The building was much injured by fire in January, 1865. The flames destroyed the upper part of the main buildings, and the towers. Although the lower story was saved, the valuable official, scientific, and miscellaneous correspondence, record-books, and manuscripts in the Secretary’s office, the large collection of scientific apparatus, the personal effects of James Smithson, Stanley’s Collection of Indian Portraits, and much other valuable property were destroyed. Fortunately, the Library, Museum, and Laboratory were uninjured. The fire made no interruption in the practical workings of the Institution, and in a comparatively short space of time the burned portions were restored.
The museum occupies the ground-floor, and is the principal attraction to a large portion of the visitors. It is a spacious hall, containing two tiers of cases, in which are placed the specimens on exhibition. Access to the upper tier of cases is had by means of a light iron gallery, which is reached by stair-ways of the same material. The Official Guide to the Institution, thus describes the Museum:
Under these provisions, the Institution has received and taken charge of such Government collections in mineralogy, geology and natural history, as have been made since its organization. The amount of these has been very great, as all the United States geological, boundary, and railroad surveys, with the various topographical, military, and naval explorations, have been, to a greater or less extent, ordered to make such collections as would illustrate the physical and natural history features of the regions traversed.
Of the collections made by thirty Government expeditions, those of twenty-five are now deposited with the Smithsonian Institution, embracing more than five-sixths of the whole amount of materials collected. The principle expeditions thus furnishing collections are the United States Geological Surveys of Doctors Owen, Jackson, and Evans, and Messrs Foster and Whitney; the United States and Mexican boundary survey; the Pacific Railroad survey; the exploration of the Yellowstone, by Lieutenant Warren; the survey of Lieutenant Bryant; The United States naval astronomical expedition; the North Pacific Behring’s Strait expedition; the Japan expedition, and Paraguay expedition.
The Institution has also received, from other sources, collections of greater or less extent, from various portions of North America, tending to complete the Government series.
The collections thus made, taken as a whole, constitute the largest and best series of the minerals, fossils, rocks, animals, and plants of the entire continent of North America, in the world. Many tons of geological and mineralogical specimens, illustrating the surveys throughout the West, are embraced therein. There is also a very large collection of minerals of the mining regions of Northern Mexico, and of New Mexico, made by a practical Mexican geologist, during a period of twenty-five years, and furnishing indications of many rich mining localities within our own borders, yet unknown to the American people.
It includes also, with scarcely an exception, all the vertebrate animals of North America. The greater part of the mammalia have been arranged in walnut drawers, made proof against dust and insects. The birds have been similarly treated, while the reptiles and fish have been classified, as, to some extent, have also been the shells, minerals, fossils, and plants.
The Museum hall is quite large enough to contain all the collections hitherto made, as well as such others as may be assigned to it. No single room in the country is, perhaps, equal to it in capacity or adaptation to its purposes, as, by the arrangements now being perfected, and denoted in the illustration, it is capable of receiving twice as large a surface of cases as the old Patent-Office hall, and three times that of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia.
The Smithsonian Contributions are the work of men residing in every part of the United States. Does an individual think he has the data upon which to base an important discovery, he communicates his plans to the Institution. His suggestions are referred to men in other places, who have made that branch an especial subject of study, and who are not advised of the author’s name. If they report favorably upon it, the author is furnished with facilities for pursuing and describing his investigations. Does he want some book not to be found in the library nearest his home? The Institution purchases it and loans it to him, to be returned to the library. His work, when finished, may be invaluable to a scientific man, but is not in sufficient demand to warrant any publisher in issuing it. The Institution prints it, with the proper illustrations, and gives the author the privilege of using the plates in order to print a copyright for sale. Those published by the Institution are sent to every great library and to every scientific body in the world; and those bodies, in return, send back all their publications. Thus, already, a most valuable library has been collected, containing books hardly to be found collected together anywhere else in the United States.