The Administration Building, a plain rectangular redbrick structure three stories and mansard roof, erected 1867, formerly contained a museum, comprising collections of plants, insects, etc. These have been transferred to the National Museum; and the only collections now in the Agricultural buildings are for laboratory purposes and other work of the department and are not open to the public. The office of the Secretary of Agriculture is on the ground floor, N.W. cor. It contains portraits of former Secretaries of the department: 1. (E. wall) James Wilson, Sec. 1897-1913, by William M. Chase; 2. (W. wall) J. Sterling Morton, Sec. 1893-97, by Freeman Thorp; 3. (in ante-room) Jeremiah Rusk, Sec. 1889-93; 4. Norman J. Colman, last Commissioner and first Secretary, 1885-89. (Another portrait of Secretary Wilson, by Freeman Thorp, said to be a better likeness than the Chase portrait, hangs in the Chief Clerk's office diagonally opposite).

Immediately behind the Administration Building is a small, square structure now occupied by the Bureau of Entomology. The New Agricultural Building, when completed, will occupy the greater part of the S. side of the Agricultural Grounds; the plans call for a large central building surmounted by a dome, and connected with two subordinate buildings extending E. and W., with a total frontage of 750 ft. Rankin, Kellogg & Crane, architects. This proposed building was a pet project of Secretary Wilson who, finding that he could not obtain from Congress a sufficient appropriation for so large a structure, proceeded with the money granted to erect the two wings, hoping to add the main central building later. These two wings, dating from 1907, are L-shaped structures on the Greek order, the basement being of Medford granite, the superstructure of Vermont marble, and red tiles for the roof. The main façades, facing N., have at each end a pavilion with six Ionic columns, three in front and three on the side. The pavilions are surmounted by pediments containing sculptured groups consisting, in each case, of a pair of nude seated figures, supporting between them a shield adorned with appropriate emblems of one of the agricultural products, with the name inscribed above. Adolph A. Weinman, sculptor.

The subjects of the four pediments are from E. to W., as follows: 1. Fruit; 2. Flowers; 3. Cereals; 4. Forests. When first erected the shields bore the names in Latin: "Fructus," "Flores," "Cereales," "Forestes." One day a visitor called Secretary Wilson's attention to the fact that Forestes was not classic Latin, and suggested that it should be corrected; whereupon the Secretary decided that there was no good reason for Latin inscriptions on an American Government building, and had them replaced with the English equivalents.

These buildings contain nothing of interest to the tourist, being devoted almost wholly to laboratories.

The Library of the Department of Agriculture is in the new yellow brick building facing the Mall, on B St. S. W., near 14th St., east wing, ground floor. The library is intended primarily for use in the work of the Department, but is free to the public for reference. Open 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. daily, except Sundays and Holidays; Saturdays during summer months, 9 A.M. to 1 P.M.

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The Library dates from the establishment of the Department of Agriculture in 1862. Its present resources are upward 140,000 volumes and pamphlets. Its collections are strong in all branches of agriculture, also in forestry, botany, applied chemistry, pharmacy, foods, zoology, especially economic entomology, hunting and game preservation. Connected with the main library are twelve Bureau libraries which, with the exception of the Weather Bureau Library, are administered as branches of the Department library and there catalogued and charged. It is claimed that this collection constitutes the most extensive agricultural library in the world.

The Administration Building faces a large square, formal garden, occupying the center of the grounds, with a terrace, on the N. side, descending to a driveway directly on line with 13th St., and flanked by exceptionally fine rows of Gingko trees. This avenue brings the visitor to the Green-houses. Those on the W. side are open to the public from 9 a. m. to 4.30 p. m. Most visitors will naturally enter the gate opposite the pathway on S. side of the Green-houses, but will find that the doors to many of the houses are locked. Just outside the grounds, on B St., is an entrance to the main corridor of the building, from which all of the Green-houses can be readily visited. In the first, or easternmost, house is still preserved the parent stem of the Bahia, or Navel Orange, in America. In recent years this tree nearly died in the process of transplanting, and three-quarters of its girth is now overlaid with a plastering of rubber. The attendant, however, will point out how the new bark is slowly covering the injured portion.

The Green-houses on the E. side of the driveway, extending to the 12th St. corner, are closed to the public. They are occupied by the Plant Quarantine Division of the Bureau of Plant Industry.

The main activities of this Bureau date from the opening of the 20th century, and have been exerted mainly in the introduction and popularization of new varieties of foreign cereals, fruits, vegetables, plants and trees. It was presently discovered that along with the beneficial "Plant Immigrants" there were being introduced a number of destructive foreign insects and plant diseases. In fact, the most serious menaces in recent years to American agricultural interests have entered this country from abroad, including the Cotton-boll Weevil, the Citrus Canker and the Pink Boll Fly.

Consequently a most important field for this bureau's activities is its quarantine work. All importations of foreign plants, seeds, roots and cuttings are subject to inspection, small consignments at port of entry, larger ones (upon due notice) by local inspectors at the point of consignment. All specimens found diseased or doubtful or imported from infected zones are sent to the Washington green-houses for study, and if necessary for treatment, and not released until it is established that they are free from any diseases or parasite harmful to their species or to kindred native families and genera.

Specialists are occasionally permitted to inspect the methods here employed. But to the casual visitor the Quarantine Department is as rigidly closed as a Small-pox hospital.

II. The Smithsonian Institution-The Smithsonian

Building

*THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, constituting to-day one of the most important scientific centers of the world, originated in the curious whim of an Englishman who had never even visited the United States. James Smithson was the natural son of Sir Hugh Smithson, first Duke of Northumberland. He was graduated from Oxford in 1786, and subsequently devoted himself to scientific studies, specializing in chemistry. He seems, however, to have had no settled home, alternating between lodgings in London and lengthy sojourns in Paris, Berlin, Florence and Genoa, in which last-named city he died, June 27, 1829. Thanks to the generosity of the Duke, his father, and his own simple habits, he left a fortune of approximately half a million dollars, which he willed to his nephew for life; and in the event of the latter dying without issue, then the whole of the property was left "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The present fame of the Institution goes far to justify the prophesy made by its founder, that his name should "live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten."

Smithson's nephew died without heirs in 1835. Consequently the property reverted to the United States, and in September, 1838, after a suit in Chancery, the bequest was paid into the Federal treasury. Its disposition was for several years before Congress; and it was not until August, 1846, that the Smithsonian Institution was founded and an act passed directing the formation of: 1. A library; 2. A museum for the reception of collections belonging to the government; 3. A gallery of art. It left to a Board of Regents the power of adopting such other parts of an organization as they should deem best suited to promote the object of the bequest. Under the terms of the act there was set aside, especially reserved for the purpose, the S. W. quarter of the square of land in the Mall extending from 7th to 12th Sts., and now known as Smithsonian Institution Park (p. 247).

The Board of Regents subsequently decided upon the following general plan upon which the operations of the Institution are ducted:

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"To Increase Knowledge. It is proposed: 1. To stimulate men of talent to make original researches, by offering suitable rewards for memoirs containing new truths; and, 2. To appropriate annually a portion of the income for particular researches, under the direction of suitable persons.

"To Diffuse Knowledge. It is proposed: 1. To publish a series of periodical reports on the progress of the different branches of knowledge; and, 2. To publish, occasionally, separate treatises on subjects of general interest."

The Institution is unique in representing the only instance up to that time in which a trust of this nature had been accepted by the American government. Its controlling body consists of the President of the United States, the Vice-President, the Chief Justice, and the members of the Cabinet, ex-officio. There is also a Board of Regents, consisting of the Vice-President and Chief Justice of the United States, three Senators, three Members of the House of Rpresentatives and six other eminent persons nominated by a joint resolution of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Board elects one of its number as Chancellor. It also elects a Secretary, who is the executive officer of the Institution, and the Director of its activities. The duties of this Board are to administer the foundation fund of the Institution and to make annual reports of the same to Congress. The publications of the Institution are in three principal issues: I. "Contributions to Knowledge"; 2. "Miscellaneous Collections"; 3. "Annual Reports."

The Smithsonian Building. This, the oldest of the group of buildings in the Smithsonian Institution Park, is a picturesque structure in the later Norman or Lombard style of Architecture in vogue during the last half of the twelfth century, and representing the latest variety of the rounded style immediately preceding the advent of Gothic. The material is a lilac-gray freestone from quarries near the mouth of Seneca Creek, a tributary of the Potomac, twenty-three miles N. of Washington. This stone has the advantage of being soft when first quarried and hardening upon exposure to the weather. The plans were drawn by James Renwick, Jr., subsequently architect of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City. The cornerstone of the Institution was laid in May, 1847, with Masonic ceremonies, in the presence of President Polk and a large throng of spectators. The building was completed in 1855.

Renwick's design as originally carried out consisted of a main central building, two stories high, and two lateral wings each consisting of a single story, and connecting with the main building by intervening ranges, each of the latter having a cloister with an open stone screen on the northern front. The only important changes that have since been made are the reconstruction of the eastern wing and range (raised to four and three stories respectively), the closing in of the western cloister (for laboratory purposes), and complete fire-proofing of the whole building. The necessity of this last mentioned improvement was painfully taught by the disastrous fire of

1865, which destroyed the upper part of the main building and with it the official, scientific and miscellaneous correspondence, the record books and manuscripts in the Secretary's office, Stanley's gallery of Indian portraits and the personal effects of James Smithson.

The dimensions of the building as it now stands are as follows: extreme length 447 ft.; main central structure 205 ft. long by 57 ft. wide and 58 ft. high to top of corbel course. In the centre of the façade of the main building are two towers, the higher rising to a height of 145 ft. In the middle of the S. front is a single massive tower 37 ft. square and 91 ft. high. From the N. E. cor. of the main building rises a double campanile tower 17 ft. square and 117 ft. to the top of the finial; while at the S. W. cor. is a lofty octagonal tower containing a spiral stairway. These main towers, together with four smaller ones, were the cause of one sarcastic critic's simile of "a collection of church steeples which had gotten lost and were consulting as to the best means of getting home to their respective churches.'

The eastern wing, now devoted to the offices of administration, was for many years the home of Prof. Joseph Henry, the Institution's first Secretary. Here also Secretary Langley pursued his investigations in aerodynamics, resulting in the invention of the flying machine.

The only rooms in the Smithsonian building now accessible to the public are the main central gallery, the S. pavilion and the western range and wing. The visitor enters through the man doorway in the middle of the northern side. To the L. of the vestibule, in an alcove closed by a grating, is the MORTUARY CHAPEL OF JAMES SMITHSON. It contains a marble sarcophagus surmounted by an urn, marking the last resting-place of the Institution's founder. His grave was formerly in the English cemetery near Genoa, Italy, but in 1906 his remains were brought to this country and placed beneath the orginal monument bought from Genoa.

On the wall immediately S. of the alcove is a bronze memorial tablet to Samuel Pierpont Langley (1824-1906), Secretary of the Institution-1887-1906. Between the vestibule and main gallery, in the narrow hallway from which stairs ascend to R. and L., are two wall cases containing Personal Relics of James Smithson. These include several autograph pages; a couple of published monographs by Smithson on scientific topics; a miniature of Smithson by Johns, painted in 1816; miniature of Col. Henry Lewis Dickinson, a half-brother of Smithson; Smithson's matriculation register of Oxford University, dated 1782, in whch he has signed himself Jacobus Ludovicus Macie (the name first adopted by Smithson from his mother, Elizabeth Macie; a photograph of Smithson's former grave, Genoa, Italy; two commissions from King George III to Col. Dickinson; and most interesting of all, Smithson's last will and testament in his own handwriting, in which the bequest for the founding