94 HAND-BOOK or WASHINGTON. 4th. Patent Office.—To this bureau is com mitted the execution and performance of all “ acts and things touching and respecting the granting and issuing of patents for new and useful discov eries, inventions, and improvementsthe col lection of statistics relating to agriculture; the collection and distribution of seeds, plants, and cuttings. It has a chief clerk—who is by law the Acting Commissioner of Patents in the ab sence of the Commissioner—ten principal and ten assistant examiners of Patents, besides some dozen other subordinate permanent clerks. Besides these four principal branches of this new executive department, the organic act of 1849 transferred to it from the Treasury depart ment the supervision of the accounts of the United States marshals and attorneys, and the clerks of the United States court; the management of the lead and other mines of the United States, and the affairs of the penitentiary of the United States in the District of Columbia; and from the State Department the duty of taking and returning the censuses of the United States, and of supervising and directing the acts of the Commissioner of Public Buildings. By recent acts of Congress, also, the hospital for the insane of the army and navy and of the District of Columbia is under