before the Senate, authorizing the Park Commissioners to
build, equip, and furnish, on Manhattan Square, or any other public
square or park, suitable fire-proof buildings, at a cost not exceeding
$500,000 for each corporation, for the purpose of establishing a
museum of art, by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and of a museum
of natural history, by the American Museum of Natural History, two
societies recently incorporated by the Legislature. This is a million
dollars to begin with, and an ample site, without cost, to the
aforementioned corporations.

Manhattan Square extends from Seventy-seventh to Eighty-first streets,
and from Eighth to Ninth avenues, and spans about eighteen acres.
Until it was set apart by the state Board of Commissioners, for the
purposes of a Zoological Garden, it was proposed, by a number of
enlightened citizens of New York, to devote it to the uses of four of
our existing corporations, giving to each one a corner, and an equal
share in the allotment of space. The societies were, "the Academy of
Design," for art, "the Historical Society," for public records and
libraries, "the Lyceum of Natural History," for science, and "the
American Institute," for technology. These have been incorporated
for many years, and are known to include the leading artists, men
of letters, science, and the arts, of the city, on their lists of
members. The committee went so far as to have plans of the building
drawn by competent architects; but, like many other well-meant
schemes, want of money compelled the originators of the plan to
abandon any further attempts. In the meantime, the Legislature
chartered the American Botanical and Zoological Society, and gave the
Commissioners of the Park authority to set apart a portion of it,
not exceeding sixty acres, for the use of the Society, for the
establishment of a zoological and botanical garden. This society
was duly organized under the act, and Mr. Hamilton Fish was made
its president, and considerable sums of money were subscribed. But,
according to the sixth annual report of the Board of Commissioners,
"the society never manifested its desire for an allotment of ground."
It appears to have died, and made no sign. Some of our citizens,
fearing that the Central Park would go the way of every other public
work in the city, made strenuous effort to revive the Zoological
Society, for the purpose of obtaining a perpetual lease of a suitable
site, on which to establish a zool