Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1885 — Origin of the National Museum. [ARTICLE]

Origin of the National Museum.

From an article by Ernest Ingersoll, in the Century, we quote the following : “In no single respect, perhaps, has the progress of the American capital been more striking than in the history of the National Museum. Originating in a quantity of ‘curiosities’ which had been given to the United States- by foreign powers, or sent home by consuls and naval officrs, old visitors to Washington remember it as a heterogeneous cabinet in the Patent Office. It included such diverse objects as the femur of a Missouri mastedon, Washington’s knee-breeches, and the Oriental spoils of the Wilkes expedition around the world. In 1846 a» step was taken toward something coherent and creditable, by an act of Congress establishing a N ational the precedent of a dozen or mor® other nations; but this intention took effect very slowly, though various exploring expeditions and embassies largely increased the balk of the collections. When the inventive faculty of this Yankee race had crowded the Patent Office with models, the ‘cabinet of cariosities’ was trundled over to the Smithsonian Institution.”