National Gallery

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the principal depository of the pictures belonging to the British nation. The present building, which was intended to accommodate the Royal Academy and National Gallery, stands in Trafalgar Square, London, and was finished in 1838 at a cost of $500,000. The collection is most valuable to the student of art, and occupies more than 22 rooms. The various early and late Italian schools are extensively illustrated; there are good examples of the chief representatives of Italian art, as Raphael, Correggio, Paul Veronese. There are a few good examples of Murillo and Velasquez and the Spanish school; and the great Dutch and Flemish painters, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, etc., are well represented. In the department of the "British and modern schools" the largest additions as yet made by private munificence are the gift of 157 pictures, made in 1847, the bequest of Joseph M. W. Turner, R. A., in 1856, the bequest of Henry Vaughan in 1900, and of George Galting in 1910. There are also national galleries of art in Edinburgh and Dublin; the great public collections of Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Florence, Rome, etc., are mentioned in the articles on those cities. NATIONAL GUARD. See MILITIA, STATE. NATIONAL MONUMENTS. On June 8, 1906, Congress passed a law which gave to the President power by proclamation to declare historic landmarks, and objects of historic or scenic interest that are on property controlled by the United States, National monuments. They are not materially different from National parks, except that Congress has never appropriated ated money for their maintenance nor created any especial commission to provide rules for them. Consequently they are distributed for the purposes of government between the Secretary of Interior, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of Agriculture. Those controlled by the Secretary of Interior are: Natural Bridges, Utah (2,740 acres), containing the Augusta Bridge, El Morro, N. M., an enormous rock on which the early Spanish explorers have carved inscriptions; and Muir Woods, Cal. (295 acres). Under the control of the Secretary of War is Big Hole Battlefield, Montill a new constitution was organized, tana (5 acres). Under the jurisdiction and the executive directory was installed of the Secretary of Agriculture are: Grand Cañon, Ariz. (806,400 acres), Lassen Peak, Cal. (1,280 acres), Gila Cliff Dwellings, N. M. (160 acres), and Mount Olympus, Wash. (608,480 acres), a mountain area which is the breeding ground for great numbers of elk.