available. On this account expeditions are sent out every year and gifts are received every year, which add numerous objects soon to become irreplaceable.

3. The additions average nearly 500,000 specimens a year.

4. It is not desirable to give away to other institutions more than a small part of these accretions, for the National Museum has become a principal headquarters for study by experts from all over the world. If the collections were dispersed they would be difficult and costly to visit, and their preservation would often fall to inexpert hands and valuable material lost.

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