THE Smithsonian Institution 1846-1896 IBANCROFT LIBRAW The . en ,^/rOTTTTTIT8Vn VLAr/lOP.Wm^S HHT 'ECO aaai^TTO'^T JAMES SMITHSOK FOUNDER OF THE SMITHSONIAN TNSTITT^TTON. THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 1846 — 1896 The History of its First Half Century Edited by George Brown Goode CITY OF WASHINGTON 1897 PREFACE In iyg6, George Washingto7t, m his farewell address to his fellow-countrymen, said : "■Promote, then, as an object of pri- mary importajice, institutiojts for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opiiiion should be enlightened^ Thirty years later an E7iglishma7i, James Smithson, as though influenced by these words, be- queathed the whole of his property to the Uitited States of America in trust '' to foicnd at Washington an establishment for the increase a7id diffusion of knowledge among meny John Quincy Adams, in pre s editing to the Natio7ial House of Repre- sentatives the first report of the Select Committee on the mes- sage of the President announcing the Smithson Bequest, ex- horted his colleagues in these woi^ds: ^^ Let the trust of James Smithson to the United States of America be faithfully exe- cuted by their representatives in Congress ; let the result ac- complish his object : ' the increase and di^usion of knowledge among men! " The Act of Congress establishing the Smithsonian Institu- tion was sighted by President Polk on Atcgtist lo, 18^6, and on September 7 the Board of Regents held its first meetijig. The past year marks the close of the first half century of the operatiofis of the Institution. This volume presents the sto7y of the realization of one of the desires of Washington, through the will of Smithson, the wise legislation of Congress, and the devotion of those upon whom the management of the Smithso- nian Institutio7i has devolved. WILLIAM MCKINLEY. The Executive Mansion, Washington, June 22, i8gy. INTRODUCTION The law establishing the Smithsonian Institution luas signed by President Polk on August lo, 18^6, and the first organic act of the histitution was a meeting of the Board of Regents, held on Septe^nber 7 of that year. As far back as i8gj, in viezv of the approaching completion of the first half ce7itu7y, I discussed with the Executive Committee of the Regents the best method of celebi^ating this event. It seemed quite impracticable to arrange for a gathering of delegates from other scientific institutions, such as is ofte^i held on similar occasions by institutions aiid learned bodies, and the simplest and most efiective means of commemorating it ap- peared to be the publication of a sici table volume, which would give an acco7i7it of the history, achievements, and present con- dition of the Smithso7iia7i l7istitutio7i. Doctor G. B7VW71 Goode, zvhose acquai7ita7ice with its history was unrivaled, drew 7ip a C077ip7^ehe7isive pla7i for the vohmie, a7id 071 its app7'oval, Doctor lames C Welli7ig, a Rcge7it, agreed to U7ide7^takc its edito7Hal supe7^visio7t. Doctor Well- ing s death sce7ned to put a stop to the pivposed work, for there appeared to be 710 07ie S2cfficie7itly acquainted zuith the history of the histitution who had the ability, the willi7ig7iess, a7id the leisu7^e to assu77ie this ve7y co7iside7^able task. It was the7i that Doctor Goode told me of his great desire to imdertake the work. K7iozvi7ig how ittmierotis his duties already were, I at first refused, a7id it was 07ily at his ear7test solicitatio7i that I agreed to his request. The 77ianuscript was so fa7^ advanced at the ti77ie of his death as to render possible its co77ipletio7t for the press, a7id its publi- cation tip07i the li7ies he laid dow7i. He had 7iot 07ily writte7i many of the chapters, but had 77tade ain'a7ige77ie7its for the illus- vi Introduction tratioiis and other details of the book. ThoiLgJi this lamejited event has delayed its appearance, I have been enabled to sec2ire the aid of valued assistants who have carried the work through. I have added to the ojHginal plan a biographical sketch of Doctor Goode, by Doctor David Starr Jordan, P^rsidcnt of the Leland Stanfoi^d Junior University. S. P. LANG LEY, Secretary. Smithsoniaji Lnstitution, Washington, June 23, 1897, TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE, BY THE President of the United States iii INTRODUCTION, BY THE SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION V HISTORY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION I JAMES SMITHSON, BY Samuel Pierpont Langley I II THE FOUNDING OF THE INSTITUTION, 1835-1846, BY George Brown Goode 25 III THE ESTABLISHMENT AND THE BOARD OF REGENTS, BY George Brown Goode 59 IV THE THREE SECRETARIES, BY George Brown Goode 115 V THE BENEFACTORS, BY SaMUEL PiERPONT LaNGLEY 235 VI THE SMITHSONIAN BUILDING AND GROUNDS, BY GeoRGE BroWN Goode 247 VII THE SMITHSONIAN LIBRARY, BY CyrUS AdlER 265 vii viii Contents VIII the united states national museum, by frederick william True 303 IX BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, BY W J McGee 367 X THE INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE SYSTEM, BY WlLLlAM CRAWFORD WiNLOCK 397 XI THE ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY, BY SamueL PieRPONT LanGLEY 419 XII THE NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK, BY Frank Baker 443 XIII EXPLORATION WORK OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, BY Frederick William True 459 XIV THE SMITHSONIAN PUBLICATIONS, BY CyRUS Adler 481 XV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GEORGE BROWN GOODE, BY David Starr Jordan, President of Leland Stanford Junior University .... 501 APPRECIATIONS OF THE WORK OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION I PHYSICS, BY Thomas CorWIN MendENHALL, President of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute 5^9 II MATHEMATICS, BY ROBERT SiMPSON WoODWARD, Professor of Mechanics, Columbia University 5^^ A Contents ix ■'■-'■-'• PAGE ASTRONOMY BY EdwARD SinglETON HoldEN, Director of the Lick Ob- servatory 571 IV CHEMISTRY, BY MaRCUS BENJAMIN, Fellow of the Chemical Society of London 611 V GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY, BY WiLLIAM NORTH RiCE, Professor of Geology, Wesleyan University 631 VI METEOROLOGY, BY Marcus BENJAMIN, Fellow of the Chemical Society of London 647 VII PALEONTOLOGY, BY Edward Drinker Cope, Professor of Mineralogy and Geology, University of Pennsylvania 679 VIII BOTANY, BY William GiLSON FarloW, Professor of Cryptogamic Botany, Harvard University 697 IX ZOOLOGY, BY Theodore Gill, Professor of Zoology, Columbian University 711 X ANTHROPOLOGY, BY JesSE Walter FewkES, Editor of the Journal of American Ethnology and ArchcEology 745 XI GEOGRAPHY, BY GARDINER GreENE HubBARD, President of the National Geographic Society 773 XII BIBLIOGRAPHY, BY HenrY CarRINGTON BolTON, Lecturer on the His- tory of Chemistry, and Professor of Bibliography, Columbian University . . 785 X Contents XIII PAGE THE COOPERATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WITH OTHER INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING, BY Daniel CoiT GilMAN, President of Johns Hopkins University 805 XIV THE INFLUENCE OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIBRARIES, THE ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF SOCIETIES, AND THE PUBLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE IN THE UNITED STATES, BY JOHN Shaw BiLLINGS, Director of the New York Public Library 815 XV RELATION BETWEEN THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AND THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, BY AiNSWORTH RaND SpOFFORD, Librarian of Congress 823 APPENDIX PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE INSTITUTION, Compiled by William Jones Rhees 833 INDEX 843 HISTORY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION JAMES SMITHSON By Samuel Pierpont Langley ^jlHE founder of the Smithsonian Institution was known in his earlier years as James Lewis Macie, his mother, Elizabeth Keate Macie, being at the time of his birth, in 1765, the "'^'^^ widow of James Macie, a country gentleman of an old family resident at Weston, near Bath. She was of the Hungerfords of Studley, a great-grandniece of Charles, Duke of Somerset, through whom she was lineally descended from Henry the Seventh, and was cousin of that Elizabeth Percy who married Hugh Smithson (who later became Duke of Northumberland, and by act of Parliament took the name of Percy). An unverified story represents Smithson's mother as at one time hoping to have contracted a marriage with the Duke of Northumberland, and seeking, for that purpose, a divorce from her husband, which he successfully opposed; but, in any case, the subject of our sketch, who only apparently after his mother's death applied to the Crown for permission to take the name of Smithson, describes himself in his final will as " son to Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, 2 The Smithsonian Institution heiress of the Hungerfords of Studley, and niece of Charles, the proud Duke of Somerset." We need not, then, practise a reticence which Smithson himself did not desire to observe, especially since the facts are already public. There is, indeed, the further reason that it is especially to these facts that the foundation which bears his name is due, for Smithson always seems to have regarded the circumstances of his birth as doing him a peculiar injus- tice, and it was apparently this sense that he had been de- prived of honors properly his which made him look for other sources of fame than those which birth had denied him, and constituted the motive of the most important action of his life, the creation of the Smithsonian Institution. By the student of human nature every man's conduct is judged in reference to its determining motives, and if we try Smithson's from the point of view of his own time, not of ours, we shall not judge too hardly the fact that the circumstances of his birth and his feeling that he was by right a Northum- berland and a Percy were a subject of pride to him as well as of pain. He once wrote : ^ "The best blood of England flows in my veins; on my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am related to Kings,^ but this avails me not. My name shall live in the memory of man zvhen the titles of the Northtimber lands ajid the Percys are extinct and forgotteni' It has been wondered that Smithson should have left his fortune for the purpose he did, but not by those who have considered the sentence placed here in italics, where we surely 1 Rhees's "Smithson and his Bequests." the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, great-grand- " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," daughter of King Henry VII, grandniece of volume XXI. Henry VIII, and cousin of Elizabeth. His 2 Doctor Goode pointed out in his "Account ancestor in the ninth generation, Edward Sey- of the Smithsonian Institution," written for the mour, the first Duke of Somerset and Protec- Atlanta Exposition, that : " Smithson was of tor of England, was thebrother of Queen Jane royal descent, through his maternal ancestor, Seymour and the uncle of King Edward VI." James Smithson 3 scarcely need to read between the lines to see the genesis of the institution which perpetuates the name he bore, in place of the titled one he was denied. It will be observed from facts given later that it was only under circumstances which showed that he had no right to the name of Macie (which seems to have been first imposed upon him under circumstances which left him free to change it) that he in later life had that of Smithson, to which he had every moral right, legally confirmed to him. After pointing out that the change was obtained under circumstances which do him no discredit, we are chiefly concerned with this sense of the injustice under which he labored from its after results; for if the kind of pride which dictated the first sentence I have above quoted be one which, from the point of view of the present day, attracts little sympathy, we can feel more with the worthier spirit which resulted from it, and in which he wrote the second. We are in no ways concerned with the ancestral honors or titles of the Percys, as such; but if there be anything in heredity, we may supplement our limited knowledge of him by some consideration of that very remark- able man, the first Duke of Northumberland, whose child Smithson declared himself to be, and undoubtedly was; for the father was remarkable, not in having been born great, but in having achieved greatness, — at least a greatness of that sort which his less fortunate son must always have envied him. Hugh Smithson, the father of the founder of the Smithso- nian Institution, was the son of Langdale Smithson, who, ac- cording to another unverified tradition, occupied for a time the then relatively unconsidered position of a medical practitioner. The Smithsons, however, were an old family, which was, in fact, remotely connected by lineage with the Percys. As country gentlemen they were reared in the habit of person- 4 The Smithsoniaft Instihttion ally managing their estates ; and, notwithstanding his culture and his refined and artistic tastes, the business aptitude of his race was strong in Smithson's father. The entertaining story of his courtship of the grand- daughter of "the proud Duke" of Somerset is told in the "Annals of the House of Percy," and it is not necessary to repeat it here further than to remark that in it, as in every- thing else, he showed the tact, persistence, and ability which raised him from the position of a private gentleman to one of the first dukedoms of England at a time when such a transi- tion was regarded as transcending all possibility, and became the subject of wonder after it had happened. As a landlord. Sir Hugh Smithson (as he afterwards be- came) ^ had been conspicuous for good management. After his marriage to the heiress of the Percys he restored Aln- wick Castle, and lived there so expensively that Horace Walpole wrote of the new groom and bride that they would soon have no estate left ; but the prophecy was falsified by the marked ability of the future Duke, who, though he continued to maintain what was even then considered magnificent state, showed such extraordinary administrative capacity as enabled him not only to keep undiminished but to very greatly increase the important possessions which became his wife's after their marriage; for at the date of Sir Hugh Smithson's marriage, in 1749, the rent rolls of Alnwick Castle amounted to ^8,607, while in 1778 they had increased to ^^50,000, and all this while a liberal and even magnificent scale of expenditures appears to have been adopted.^ If he be a benefactor to mankind who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before, then the new Lord of 1 He succeeded to the title of Baronet on 2 See "Annals of the House of Percy," by the death of his grandfather, Sir Hugh Smith- Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, London, son, which took place in 1729. i887,Volume 11, page 531, and Appendix xxvi. James Smithson 5 Northumberland did indeed entitle himself to the gratitude of those within the influence of his kindly rule. "He found the country almost a desert," says the Bishop of Dromore, "and he clothed it with woods and improved it with agriculture."^ For more than twenty years he is said to have planted annually over twelve hundred trees; he im- ported specimens of hitherto unknown timber, fruits, and flowers from various parts of the world, and expended large sums not only in the reclamation and drainage of lands, but in the improvement of the dwellings of his laborers, at a time when the physical comfort or moral well-being of the poor rarely occupied the thoughts of the lords of the soil. He showed a like ability in his dealings with the Crown, which procured him the unprecedented step from the baro- netcy to the dukedom, and in every part of his life (with which we are not further concerned here) he showed himself an ex- ceptionally able man.^ American history and poetry remember his son, the half- brother of Smithson, who — " Fought for King George at Lexington, A Major of Dragoons,"^ 1 See " Annals of the House of Percy," by Edward Harrington de Fonblanque, London, 1887, Volume II, page 531, and Appendix XXVI, citing Collins's [Peerage] 5th edition. 2 The Duke showed the independence of his character, as well as the soundness of his judgment as a statesman, by opposing the party in power upon the question of war with the Colonies, obtaining leave of absence for his son, Lord Percy, who was ordered to America. Of this, however, Lord Percy re- fused to avail himself, contending that he could not at such a juncture withdraw. He accordingly embarked for Boston in the spring of 1774, and his journal and letters during the succeeding years throw light upon many of the incidents of the struggle. 3 The fact that the heir of the house of Percy commanded the force of the British T* troops which saved the retreat from Concord made a strong impression upon the fathers of New England who fought on the memor- able day, and is often mentioned. This asso- ciation of the story of the defeat and pursuit of the British troops with the name of Percy, in the minds of the rustic victors, is alluded to by Lowell : " Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad His slow artillery up the Concord road . . . Had Joe lived long enough, that scram- bling fight Had squared more nearly with his sense of right, And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale. Had hammered stone for life in Concord jail." 6 The Smithsonian Institution and who, it might be added, saved to the King the remnant of his forces, which, without Percy's timely succor, would have been utterly destroyed. As an indication of family traits, it may be interesting to note the memorable action of the half- brother of Smithson, and his modest description of it. General Gage had placed him in command of the camp formed at Boston, whence he writes to his father on July 5, 1774: "As I cannot say this is a business I very much admire, I hope it will not be my fate to be ordered up the country. Be that as it may, I am resolved cheerfully to do my duty as long as ever I continue in the service. If I do not acquire any de- gree of reputation in it, it will be my misfortune, but shall never be my fault." Throughout the ensuing winter he remained in the camp around Boston, whence on April 20 he writes to inform his father of that first bloodshed which was the prelude of the War of the Revolution : "I was ordered out yesterday morning to cover the retreat of the Grenadiers and Light Infantry who had been sent upon an expedition up the country.-^ I had with me my brigade and two pieces of cannon. We met them at a town' about fifteen miles off, sharply attacked and surrounded by the rebels, and having fired away all their ammunition, I had the happi- ness of saving them from inevitable destruction, and arriving with them at Charlestown, opposite Boston, at eight o'clock last night ; not, however, without the loss of a great many, havinof been under an incessant fire for fifteen miles. The rebels, however, suffered much more than the King's troops. I have not myself received even the least scratch, and I beg that you will not either of you be uneasy on my account.' " 3 1 The memorable expedition to Concord, which gave rise to the battle of Lexington. 2 Lexington. 3 "Annals of the House of Percy," Volume li, page 552. James SmitJison 7 Lord Percy was too good a soldier to fall into the error of despising his enemy. He had never shared in that contemp- tuous estimate which Englishmen, ignorant of the country and its population, had formed of the military capacity of the American colonists, and which had led the King, under the prompting of such advisers as Lord North and Lord George Germain, to declare that all resistance would collapse on the first menacing advance of half a dozen English regiments. ** Whoever," he writes to his father, " looks upon them as merely an irregular mob will find himself much mistaken ; they have men amongst them who know what they are about, having been employed as rangers against the Canadians and Indians . . . nor are their men devoid of the spirit of en- thusiasm, as we experienced yesterday, for many of them con- cealed themselves in houses and advanced within ten yards to fire at me and the other officers, though they were morally certain of being put to death themselves in an instant." The father died in 1 786, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where he is described as "the most high puissant and most noble prince Hugh Percy, Duke and Earl of Northum- berland, Earl Percy, Baron Warkworth and Lovaine, Lord Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of the Gounties of Middle- sex and Northumberland and of all America, one of the lords of His Majesty's most Honourable and Privy Gouncil and Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, etc., etc., etc." ; but we are here concerned with these honors only as an evidence of the character of the man who did not inherit, but who conquered them by the force of his will. Let us, after noting the essential qualities of his race in the father and brother, return to the immediate subject of our memoir, the date of whose birth is fixed by the Pembroke College record as 1765. His mother, Elizabeth Hungerford 8 The S^nithsonian Institution Keate (Macie), is described in the will of Penelope Keate, grandmother of Smithson, in a bequest dated July 13, 1764, as "my daughter, Elizabeth Macie, of Bath, widow," so that at this time her husband was already dead. This fact, only recently ascertained, is important in the estimate it leads us to put on one of the principal actions of Smithson's life, his taking of his father's name instead of that of Macie, by which he was previously known. Something of the facts of the young man's birth were gen- erally surmised, and we shall see that he was apparently not allowed as a youth even to describe himself as Macie's son, a thing to be remembered in connection with his subsequent action in taking the name of Smithson.^ There has been found no record of the Macies at Weston in the years preceding his birth ; there is no reference to him in the accessible archives of the Northumberland family, nor do we know more of the subsequent circumstances of his mother than that she inherited the property of the Hunger- fords of Studley in 1766, on the death of her brother, Lumley Hungerford Keate, — a matter of interest as indicating the probable source of a considerable portion of the Smithson bequest. We have after this no knowledge of the founder of the In- stitution until his name is entered in 1782 as James Lewis Macie, a Gentleman Commoner, at Pembroke College, Ox- ford, but entered in a way which, as the copy of the record indicates, omitted the prescribed form of stating the name of the father, which others were obliged to comply with. He was at this time but a lad, and as we are assured only lln 1880, when Mr. Rhees's memoir was the married life of Mr. and Mrs. Macie, and prepared, the dateofSmithson'sbirth.obtained put a less favorable construction on young from an erroneous inscription on his tomb, Macie's action in taking the name of Smithson was 1754, which would have placed it eleven from that it bears, under the circumstances years earlier than the actual event, during which are now for the first time detailed. James Sniithson 9 very powerful influence could have procured permission for this departure from rule, we may presume that his action, whether acceptable or not to him, was dictated by an author- ity to which he had in any case to yield. In 1894 I ascertained through the kindness of Chester Waters, Esquire, that Reverend Frederick Brown had occupied himself during a large part of his life with the biographies of the Hungerford family, and learned from his surviving daughter that his manuscript was deposited in the British Museum. This manuscript (which is numbered 33,412), I, with Doctor Cyrus Adler, spent some time in ex- amining, with the results here given. Among other facts I learned that Smithson was born in France, and was brought to England for his education, and naturalized. I further was fortunately led to consult the Oxford records, which show that he in his early years entered as a Gentleman Commoner at Pembroke College, where he matriculated in 1782, his age then being given in the registry, here appended,^ as seventeen, so that this matriculation record shows him to have been born eleven years later than was supposed. This is material, for it will be seen from what has preceded that his mem- ory is thus cleared of the imputation under which it at one 1 Coll: Exon : 25° Carolus Ofspring Blackall 17 Theophili de Dodbrooke Com : Danmon : Cler: Fil: Coll: Wad: 26" Robertus Harbin 17 Swayne de Newton Com: Somerset: Arm: Fil: Mali 1° Coll: Hert : Gulielmus Bragge 17 Joannis de Dillington Com : Somerset: Arm: Fil: Coll : Wadh : 2^1° Joannes Higgins 19 Joannis de Dicheatt Com : Somerset : Gen : Fil : Coll : Mert : 3? Henricus Lloyd 18 Erasmi de Civitate Vigorniensi Gen : Fil : Coll: Di. Jo. Bap. 4? Thomas Keck 17 Samuelis de Civitate Londin : Gen: Fil: changed to Smithson Coll: Pemb : 7" Jacobus Ludovicus Macie 17 de Civit : Londin: — Arm: Fil: Coll: Ball: 8? Hon. Archibaldus Cathcart 18 Carolide Aloa Com: Clackmanan: Baro! Fil Coll: Di : Jo: Bap. 9? Thomas Dethick 17 Thomae de Bombay apud Ind : Orient: Arm : Fil Coll: On: Nas: io™° Arthurus Townson 18 Joannis de Ben tham Com : Eboracensi Pleb: Fil Coll: Christi \o'^° Calverley Joannes Bewicke 17 Benjamin de Clapham Com: Surriae Gen : Fil : Coll: Magd: 11° Isaacus Williamson 21 Josephi de Withburn Com : Cambr : Gen: Fil: lo The Sinithsoniaji Institution time seemed to rest, of his having adopted the name of Smithson in circumstances where a son should have re- mained silent. We have also an authentic contemporary portrait of him in the dress of an Oxford student, here reproduced, which, it is interesting to observe, confirms the age thus given, by repre- senting him as a mere youth. Nothing material is remembered of his life at the college, except a tradition that he was the best chemist and miner- alogist of his year, though in his journal, when but a youth of nineteen, he gives a description of a geological tour in 1784 through Oban, Staffa, and the western islands, in com- pany with De St. Fond, "the celebrated French philosopher," and the Italian Count Andrioni, in which he carried on ob- servations on the methods of mining and manufacturing pro- cesses, made with all the minuteness which the conditions of the journey permitted. The journal indicates that the tour at that time was undertaken, if not at any considerable risk, yet not without a considerable amount of privation and self- denial, such as would not be met by the modern traveler, and shows that he was far more occupied with science than with the ordinary pleasures of so youthful a tourist. We learn also that the young student was noted for diligence, applica- tion, and good scholarship, attracting attention by his pro- ficiency in chemistry, then a novel study, while his vacations were ordinarily passed in such excursions as that just referred to, and devoted to the collection of minerals and ores, which it was his favorite occupation to analyze. At Oxford, then, at a time when the study of physical science was almost unknown in the University, he appears to have already conceived that devotion to scientific research which charac- terized all his future life. He was graduated at Pembroke College, with the degree James SmitJison ii of Master of Arts, on May 26, 1786, as James Lewis Macie, and admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society on April 26, 1787, on the following- recommendation: "James Lewis Macie, Esq., M.A., late of Pembroke College, Oxford, and now of John Street, Golden Square, — a gentle- man well versed in various branches of Natural Philosophy, and particularly in Chymistry and Mineralogy, being desirous of becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society, we whose names are hereunto subscribed do, from our personal knowledge of his merit, judge him highly worthy of that honour and likely to become a very useful and valuable Member. Richard Kirwan, C. F. Greville, C. Blagden, H. Cavendish, David Pitcairn." Cavendish, whose name appears here, was the eminent physicist, and, as we learn elsewhere, was an intimate friend. Smithson's lodgings were for some time in Bentinck Street, where Gibbon wrote much of his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Here he apparently prepared his first scientific paper, which was signed James Lewis Macie, and was read on July 7, 1791, before the Royal Society. It is entitled "An ^Account of Some Chemical Experiments on Tabasheer."^ We learn of him incidentally in 1792 as jour- neying from Geneva to Italy through the Tyrol, and find him in the same year in Paris writing from the Hotel du Pare Royal, Rue de Colombier, a letter in which he expresses sentiments which represented what would have been then called advanced Jacobinism. " pz ira,'' he says, "is grow- ing the song of England, of Europe, as well as of France. 1 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Londott Volume LXXXI, part II, page 368. 12 The Smithsonian histihition Men of every rank are joining in the chorus. Stupidity and guih have had a long reign, and it begins, indeed, to be time for justice and common-sense to have their turn . . . the office of king is not yet aboHshed, but they daily feel the inutility, or rather great inconvenience, of continuing it, and its duration will probably not be long. May other nations, at the time of their reforms, be wise enough to cast off, at first, the contemptible incumbrance." Smithson here shares the opinion of a large and influential portion of Englishmen of the time in which he wrote, but the excesses of the French Revolution, which immediately followed, caused a general revulsion of feeling, and it would not be fair to argue from this youthful expression as to his maturer judgment. The date of his application to the Crown for permission to take his father's name has not been ascertained, but in the will of his half-sister, Dorothy Percy, he is referred to as "Macie" in 1794 (eight years after his father's death). The name of Smithson is first certainly known to have been used by him in connection with his second communication to the Royal Society, "A Chemical Analysis of Some Calamines,^ by James Smithson, Esquire," read November 18, 1802. In this paper the author remarks that " Chemistry is yet so new a science ; what we know of it bears so small a propor- tion of what we are ignorant of; our knowledge in every de- partment of it is so incomplete, consisting entirely of isolated points, thinly scattered, like lurid specks on a vast field of darkness, that no researches can be undertaken without pro- ducing some facts leading to consequences which extend beyond the boundaries of their immediate object." The Abbe Haiiy had advanced the opinion that calamines were all mere oxides or "calces" of zinc. Smithson's analy- sis completely overthrew this opinion, and established these 1 Philosophical Transactions, Volume XCIII, page 12. James Srnithson 13 minerals in the rank of true carbonates, while his remarks on the action of the ores of zinc before the blowpipe evince much discernment ; and the paper, on the whole, is altogether a creditable one.j At this period he seems to have ceased his contributions to the Royal Society, and later we find his name more frequently in the "Annals of Philosophy," a journal of high character, where there is a communication from him dated Paris, May 22, 1819, on " Plombe gomme," and about the same time a paper on a native sulphuret of lead and arsenic, with numerous other papers, among which is one in 1822, "On the Detection of Very Minute Quantities of Arsenic and Mercury," where he contributed a method which was gener- ally used by chemists until quite modern tests superseded it. The papers^ in all number twenty-seven, of which eight here cited were published in the " Philosophical Transac- tions of the Royal Society," between the years 1791 and 1807, one in the "Philosophical Magazine" in 1807, and eighteen in "Thomson's Annals of Philosophy," between 1 819 and 1825, and these all give the idea of an assiduous and faithful experimenter, an impression enlarged by the last one of the series, bearing date of June, 1824, which contains some observations on the formation of the Kirkdale Cave, forcibly 1 Smithson's subsequent communications " On a Saline Substance from Mount Ve- to the Philosophical Transactions are six in suvius," 1813. (Volume cm, page 256.) number : " A few Facts relative to the Coloring Mat- "An Account of a Discovery of Native ter of Some Vegetables," 1817. (Volume Minium," submitted in a letter dated from cvili, page no.) Cassel, in Hesse, March 2, 1806. (Volume A paper by him " On Quadruple and Bi- XCVI, part I, page 267. ) nary Compounds, particularly Sulphurets," " On the Composition of the Compound was also published in the " Philosophical Sulphuret from Huel Boys, and an Account Magazine," 1807. (Volume xxix, page 275,) of its Crystals," 1808. (Volume xcviii,page 2 These papers were collected and edited 55- ) by William J. Rhees, and are contained in "On the Composition of Zeolite," l8ll. Volume xxi of the "Smithsonian Miscella- (Volume CI, page 171.) neous Collections," under the title of " The " On a Substance from the Elm Tree, called Scientific Writings of James Srnithson" Ulmin," 1813. (Volume cm, page 64.) (1879). 14 7 he Smithsonian Institutio7i combating (with what was then originaHty) the theories of the time, which referred the bones there found to " The Deluge." " The most notable feature of Smithson's writings, from the standpoint of the modern analytical chemist," says Professor Clarke,^ "is the success obtained with the most primitive and unsatisfactory appliances. In Smithson's day, chemical ap- paratus was undeveloped, and instruments were improvised from such materials as lay readiest to hand. With such instruments, and with crude reagents, Smithson obtained analytical results of the most creditable character, and en- larged our knowledge of many mineral species. In his time the native carbonate and silicate of zinc were confounded as one species under the name 'calamine'; but his researches distinguish between the two minerals, which are now known as Smithsonite and calamine respectively. " To theory Smithson contributed little, if anything ; but from a theoretical point of view the tone of his writings is sin- gularly modern. His work was mostly done before Dalton had announced the atomic theory, and yet Smithson saw clearly that a law of definite proportions must exist, although he did not attempt to account for it. His ability as a rea- soner is best shown in his paper upon the Kirkdale bone cave, which Penn had sought to interpret by reference to the Noachian deluge. A clearer and more complete demolition of Penn's views could hardly be written to-day. Smithson was gentle with his adversary, but none the less thorough for all his moderation. He is not to be classed among the lead- ers of scientific thought ; but his ability, and the usefulness of his contributions to knowledge, cannot be doubted." The President of the Royal Society, in a necrology for the year 1829, associated the name of Smithson with those of 1 Communication from Professor Frank W. Clarke, Chief Chemist, United States Geological Survey. James Smithson 15 Wollaston, Young, and Davy, saying that "he was distin- guished by the intimate friendship of Mr. Cavendish, and rivaled our most expert chemists in elegant analyses " ; while at the annual meeting of the Royal Society held on Novem- ber 30, 1830, the President, Davies Gilbert, after referring to other members recently deceased, said : " The only remaining individual who has taken a direct and active part in our labours, by contributing to the ' Trans- actions,' is Mr. James Lewis Smithson, and of this gentleman I must be allowed to speak with affection. We were at Oxford together, of the same college, and our acquaintance continued to the time of his decease. " Mr. Smithson, then called Macie, and an undergraduate, had the reputation of excelling all other resident members of the University in the knowledge of chemistry. He was early honored by an intimate acquaintance with Mr. Cavendish ; he was admitted to the Royal Society, and soon after presented a paper on the very curious concretion frequently found in the hollow of bambu canes, named Tabasheer. This he found to consist almost entirely of silex, existing in a manner similar to what Davy long afterwards discovered in the epidermis of reeds and grasses. " He was the friend of Dr. Wollaston, and at the same time his rival in the manipulation and analysis of small quan- tities. 'AYctGy] §' l[AQ -?]§£ ppoTolai. " For many years past Mr. Smithson has resided abroad, principally, I believe, on account of his health ; but he carried with him the esteem and regard of various private friends, and of a still larger number of persons who appreciated and admired his acquirements." His writings exhibit clearness of perception, terseness of language, and accuracy of expression. He was an intimate friend of Cavendish, and later of Arago ; he was a corre- spondent of Black, of Banks, of Thomson, and of most of the 1 6 The Smithsonian Instittttion names then renowned to science, and he himself contributed in those early days honorably to the enlargement of those " lurid specks in the vast field of darkness," of which he spoke, towards the coming light. His industry was the more creditable to him in that he was at this time a man of large means, with every temptation to devote himself to amusement, and this industry will be seen to be still greater when it is remembered that these pub- lished papers are but a small portion of his writings ; for 200 manuscripts were forwarded to the United States with his effects, and, besides these, thousands of detached notes and memoranda. Unhappily, with the exception of one small volume, of all these nothing remains, the whole of the originals having been destroyed in the disastrous fire at the Institution in 1865, just one hundred years from the date of his birth. We know something of these manuscripts from the paper by Mr. John- son, who had access to them before the formation of the Insti- tution, and from it we learn that they are connected not only with science, but with history, the arts, language, rural pur- suits, gardening, the construction of buildings, and kindred topics, "such as are likely to occupy the thoughts and to constitute the reading of a gentleman of extensive acquire- ments and liberal views derived from a lone and intimate acquaintance with the world," while his cabinet, which was also destroyed by the fire, is described as consisting of a choice collection of minerals, comprising probably eight or ten thousand specimens, in exceedingly perfect condition, in- cluding examples of most of the meteorites which had fallen in Europe during several centuries, and forming what was at the time very much the richest and rarest collection in the United States. If, then, we ask whether Smithson had such a competent JAMES SMITHSOIS^. FOUNDER OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. .11 con LI ment of those which he spoke, npta. ill be seen .ib- :oo ;1tp TTnited States wi all iavin$ ^'"^'■■' in 186 J, j^.^L We know :nt!e]: re- in ti mate :t^ryRHTiMR '^^-t; rfi 1 8 The Smithsonian Institiitio7i health, whose Hfe, save a few hours given to repose, was regularly divided between the most interesting scientific re- searches and gaming. It was a source of great regret to me that this learned experimentalist should devote the half of so valuable a life to a course so little in harmony with an intel- lect whose wonderful powers called forth the admiration of the world around him. Unfortunately there occurred fluctuations of loss and gain, momentarily balancing each other, which led him to conclude that the advantages enjoyed by the bank were neither so assured nor considerable as to preclude his winning largely through a run of luck. The analytical for- mulas of probabilities offering a radical means, the only one perhaps of dissipating this illusion, I proposed, the number of the games and the stakes being given, to determine in ad- vance, in my study, the amount, not merely of the loss of a day, nor that of a week, but of each quarter. The calculation was found so regularly to agree with the corresponding dim- inution of the bank-notes in the foreigner's pocketbook that a doubt could no longer be entertained." I owe to Doctor B. A. Gould the interesting statement that Arago was not merely an acquaintance, but an intimate friend of Smithson, and that Arago personally told him that "the distinguished foreigner " in question was Smithson himself, and added that Smithson resolved, not to absolutely discon- tinue play (in which he found the only stimulus which could make him forget his physical suffering), but to do so with a care that the expenditure for this purpose was a definite one, and within his means. We see him next entering the confines of old age, approach- ing the task (with such enfeebled health, a solemn one) of making his last will, and looking back upon a life which his circumstances have made lonely, which has been uncheered by domestic affection, and which, though filled with honorable activities, has not brought the fame to which he once aspired James Smithson 19 with the hope that it would bring some compensation for the accident of birth. The most important act of his Hfe was the execution of this will, a copy of which follows : THE WILL OF JAMES SMITHSON. " I James Smithson Son to Hugh, first Duke of Northumber- land, & Elizabeth, Heiress of the Hungerfords of Studley, & Niece to Charles the proud Duke of Somerset, now residing in Bentinck Street, Cavendish Square, do this twenty-third day of October, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, make this my last Will and Testament: "I bequeath the whole of my property of every nature & kind soever to my bankers, Messrs. Drummonds of Charing Cross, in trust, to be disposed of in the following manner, and I desire of my said Executors to put my property under the management of the Court of Chancery. "To John Fitall, formerly my Servant, but now employed in the London Docks, and residing at No. 27, Jubilee Place, North Mile end, old town, in consideration of his attach- ment & fidelity to me, & the long & great care he has taken of my effects, & my having done but very little for him, I give and bequeath the Annuity or annual sum of One hundred pounds sterling for his life, to be paid to him quarterly, free of legacy duty & all other deductions, the first payment to be made to him at the expiration of three months after my death. I have at divers times lent sums of money to Henry Honore Sailly, formerly my Servant, but now keeping the Hunger- ford Hotel, in the rue Caumartin at Paris, & for which sums of money I have undated bills or bonds signed by him. Now, I will & direct that if he desires it, these sums of money be let remain in his hands at an Interest of five per cent, for five years after the date of the present Will. "To Henry James Hungerford, my Nephew, heretofore called Henry James Dickinson, son to ni)- late brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Louis Dickinson, now residing 20 The Smithsonian Institution with Mr. Auboin, at Bourg la Reine, near Paris, I give and bequeath for his life the whole of the income arising from my property of every nature & kind whatever, after the payment of the above Annuity, & after the death of John Fitall, that Annuity likewise, the payments to be made to him at the time of the interest or dividends becomes due on the Stocks or other property from which the income arises. "Should the said Henry James Hungerford have a child or children, legitimate or illegitimate, I leave to such child or children, his or their heirs, executors, & assigns, after the death of his, or her, or their Father, the whole of my property of every kind absolutely & forever, to be divided between them, if there is more than one, in the manner their father shall judge proper, or, in case of his omitting to decide this, as the Lord Chancellor shall judge proper. "Should my said Nephew, Henry James Hungerford, marry, I empower him to make a jointure. " In the case of the death of my said Nephew without leav- ing a child or children, or the death of the child or children he may have had under the age of twenty-one years or intestate, I then bequeath the whole of my property, subject to the Annuity of One hundred pounds to John Fitall, & for the security & payment of which I mean Stock to remain in this Country, to the United States of America, to found at Wash- ington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men. "I think it proper here to state, that all the money which will be standing in the French five per cents, at my death in the names of the father of my above mentioned Nephew, Henry James Hungerford, & all that in my names, is the property of my said Nephew, being what he inherited from his father, or what I have laid up for him from the savings upon his income. t o r t » ^ James Smithson. [l. s.] We see that he begins by recalling the parentage which had denied him the name of his father and the position in the James Sniithsoit 21 world he believed should have been his, and, in the void places of father, brother, or family, he seems to look for some object of affection, and to find only an old servant (whom he remembers with thoughtful liberality) and a nephew, to whom he bequeaths his property. He has provided for the continu- ance of the property to any possible heir to this nephew, and there seems to remain nothing more. But there must have remained, in the retrospect of such a life as his, a sense of failure of that purpose with which he entered it, when he hoped, with youthful ambition, to create a greater name than that which birth had denied him, and when he wrote, *' My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten," and there must have come up on such an occasion the question whether this was, indeed, the end of hope and the time only for renunciation. We see that he has not utterly renounced this hope even now ; but it is so faint that he writes between a clause which concerns a legacy to a servant and one which concerns an investment in the funds, and, as it were, almost casually, the words which have perpetuated his name. Probably no man ever made a more remunerative invest- ment in the direction in which he would like best to see a return than was brought out by these words of Smithson, for we now all know that his bequest, when accepted by the United States Government, formed the initial step in the creation of an institution whose position has been altogether exceptional, for it is likely to remain without successor, as without precedent, in perpetuating, as it does, the fame of a private individual, whose wishes have been adopted and carried into effect by a great nation, which has con- sented to take the position of a guardian to a ward in the care of his property, and which has subsequently made his 2* 22 The Smithsonian Instihition private fortune the nucleus to which have been added ap- propriations for objects of national importance, yet appro- priations which are still administered in association with his name. The will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canter- bury, the value of the effects being sworn to be under ^120,- 000. The property disposed of by it is believed to have been received chiefly from Colonel Henry Louis Dickinson, a son of his mother by a former marriage, though he is known to have received a legacy of ^3,000 from Dorothy Percy, his half-sister on his father's side; but, unless through this, it is proper to state that there is no indication that any portion whatever of the Smithson bequest was derived from the Northumberland family. The motives which actuated Smithson in mentioning the United States as his residuary legatee, rather than any other government or institution, must remain in doubt, for he is not known to have had any correspondent in America, nor are there in any of his papers any reference to it or its distin- guished men. In selecting the nation itself as the depository of his trust, he yet certainly testified his confidence in its in- stitutions and his faith in their perpetuity, while it has not escaped attention that he uses language in the determining clause of his will remarkably similar to that already employed by Washington, who in his farewell address, says: "Promote, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the gen- eral diffusion of knowledge." Smithson died June 27, 1829, at Genoa, Italy. He is buried in the little English cemetery on the heights of San Benigno, in a tomb which originally bore no reference to him as the founder of this Institution ; but the Institution has re- cently placed a tablet there remedying this omission, has sur- rounded the tomb with evidence of continued care, and has James Smithson 23 placed in still further remembrance a similar tablet in the English church of the city. Smithson's wishes have been carried out by those im- mediately administering them with a constant scrupulous thought of the intent of the founder, while in doing this the best results have flowed from a ritrid construction of his own words, so briefly expressed, and from a division of the activi- ties of the Institution into two great distinct but parallel paths, the "increase" and "diffusion" of knowledge. What has been done in these two paths the reader may partly gather from this volume — in the former, from the va- rious articles by contemporary men of science, describing its ac- tivities in research and original contributions to the increase of human knowledge; in the latter, in numerous ways, — among others, from the description of the work of one of its bureaux, that of the International Exchanges, where it may be more immediately seen how universal is the scope of the action of the Institution, which, in accordance with its motto, PER ORBEM, is not limited to the country of its adoption, but belongs to the world, there being outside of the United States, at the time I write, more than 12,000 correspondents, scat- tered through every portion of the globe ; indeed, there is hardly a language or a people where the results of Smithson's benefaction are not known and associated with his name. If we were permitted to think of him as conscious of what has been, is being, and is still to be done, in pursuance of his wish, we might believe that he would feel that his hope, at a time when life must have seemed so hopeless, was finding full fruition ; for events are justifying what may have seemed at the time but a rhetorical expression, in the language of a former President of the United States, who has said, " Renowned as is the name of Percy in the historical annals of England, ... let the trust of James Smithson to the 24 The Smithsonian Institution United States of America be faithfully executed, ... let the result accomplish his object, the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, and a wreath more unfading shall en- twine itself, in the lapse of future ages, around the name of Smithson than the united hands of history and poetry have braided around the name of Percy through the long ages past." The principal sources of information for this chapter have been as follows : 1. Gentlematis Magazine for March, 1830, page 275. 2. The documentary evidence which, though meager, may be found in the report of Richard Rush to the Department of State, in 1838. 3. The manuscripts and diary of Smithson, which are described as comprising about two hundred titles, besides numberless notes of an encyclopaedical character, " such as are likely to occupy the thoughts of a gentleman of extensive acquirements and liberal views," These manuscripts were destroyed by the fire of 1865, but not until extended extracts had been made from them by Walter R. Johnson, a member of the National Institute of Wash- ington, in whose possession the papers and books of Smithson remained until the forma- tion of the Institution. The paper by John- son will be found in Volume xxi of the " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," and these lost papers are the original sources of some statements made here which can no longer be verified by comparison with the originals. 4. These sources are not only contained in, but are largely supplemented by, the ex- cellent memoir on " James Smithson and his Bequest," by Mr. William J. Rhees, form- ing part of Volume xxi of the " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," without which the biography of Smithson can hardly be written, and from which the writer has here frequently quoted textually, without other acknowledgment than this general and ex- plicit one. 5. Another source of information is the re- searches made by the writer with the aid of Doctor Cyrus Adler, Librarian of the Smith- sonian Institution, in England, in 1894. THE FOUNDING OF THE INSTITUTION, 1 835- 1 846 By George Brown Goode "/HEN Smithson died in Genoa in 1829 his estate became the property of his brother's son, Henry James Hungerford, then about twenty-three years of age, who was privi- leged to enjoy its income during his own life- time, and to whose heirs it was to pass at his death. Hun- gerford, then known as the Baron Eunice de la Batut, died in Pisa, June 5, 1835, unmarried and without heirs. There was now no one to contest the claim of the United States to the estate except his mother, Madame de la Batut, who declared herself to be satisfied by the granting of a small annuity payable during her own lifetime. The fact of the Smithson bequest first became known in this country in September, 1835, when there was received at the State Department a letter from Aaron Vail, charge d'af- faires of the United States in London, transmitting a copy of the will, tOQfether with certain information obtained from Smithson's solicitors in London.^ 1 For the letter of these gentlemen, — and the full text of all documents referred to Messrs. Clarke, Fynmore, and Fladgate, — in this chapter, see " The Smithsonian Institu- 25 2 6 The Smithsonian Instihition The proposed gift of Smithson was first publicly announced by President Jackson in a message to Congress, dated De- cember 17, 1835. The President's message was referred in the Senate to the Committee on the Judiciary, which promptly reported in favor of accepting the legacy. Its recommendations were strongly antagonized by Senators Calhoun and Preston, of South Carolina, who, from their customary standpoint of opposition to centralization, maintained that Congress had no power to accept the gift, and that it would be beneath the dignity of the Nation to receive benefits from a foreio^ner. Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and Senator Leigh, of Vir- ginia, took strong ground on the other side, and their counsel finally prevailed after the report had lain upon the table for several months. In the House of Representatives the announcement was received with more generous appreciation, and the message was referred to a select committee, of which John Quincy Adams was made chairman. The venerable statesman, now, ten years after his retirement from the presidency, a Repre- sentative in Congress from Massachusetts, at once took the measure under his protection. His mind seized with almost prophetic grasp upon the advances which the gift of Smithson made possible, and the arguments so eloquently presented in his report of January 19, 1836, no doubt did much to deter- mine Congress upon the decision that the gift should be accepted : " Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or char- itable uses which ever signalized the spirit of the age or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder, none can be named lion: Documents relative to its Origin and archives of the Institution and of the govern- History," edited by W. J. Rhees, Washing- nient, provided with an excellent analytical ton, 1879, 8vo, pages i-xiv, 1-1013, a most index. It also contains an abstract from the careful and exhaustive compilation from the diary of John Quincy Adams. Foundiug of the Ijistihttion 2 7 more deserving of the approbation of mankind than this. Should it be faithfully carried into effect, with an earnestness and sagacity of application and a steady perseverance of pur- suit proportioned to the means furnished by the will of the founder and to the greatness and simplicity of his design as by himself declared, 'the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,' it is no extravagance of anticipation to declare that his name will hereafter be enrolled among the eminent benefactors of mankind. "The attainment of knowledge is the high and exclusive attribute of man, among the numberless myriads of animated beings inhabitants of the terrestrial globe. On him alone is bestowed, by the bounty of the Creator of the universe, the power and the capacity of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is the attribute of his nature which at once enables him to improve his condition upon earth, and to prepare him for the enjoyment of a happier existence hereafter. It is by this at- tribute that man discovers his own nature as the link between earth and heaven ; as the partaker of an immortal spirit ; as created for a hisfher and more durable end than the count- less tribes of beings which people the earth, the ocean, and the air, alternately instinct with life, and melting into vapor or mouldering into dust. "To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is, there- fore, the greatest benefife^ that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence. The earth was given to man for cultivation, for the improve- ment of his own condition. Whoever increases his know- ledge multiplies the uses to which he is enabled to turn the gift of his Creator to his own benefit, and partakes in some degree of that goodness which is the highest attribute of Omnipotence itself "If, then, the Smithsonian Institution, under the smile of an approving Providence and by the faithful and permanent application of the means furnished by its founder to the pur- pose for which he has bestowed them, should prove effective to their promotion, if they should contribute essentially to the increase and diffusion of knoiulcdge anio?ig men, to what 2 8 The Smithsonian Institution higher or nobler object could this generous and splendid donation have been devoted? " In the commission of every trust there is an implied tribute of the soul to the integrity and intelligence of the trustee ; and there is also an implied call for the faithful ex- ercise of those properties to the fulfilment of the purpose of the trust. The tribute and the call acquire additional force and energy when the trust is committed for performance after the decease of him by whom it is granted, when he no longer exists to witness or to constrain the effective fulfilment of his design. The magnitude of the trust and the extent of con- fidence bestowed in the committal of it do but enlarge and aggravate the pressure of the obligation which it carries with it. The weight of duty imposed is proportioned to the honor conferred by confidence without reserve. Your committee are fully persuaded, therefore, that, with a grateful sense of the honor conferred by the testator upon the political institu- tions of this Union, the Congress of the United States, in ac- cepting the bequest will feel in all its power and plenitude the obligation of responding to the confidence reposed by him with all the fidelity, disinterestedness, and perseverance of exertion which may carry into effective execution the noble purpose of an endowment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." After much debate a bill was passed to authorize and en- able the President to assert and prosecute the claim of the United States to the legacy bequeathed by James Smithson, and pledging the faith of the United States to the application of the bequest to the purpose of founding an institute in Washinofton under the name of the Smithsonian Institution — an establishment for the increase and diff"usion of know- ledge among men. On the first of July, 1836, this bill became a law through the approval of the President, who at once appointed an agent to prosecute the claim. The man selected was Richard Founding of the Instihition 29 Rush, of Pennsylvania, a lawyer of high standing, who had been Attorney-General of the United States, Secretary of the Treasury, and a candidate for the office of Vice-President. He had also been Minister to France and to England, and his official residence of eight years at the Court of Saint James fitted him admirably for the mission which he now undertook. He proceeded at once to London, entered a friendly suit in the Courts of Chancery in the name of the President of the United States, and, notwithstanding there were eight hundred cases ahead of this, he obtained a favora- ble decision in less than two years, an event without example in the annals of chancery, for the English lawyers them- selves admitted that a chancery suit was a thing which might begin with a man's life, and its termination be his epitaph. The success of Mr. Rush was due in a large degree to the extreme friendliness and consideration manifested by the Brit- ish law officers from the Attorney- General down, without which it would have been scarcely possible for him to have accomplished in so short a period what in the ordinary course of events would at that time have required twenty or thirty years. His skill in the conduct of the case also counted for much, the American Minister testifying that no litigant ever displayed a more ardent zeal, or a more sagacious, devoted, and unremitting diligence, in the prosecution of a suit. A still more potent influence, however, must have been his own enthusiasm for the work in which he was engaged, an enthusiasm which he succeeded in imparting to all with whoni he came in contact. "A suit of higher interest and dignity," he wrote, " has rarely, perhaps, been before the tri- bunals of a nation. If the trust created by the testator's will be successfully carried into effect by the enlightened legisla- tion of Congress, benefits may flow to the United States and to the human family not easy to be estimated, because oper- 30 The Sinithsonian Ijistitittion ating silently and gradually throughout time, yet operating not the less effectually. Not to speak of the inappreciable value of letters to individual and social man, the monuments which they raise to a nation's glory often last when others perish, and seem especially appropriate to the glory of a republic whose foundations are laid in the presumed intelli- gence of its citizens, and can only be strengthened and perpetuated as that improves."^ On May 9, 1838, a decree of the Court of Chancery was solemnly pronounced, adjudging the Smithson bequest to the United States, and the estate was immediately trans- ferred to Mr. Rush, who took passage for America in the packet ship Mediator; which sailed from London July 17, and reached New York August 29, 1838. The various securities were converted into gold sovereigns for convenience of transportation, and these were packed at the Bank of England in one hundred and five bags, each containing 1000 sovereigns, except one which contained 960 sovereigns and certain change which Mr. Rush minutely records as amounting to " eight shillings and sevenpence wrapped in paper," a minuteness somewhat entertaining, since in another place he records with equal minuteness that he delivered eight shillings and sixpence at the Mint. The money was deposited with the Bank of America until September i, when Mr. Rush, accompanied by two agents of the Bank, took stage for Philadelphia, and on the same day delivered his charge to the Director and Treasurer of the United States Mint. The contents of the bags, ^^104,- 960, 8s., 6d., was found to be the equivalent of $508,318.46, which was the amount for which Mr. Rush obtained a receipt. 1 Letter to the Honorable John Forsyth, England, see Rhees, "The Smithsonian Secretary of State, dated London, May 12, Institution : Documents relative to its 1838. For all the correspondence and other Origin and History"; Washington, 1879, documents relating to Rush's mission to pages 3-122. Founding of the Institution 31 The sum was subsequently increased by the repayment of certain amounts expended in the prosecution of the claim, freights, insurances, etc., so that the original trust amounted in all to ^106,374, 9s., yd., or $515,169. The sum of ;!^50i5 sterling which was held back during the lifetime of Madame de la Batut, after her death, in 1862, was added to the fund, and in February, 1867, the Board of Regents was informed that the amount of the Smithsonian Fund in the Treasury had been increased to $550,000.^ As soon as the trust fund reached the United States, in 1838, it was invested by the Secretary of the Treasury in stocks of States, chiefly in 500 bonds of the State of Arkansas for $1000 each, bearing six per cent, interest.^ The State of Arkansas having failed to pay its interest in 1846, Congress made good the deficiency from the public funds, as in duty bound by the pledge given in the bill approved July i, 1836, and has ever since paid interest at six per cent, on the sum of $538,000, which was the total amount at that time invested in Arkansas securities. Shortly after the convening of Congress in 1838, President Van Buren, in a message dated December 6, informed both Houses that the legacyhad been received and invested, and invited their attention to the obligation devolving upon the United States to fulfil the object of the bequest. His mes- sage was accompanied by several letters from " persons versed in science and in matters relating to education," who had been invited by the President to communicate their views to aid his judgment in presenting the subject to Congress. Eight years passed by before a definite plan of organiza- IRhees^ loc. cit., page 133. tion of the President, to invest all the money 2 This was done in accordance with the arising from the bequest of Smithson in stocks Act, approved July 7, 1838, directing the of States. This Act was repealed September Secretary of the Treasury, with the approba- il, 1841, through the agency of Mr. Adams. 32 The Smithsonian Instihttion tion was determined upon, although at each session of Con- gress the President urged prompt action. Though at the time the delay seemed irksome, no one can doubt that it was in the end advantageous. At first the importance of the occasion was not fully appreciated, and the projects pre- sented were limited in scope. Suggestions were offered by a large number of persons, and almost every suggestion was embodied in one or more of the bills which were brought up for discussion during this formative period. The broad and liberal plan at last adopted was the result of a process of selection by which unworthy features were thrown out, and only those retained which commended themselves to the wisdom of an intelligent majority. When the subject was first considered in the Senate, it seems to have been generally believed that the intention of the testator was to establish a university, and this was the preference of those to whom, in July, 1838, the Secretary of State, by direction of the President, addressed letters asking advice in regard to the proper application of the bequest.^ Seven communications elicited by this invitation were under consideration in 1838, and of these, five favored a school corresponding to what would now be called a postgraduate university. Doctor Wayland suggested an institution which should occupy "the space between the close of a collegiate education and a professional school"; Doctor Cooper, "an institution of the character of a university," open only to graduates of other colleges; and President Chapin, of Colum- bian University, "an institution for liberal and professional purposes and for the promotion of original investigations — to carry through a range of studies much above those of the ordinary collegiate course." Professor Dunglison, of the Uni- 1 The persons addressed were the Honor- of South Carolina ; the Honorable Richard able John Quincy Adams, ex-President; Rush; Doctor Francis Wayland, President Thomas Cooper, M. D., of the University of Brown University; and others. Founding of the Institutmi ZZ versity of Virginia, advocated " a central school of natural science," where natural philosophy, chemistry, geology, miner- alogy, philosophy, and all other sciences could effectually be taught, to be supplemented in time by a botanical garden, an observatory, a zoological institute, and other similar agencies. Mr. Rush objected to a school of any kind, and proposed a project which corresponds more nearly than any other of those early days to that which was finally adopted. In a shadowy yet far-seeing way he outlined a system of scientific correspondence, of lectureships, of general cooperation with the scientific work of the government, a liberal system of publication, and collections — geological, zoological, botanical, ethnological, and technological. Ex-President Adams urged the establishment of a great astronomical observatory, "equal to any in the world," and he continued to urge this from year to year, and to introduce bills in which this feature was included, until, indeed, provision for astronomical work was made by the establishment of an observatory in connection with the navy. The bill consid- ered by Congress in 1839^ provided for the establishment of an observatory fully equipped, with provision for the publica- tion of its observations 'and the annual preparation and pub- lication of a nautical almanac. This, which had evidently been prepared by a minority of the joint committee, was re- inforced by two sets of resolutions proposed by Mr. Adams in the House. One, reported from the committee, January 26, provided : "That the first appropriations from the interest or income of the Smithsonian fund ouorht to be for the erection and es- tablishment, at the city of Washington, of an astronomical observatory, provided with the best and most approved in- struments and books, for the continual observation, calcu- 1 House Bill No. 1161 ; Senate Bill No. 293. 34 The Smithsonian Institution lation, and recording of the remarkable phenomena of the heavens, for the periodical publication of the observations thus made, and of a nautical almanac, for the use of the mari- ners of the United States and of all other navigating nations." The second, reported February 6, recited the opinion : " That the education of the children of these United States is a duty of solemn and indispensable obligation incumbent upon their parents and guardians, not for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, but to qualify them for the enjoyment of their rights and the performance of their duties throughout life, [and therefore] that no part of the Smithsonian fund ought to be applied to the education of the children or youth of the United States, nor to any school, college, university, or institute of education." These resolutions were evidently intended to antagonize the views still held by many Senators, and urged in the speech of Senator Robbins, of Rhode Island, in January, 1839, who declared " that this institution should make one of a number of colleges, to constitute a university, to be estab- lished here, and to be endowed in a manner worthy of this great nation and their immense resources." On February 18, Senator Robbins offered a counterpoise to Mr. Adams's anti-university resolution in the following: " I. Resolved, That it is the duty of the United States, they having accepted the trust under the will of Mr. Smithson, of London, to execute that trust bona fide, according to the true intent and meaning of the testator. " 2. Resolved, That the trust being to found an institution in the city of Washington for the increase and diffusion of knowledore amono- men, the kind of institution which will have the effect intended and described, in the most eminent degree, will be the kind of institution which ought in good faith to be adopted, as being most in accordance with the true intent and meaning of the testator. Founding of the Institution 35 "3. Resolved, That all experience having shown scientific and literary institutions to be by far the most effectual means to the end of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men, the Smithsonian Institution should be a scientific and literary institution, formed upon a model the best calculated to make those means the most effectual to that end. "4. Resolved, That to apply said trust fund to the erection and support of an observatory would not be to fulfil bona fide the intention of the testator, nor would it comport with the dignity of the United States to owe such an establishment to foreign eleemosynary means." The Twenty-fifth Congress adjourned without action, and Senator Robbins having retired from public life, the univer- sity idea was not afterward so prominent. At this time addi- tional petitions were received. One was from Professor Walter R. Johnson, of Philadelphia, pleading for an institution for researches in physical science, especially in connection with the useful arts, which would have corresponded in a general way with the scientific branches of the present Department of Agriculture, though he proposed work in many other directions.^ Another was from Charles L. Fleischmann, a graduate of the Royal School of Agriculture in Bavaria, proposing the establishment of an institution for the promotion of agricul- ture, with experimental farms of 1360 acres, manufactories, mills, and workshops, a considerable staff of teachers and in- structors, and one hundred students at the commencement." The Agricultural Society of Kentucky was pleading for an agricultural school, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey for a school of astronomy, and Mr. James P. Espy for a me- teorological bureau with a system of wide-spread simultaneous observations. 1 Presented to the House of Representa- 2 Reported to the House of Representa- tives May 21, 1838. See Rhees, op. ciL, tives January 9, 1S39. See Rhees, op. cit., pages 171-186. pages 186-198. 36 The Smithsonian Institution The interest of the public became much greater ; earnest discussions were printed in the newspapers and reviews ; letters urging speedy action were written to Congress by persons in all parts of the country, and the Corporation of the City of Washington also presented a vigorous me- morial to the national legislature. Soon after the Twenty-sixth Congress convened, President Adams ao-ain introduced his bill for the establishment of a national observatory, accompanied by a learned and exhaust- ive report upon the importance of astronomical work, sup- plemented by a statement from the Astronomer Royal of Great Britain concerning the observatories at Greenwich and elsewhere. His ideas did not meet with favor. In his jour- nal for 1843 he records with much disgust that the Secretary of the Treasury said to him in conversation that the prejudice against his plan of an astronomical observatory was insur- mountable because he had once called observatories "light- houses in the skies." Strenuous as was his desire for an observatory, it was fee- ble in comparison with his apprehension lest the fund should be "squandered upon cormorants, or wasted in electioneering bribery," and his desire to save it " from misapplication, di- lapidation, and waste." His dread became almost morbid, and he looked with suspicion upon every one who was interested in the disposition of the bequest, even those whose names are now remembered in connection with his own as the most public-spirited promoters of the interests of the Institution in its days of embryonic existence. He would cooperate with no one, and his influence must be characterized as conserva- tive rather than formative, his most important service being his opposition to the bill for investing the fund in State stocks, which, in 1841, he succeeded in having repealed. While these things were happening at the Capitol, new Founding of the Instihdion 37 agencies were coming into existence which were destined to exert a very positive and decisive influence upon the charac- ter of the new organization. Chief among these was the Na- tional Institution, a society organized May 15, 1840, by the adoption of a constitution and a declaration of objects, which were, " To promote science and the useful arts, and to estab- lish a national museum of natural history," etc. Its constitu- tion, as printed on the cover of the second bulletin of the society, was decidedly prophetic of the future plan of the Smithsonian Institution. The society was established in a broad and liberal way. Its membership was strong, includ- ing at the beginning about ninety representative men of Washington, among them members of Congress, scientific men, clergymen, and prominent citizens, and an equal num- ber of corresponding members, including all the leading men of the country. Among its officers were ex-President Ad- ams, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Engineers of the Army, and other prominent offi- cials. Its meetings were largely attended, its promoters were enthusiastic, gifts of books and specimens began to come in, and its prospects were in every way flattering. From the beginning, the Smithson legacy and its proper disposition was the subject most frequently discussed by the founders of the National Institution. For years, indeed, it was the opinion of many influential men that this society ought to be made the custodian of the Smithson fund. How strongly this was urged is indicated in the letter addressed to the Secretaries of War and of the Navy in 1842, in which the managers stated that the object of the National Institution is ''to increase and to diffuse knoivlcdgc aviong ?nc?i,'' making prominent the words of Smithson. instead of the official designation of the objects of their own society. The influence of the society was strongly and continuously 38 The Smithsonian Institution exerted upon Congress during the six years from its organi- zation until the Smithsonian Act was eventually passed, and resulted in the final engrafting of a national museum upon the Smithsonian project, and also in the addition of various features of organization which have since become such char- acteristic elements in the plan of the Smithsonian Institution. The controlling mind in this movement was undoubtedly that of the Honorable Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, who was Secretary of the Navy in 1840, and at whose resi- dence the society was organized. Mr. Poinsett was, under the first plan of organization, senior director, and occupied the chair at every meeting until, in 1841, under an amended constitution, he was elected its first president. Notwithstand- ing the fact that officers were annually elected, he told Mr. Adams soon after this election that he should for two years to come preside over the National Institution, a clear indica- tion of the controlling influence which he consciously exerted. He was in fact reelected to the presidency at each annual meeting until 1845, when, having declined the candidacy, he was elected an honorary member, and Senator Woodbury, of New Hampshire, became president in his place. From this period the decline in the prosperity of the society was marked. It is certain that as early as 1838, when the bequest was first received, Mr. Poinsett was thinking seriously about its disposal. This is made clear by an entry in the diary of John Quincy Adams, under date of December 8, in which the ex- President describes his interview and was evidently impressed with the idea that Mr. Poinsett did not give him his entire confidence. In April, 1839, they discussed the matter again, and in 1 84 1 Mr. Adams wrote again in his diary: "April i. Mr. Poinsett called upon me and now fully disclosed his pro- ject, which is to place the investment and disposal of the Founding of the InstiUttion 39 Smithsonian funds under the management of the American Institution for the Promotion of Literature and Science [evi- dently meaning the National Institution]. He concurs entirely in my views of confining the appropriations to the annual interest, leaving the principal unimpaired, and of making the first appropriations for the establishment of an astronomical observatory. . . . He said he had at present no other occu- pation on hand, and would be willing to devote two years en- tirely to organizing this establishment and getting it into full operation." "I know not," added the aged statesman, "that it could be accomplished more effectively, and think I must acquiesce in this arrangement and endeavor to carry it through. The chief obstacle, however, will now be to extricate the funds from the fangs of the State of Arkansas. Mr. Poinsett thought that they paid the interest upon the bonds punctu- ally; but the law requires that the interest should, when paid, be immediately reinvested in State stocks, and I struggled in vain at the last session of Congress to obtain a repeal of that law. Mr. Poinsett said he was now going in a very few days to South Carolina, but should soon return here ... to preside over the National Institution for the Promotion of Science ; and, as he expressed a wish that the Smithsonian fund might be connected with that Institution and placed un- der its management, I requested him to take the bill reported to the House with my report of 5th March, 1840, and prepare any amendment to it which would carry out his views, and send it to me before the approaching session of Congress ; which he said would do."^ 1 Extracts from the memoirs of John his advocacy of the project. (See remarks, Qiiincy Adams, Rhees, " The Smithsonian In- March 8, \%\\, Proceedings of the National In- stitution : Documents relative to its Origin j-Z/Vm/zV^w, page 69, and letter, February 7, 1842, and History," pages 769, 774, 779, 780. Proceedings of the National Institution, page Mr. Poinsett was not only the first to pub- I57-) Dr. Peter S. Duponceau, president of licly suggest the union of the Smithsonian with the American Philosophical Society, in a letter the National Institution, but was constant in to the institution in November, 1840, re- 40 The Smithsoniait Institittion Poinsett, when elected to the presidency of the National Institution, was a man of sixty-two. He had lived an event- ful life, full of opportunities for observing the institutions of Europe, Asia, and South America. His culture was broad and sympathetic, and he was better fitted, perhaps, than any of the public men of his time to appreciate the necessity of organizing our institutions in accordance with a liberal and comprehensive plan. In his interviews with those who advo- cated an observatory as the first result of the Smithson be- quest, he showed a full appreciation of the value of such an institution, but seems to have kept before his own mind a much more comprehensive ideal. In his address upon the "Objects and Aims of the National Institution for the Promo- tion of Science," delivered at the first anniversary meeting, January 4, 1841, he referred pointedly to the Smithson be- quest, saying that it offered a favorable occasion for carrying into effect all the important objects connected with the Na- tional Institution, such as that which he was then addressing, enabling the government to afford all necessary protection to the promotion of science and the useful arts,^ without the ex- ercise of any doubtful power. Soon after this, in February, Senators Linn, of Missouri, marked : "Congress cannot find abetter oppor- tunity to execute the will of that beneficent tes- tator than by laying hold of yourinstitution and making it its own." {Proceedings, page 12.) The Honorable Virgil Maxey, Charge d'Af- faires at Brussels, wrote in December, 1840, that in his opinion no better use could be made of the bequest than to place it under the direction of a society organized for the proper carrying into effect views identical with those contemplated by the philanthropical and philosophical testator. {Proceedings, page 46.) See in this connection letters from Richard Rush, on the Smithsonian Bequest {Proceed- ings 0/ the National Institution, 1842, pages 201-204); from Peter S. Duponceau, on the Smithsonian Bequest (('/.<-//■., pages 204-208); from Honorable Virgil Maxey, Charge d'Af- faires of the United States at Brussels {op. cit., pages 46-47) ; Opening Address by John Tyler, President of the United States, patron of the National Institute {op. r/A, pages 437- 438) ; letter from the Honorable Levi Wood- bury, United States Senate {op. cit., pages 451-453); Smithsonian Bequest, by the Hon- orable Richard Rush {op. cit., pages 455- 460) ; address of Honorable Mr. Preston, of the United States Senate {op. cit., page236); letter of John Pickering, of Boston, Septem- ber I, 1841 {op. cit., pages 107-110). 1 These were the avowed objects of the National Institution, as can be seen by ref- erence to its constitution. Founding of the Institution 41 and Preston, of South Carolina, both members of the Na- tional Institution, proposed new bills for the organization of the Smithsonian Institution, at the same time report- ing a bill to incorporate the National Institution for the Promotion of Science. By these bills, the entire man- agement of the Smithsonian foundation was to be intrusted to the National Institution. Its officers, a superintendent, and six professors, were to be nominated by that society, which was also to prescribe their duties. Provision was made for joint occupancy by the two institutions of build- ings to be erected at the cost of the Smithson bequest, and finally it was required that all collections of works of art and of natural history owned by the United States, not other- wise assigned (or " all works of art, and all books relating thereto, and all collections and curiosities belonging to the United States in the possession of any of the Executive De- partments and not necessarily connected with the duties thereof") shall be deposited in said buildings (or "shall be transferred to said institution, to be there preserved and arranged "). Poinsett's enthusiasm was contagious, and his arguments, manifestly based upon careful observations and judicious reasoning and inspired by hopeful patriotism, brought him many sympathizers. Among these the Honorable Levi Woodbury, who had been a member of the same Cabinet with Mr. Poinsett, and was subsequently in the Senate, Senator Preston, of South Carolina, one of the directors of the Institute, Senator Walker, of Mississippi, and Senator Linn, of Missouri, corresponding members, appear to have been es- pecially friendly to the plans of Mr. Poinsett, and on various occasions from 1841 to 1846 promoted the interests of the National Institution on the floor of the Senate. In June, 1842, Mr. Poinsett was again in Washington, and 4 42 The Smithsonian Institution presided at a meeting for the purpose of connecting the or- ganization of the National Institution with that of the Smith- sonian Institution. " Mr. Preston," wrote John Ouincy Adams, " has introduced into the Senate a bill for combining these two institutions, and now stated to the meeting his views on the subject, em- bracing an appropriation of $20,000 and the occupation by law of a large portion of the Patent Office building, for the preservation and arrangement of the objects of curiosity col- lected by the exploring expedition under Lieutenant Wilkes, now daily expected home ; and he called on me to say how far my purposes may be concurrent with these suggestions. " I said I had the warmest disposition to favor them, and thought there was but one difficulty in the way, which might perhaps be surmounted. I had believed that the whole bur- den and the whole honor of the Smithsonian Institution should be exclusively confined to itself, and not entangled or com- mingled with any national establishment requiring appropria- tions of public money. I exposed the principles upon which all my movements relating to the Smithsonian bequest have been founded, as well as the bills which at four successive Congresses I have reported, first, for obtaining the money, and then for disposing of the fund. "At the motion of Mr. Walker, of Mississippi, the Presi- dent, Mr. Poinsett, was authorized to appoint a committee of five members of the Institute, to confer with Mr. Preston and me upon the means of connecting the Smithsonian Institution with the National Institute." Nothing resulted from these deliberations. On June 13, at a stated meeting of the National Insti- tution, Senator Preston was present, and delivered, as the records relate, "an eloquent speech, in which he descanted at length on the history and labor of the Institution, what it had done, and what it proposed to do, its capacity to be eminently useful to the country and Congress, the advan- Foimding of the Institittion 43 tage of uniting the Smithsonian Institution with it, etc., and appealed to Congress and to the Hberal citizens of the United States to come forward in aid of a glorious cause and in the accomplishment of the great national objects which the Insti- tution has in view," ^ etc. Senator Preston's bill for the union of the two establish- ments came to naught.^ During this session, however, the act to incorporate the National Institute, as it was henceforth to be called, passed in a much modified form, and was approved July 27, 1842,^ and the society now seems to have felt much more secure in its project of retaining control of the National Museum, and of gaining eventually the management of the Smithson fund, or, at least, of obtaining an appropriation from Congress. Senator Woodbury,* of New Hampshire, in commenting upon the form of the charter, remarked that " care was taken originally to make the Institute different from all other char- tered bodies, even in this District, so as to elevate it above every motive of personal gain, dedicating its labors exclu- sively to objects of a public character and vesting all the pro- perty possessed for this purpose in the government itself; and thus, by rendering it national in substance as well as name, to obviate any constitutional objection which might arise agfainst measures in its behalf." The chanofe of the name from " Institution" to " Institute" was made in deference to a suggestion by Doctor Peter S. "^Proceedings of the National Institution, page 236. A copy was requested for publica- tion (/(?<:. cit., page 241), but I cannot learn that it was ever put in type. 2 It was laid upon the table July 18, 1842, and never again came up. 3 See " Charter of Incorporation, Constitu- tion and By-Laws " in Proceedings of the Na- tional Institution, pages 3S8-392. See also "Bill to Incorporate the National Institution," etc., reported by Senator Preston (Senate Bill No. 258), February 17, 1841, in Rhees,"Doc- uments," etc., pages 239-341. See also "Me- morial of the Officers of the National Institu- tion for the Promotion of Science, January 21, 1842" (House Documents No. 59, Twenty- Seventh Congress, Second Session, II.), sub- milting draft of a bill of incorporation. 4 For a thorough understanding of the mat- ter see the remarks of Senator Woodbury in full, which were printed in the Proceedings of the National Institution, pages 336, 337. 44 The Smithsonian Instihttion Duponceaii in a letter written in April, 1842, in which he said: " I have seen with great pleasure the bill brought into the Senate by the Honorable Mr. Preston. It fully coincides with the views that I have expressed. The object, in my opinion, is to preserve the superiority of the National Institu- tion over the Smithsonian, and of the government over both. " I would beg leave to suggest whether it would not be advisable to make some small alteration in the name of the National Institution so that it should not bear exactly the same name with the Smithsonian, but one expressive of some degree of superiority. I would recommend, for instance, that of Institute, which appears to me more dignified than that of Institution, which is equally applicable to a school or college as to a great national establishment for the promotion of science. My idea would be to call the national establishment the ' National Institute for the Promotion of Science,' and the subordinate one the * Smithsonian Institution,' without more." No appropriation came, however, and the charter and changed name failed to add to the prosperity of the society. At a meeting on June 20,-^ 1842, a resolution was passed ap- pointing a committee to solicit private contributions of money and property. On August 8, 1842, a report was made by this committee proposing to institute an annual scientific con- vention at Washington, during the session of Congress, and under the auspices of the Institute, and also recommended an extensive system of exchange of specimens for the benefit of the museum. At the meeting of September 12, 1842, Mr. Poinsett, the president, proposed a series of resolutions^ intended to put the recommendation of the report into effect. 1 Evidently not June 13, though so stated in one portion of the minutes. See Proceedings of the National Institntiott, pages 236, 241, 335. ^'^QQ Proceedings o/t/ie National Institution, page 336. Founding of the Institution 45 All of these resolutions and reports were issued in the form of circulars/ but the appeals "to the liberality and public spirit of our countrymen " were without avail. Con- sequently a special meeting of the board of management was held December 23, 1843, at the office of the Secretary of State. That the society was regarded at that time as one of national importance is shown by the presence at the meet- ing of Mr. Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of State, who took an active part in the proceedings ; the Honorable John Quincy Adams, who presided ; Senator Levi Woodbury, late Secre- tary of the Treasury, who agreed to represent the meeting in Congress; the Honorable Joseph R. Ingersoll, who acted as secretary, and who wrote out in his preamble to the minutes of the meeting a forcible statement of the needs of the so- ciety ; the Honorable Charles J. Ingersoll, Senator Robert J. Walker, besides the Honorable Peter Force, Colonel John J. Abert, Colonel Joseph G. Totten, Lieutenant Matthew F. Maury, and the officers of the society. The issue of this meeting was the decision " to memorialize Congress on the subject of the condition and wants of the Institute." The memorial was presented in due course, and in June, 1844, Senator Choate, of Massachusetts, presented a report upon the character and uses of the Institute, recom- mending that its property should be vested in the United States and an appropriation made for its benefit. In the mean time, on the occasion of the first annual meet- ing of the National Institute under its new name and in its capacity as a corporation, in April, 1844, the meeting of the friends of science, including, besides all the members and patrons of the National Institute, the members of the Ameri- can Philosophical Society and of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists (the predecessor of the American 1 October 15, 1842, and February 24, 1843. 4* 46 The Smithsonian Institution Association for the Advancement of Science), had been held in Washington. The occasion was a brilliantly successful one. The President of the United States presided at the first meeting and some prominent public man at each of the others. The National Institute received its full share of encomium. President Tyler, in presiding at the first meeting, lauded it highly, held out the hope that the government would "con- tinue to it a fostering care," and expressed in a general way the hope that it should be identified with the future National Museum and the future Smithsonian Institution. "Where can the government find," said he, "a safer depository for the fruits of its expeditions, fitted out to explore distant and unknown regions, than the National Institute? What can it better do for the ' increase and diffusion of knowledge among men ' than by patronizing and sustaining this magnificent undertaking ? " Senator Walker, of Mississippi, one of the directors of the Institute, delivered an address on the present condition and history of American science, ending with an appeal to scien- tific men to come forward and unite with the people in sus- taining and advancing the National Institute. Senator Woodbury, of New Hampshire, in a letter to the secretary, expressed himself strongly in favor of making the society the agent of the government in the matter of caring for collections, patents, and copyrights, and also in the exe- cution of the Smithson trust. John Quincy Adams closed his address in these words : " I avail myself of this occasion to express my regret that, having taken an humble part in the establishment of this institution from its first foundation, under the auspices of Mr. Poinsett, I have been able to contribute so little to its promotion and advantage, and to add my heartfelt satisfaction Founding of the Instihition 47 at the prosperity which, by the untiring exertion and fervid zeal of its executive officers, it has attained. I believe it eminently deserving of the fostering care and liberal patron- age of the Congress of the United States, and could antici- pate no happier close to my public life than to contribute, by my voice and by my vote, to record the sanction of the nation's munificence to sustain the National Institute devoted to the cause of science." The Honorable Richard Rush, in a paper on " The Smith- sonian Bequest," submitted to this meeting, urged that the Smithsonian fund should be "engrafted upon the National Institute," and submitted an elaborate argument in favor of his proposal. It was a gala week for the Institute. The meeting was in every respect a success, and there was reason to believe that Congress would share in the general enthusiasm, take the so- ciety under its patronage, and even give it the control of the Smithson fund. In the circular of invitation, dated March 5, 1843, the ob- jects of the meeting as a means of strengthening the position of the society had been boldly stated, and the committee did not hesitate to say that " should the meeting prove as suc- cessful as the hopes of the managers in relation to it are ar- dent, they will expect hereafter to welcome all who may visit the association in apartments peculiar to itself, stored with the objects of its honest pride and worthy of its distinguished visitors." Such a paper, signed by such influential names as those of John C. Spencer, Secretary of the Treasury ; Rob- ert J. Walker, William C. Rives, Rufus Choate, of the Senate; Joseph R. Ingersoll and William C. Preston, of the House of Representatives ; Alexander D. Bache, Superintendent of the Coast Survey ; and Abbott Lawrence, of Boston, was surely a powerful campaign document. None the less weighty was 48 The Smithsonian Institution the "Memorial of the Friends of Science who attended the April meeting of the National Institute," signed by nearly forty rep- resentative scientific men and college presidents from all parts of the United States, speaking in terms of high commenda- tion of the National Institute, and particularly of the extent and value of its museum material, and expressing the hope " that the enlightened and intelligent members of Congress will distinguish the present session by the appropriation of funds to an object so truly national and so truly republican." The hopes of the promoters of the Institute were doomed to disappointment. Congress adjourned without making any provision for its needs. In July a new scheme was proposed for collecting money from private sources by the efforts of trustworthy agents, and in December a committee was appointed to again memorialize Congress.^ The movement had, however, received its death- blow. The failure of the tremendous effort of April, 1844, disheartened all its friends. At the next annual meeting Mr. Poinsett declined reelection to the presidency. The society's publications were discontinued, and even the annual address of Senator Woodbury, solicited for publication by the society, seems to have remained in manuscript unprinted. No more meetings were held, and the list of 350 resident and 1250 cor- responding members began to grow shorter. An effort was made to revive it in 1847, and a meager report was made once afterward by the corresponding secretary. In 1855 it was brougfht into existence for a time as a local scientific so- ciety,^ and issued a new series of proceedings. Its glory de- parted, however, with the first annual meeting, in 1844, and the attention of Congress was directed exclusively to the or- ganization of the Smithsonian Institution. 1 Proceedings of the N'ational Institute, page 375. 2 Professor Henry was for a time an officer, and endeavored to have its name changed to "MetropoUtan Institute." Pounding of the Institution 49 The influence of the National Institute upon the history of science in the United States, and particularly in educating public opinion and the judgment of Congress to an applica- tion of the proper means of disposing of the Smithsonian legacy, cannot well be overestimated. If the Smithsonian In- stitution had been organized before the National Institute had exerted its influences, it would have been a school, an observatory, or an agricultural experiment-station. In 1846, however, the country was prepared to expect it to be a general agency for the advancement of scientific in- terests of all kinds — as catholic, as unselfish, as universal as the National Institute had been prepared to be. The National Institute, after nearly five years of activity, suddenly ceased to be a center of public interest. The strug- gle over the Smithsonian bequest, however, was still going on. During the Twenty-seventh Congress (i 841 -1843) ^^ Senate did nothing. The House of Representatives ap- pointed a select committee on the subject, and Mr. Adams as chairman reported a new bill, providing still more thoroughly for the erection of an observatory and the publication of a nautical almanac to be called the Smithsonian Almanac. The Twenty-eighth Congress (1843-1845) brought its deliberations in regard to the Smithsonian bequest more nearly to an issue. The astronomical observatory bill ^ was again presented by Mr. Adams, but not acted upon. In the Senate, in the first session, a bill for the Smithsonian Institu- tion was reported June 6, 1844, from the Joint Committee on the Library, by Senator Tappan, of Ohio, who in the second session, December 12, introduced another bill, somewhat similar, but presenting the character of the books to be bought. This bill, before being finally voted upon, was brought into a form somewhat resembling that which was 1 House of Representatives 418, Twenty -eighth Congress. 50 The Smithsonian Instihttion finally adopted. It provided, however, for the appointment of various professors and lecturers, for a school of agriculture and mechanical arts, as well as for experimental gardens, a library of science and economics, and a museum. The museum clause of this bill was much the same as that finally agreed to, and contained a provision that the natural history objects, and geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United States, " in whosesoever custody the same may be," should be transferred to the custody of the board of managers of the Smithsonian Institution. This was evidently worded with the purpose of withdrawing from the possession of the National Institute the various collections, including those which had belonged to Smithson, which had fallen into its hands between 1840 and 1845. Indeed, the National Institute seems to have already become the object of some distrust and prejudice. A proposition that two of the seven "managers," not ex officio members of the board, should be selected from the membership of the National In- stitute, caused a vigorous debate in the Senate, in the course of which at least two Senators objected strongly to placing the administration of the Smithsonian Institution, even to so slight a degree as this, in the hands of a private corporation. The bill finally passed the Senate, January 23, 1845, but was not acted upon by the House. In connection with Mr. Tappan's bill, in January, 1845, Senator Choate, of Massachusetts, first appeared in advocacy of the establishment of "a noble public library, — one which, for variety, extent, and wealth, should be equal to any in the world," — and delivered an eloquent oration upon the influence of books. The amendment at that time proposed by him, together with other amendments urged by Mr. George P. Marsh, in connection with the Owen- Hough bill, brought Founding of the Instittttion 5 1 forward in the following session, had a great influence upon the final adjustment of the plan of administration.^ To the Twenty-ninth Congress (1845-1847) belongs the honor of finally formulating the act of incorporation by which the Smithsonian Institution was established. This was at last accomplished under the leadership of Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, who reported the bill nearly in its final form, though somewhat modified in a substitute offered by Mr. William J. Hough, and still more by the refusal of the House to agree to Mr. Owen's favorite feature of a normal school. John Ouincy Adams was a member of the select committee to which it was referred, together with Mr. Owen, chairman ; Mr. Timothy Jenkins, Mr, George P. Marsh, Mr. Alexander D. Sims, Mr. Jefferson Davis, and Mr. David Wilmot. Mr. Adams was now for the first time willing to cease his advocacy of a Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory, the Naval Observatory having been organized on a plan "at least equal in everything but the experience of its observers to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich." In the Hough bill, which was a modification of that of Owen, there was an attempt of another kind to weld together the Smithsonian Institution and the " National Cabinet of Curiosities," by giving to the Board of Regents the authority to erect a building by the side of the Patent Office, so as to form a wing of that structure, and to connect it with the hall then containing the National Cabinet, so as to constitute that hall in whole or in part the depository of the cabinet of the Institution. This was discretionary, however, with the Re- gents, who fortunately did not look upon the plan with favor. Reference has been made to the marked similarity between the plans of organization of the National and Sniithsonian Institutions. The former, like the Smithsonian, had a su- 1 See report of Honorable James Meachani, 1854, pages 10-12. 52 The Smithsonian Institution perior board of officers, composed of the President of the United States and the members of his Cabinet. It had also a board of directors, which inchided in its membership dele- gates from the Senate and House of Representatives, corre- sponding in function to. the Smithsonian Board of Regents, In other respects, still more markedly than in the constitution of its governing board, the Smithsonian seems to have been organized with the plan of the National Institute in view. The objects, as defined in the Congressional act of estab- lishment,^ correspond very closely to those announced in the early publications of the National Institute, which at its foun- dation divided its members into eight classes, as follows: (i) Astronomy, Geography, and Natural Philosophy ; (2) Nat- ural History; (3) Geology and Mineralogy; (4) Chemistry; (5) The application of same to useful arts ; (6) Agriculture ; (7) American History and Antiquities ; (8) Fine Arts. The term "manager" to designate a member of the gov- erning board, and which was derived from the organization of the National Institute, was employed in every bill except in the substitute proposed only a few hours before final action, when it was replaced by the term " regent," which was doubt- less suggested by Mr. William J. Hough, the mover of the substitute, a representative of the State of New York, and familiar with the organization of the University of the State of New York, which was under the control of a board of regents. Ten years after the announcement of the bequest, and eight years after the beginning of the contest as to its dis- position, the bill to incorporate the Smithsonian Institution received the approval of Congress and the President. The charter in its final form did not represent the views of any one party, except in some degree that which favored the 1 Sections 5 and 6. Founding of the Institution 53 library and incidentally the museum. The bill as finally pre- sented contained several special provisions not harmonious with the spirit of Smithson's bequest as at present under- stood. These were, for the most part, eliminated in the final discussion, and the Act finally passed by Congress, and ap- proved by the President, August 10, 1846, while broad enough to permit almost any work for intellectual advancement, was fortunately expressed in such general terms as to allow a large degree of liberty to the governing board. The Board of Regents was appointed without delay, and their meeting was held on September 7 in a room in the General Post-Office Building set apart for their use by direction of the President of the United States. Though many wise men participated in the councils in which the man- ner of executing the trust of Smithson was decided, there are certain names which are especially significant as those of the statesmen and patriots who made the interests of the infant institution their own special care, and who, by their wisdom and earnest advocacy, shaped its destiny. It seems proper that in this memorial volume an attempt should be made to show what each of these contributed to the final result. John Ouincy Adams was perhaps the most influential in securing the acceptance of the bequest and in creating a high ideal for its administration. He antagonized the idea of using it to found a university, and defeated Owen's project for a normal school, which was only eliminated from the bill a few minutes before final action. He opposed all projects for making its work directly practical. His influence was limited by his pertinacious advocacy of the idea that the founding of an observatory was the only proper distribution of the first income of the fund. His position in this matter has been misunderstood. He wished that the income for seven suc- cessive years should go to found an observatory. " During 54 The Smithsonian Institution this period," he said, "there will be ample time for consider- ing the best means of appropriating the same income after- ward to promote establishments for increasing and diffusing knowledge among men. A botanical garden," he contin- ued, "a cabinet of natural history, a museum of mineralogy, conchology or geology, a general accumulating library — all institutions of which there are numerous examples among the civilized Christian nations, and of most of which our own country is not entirely destitute — all are undoubtedly in- cluded within the comprehensive grasp of Mr. Smithson's de- sign — all may receive, in turn, and with progressive utility and power, liberal contributions from the continually grow- ing income of the trust. Nor did the committee believe that the moral or political sciences, the philosophy of language, the natural history of speech, the graces of polite literature, the mechanic or the liberal arts, were to be excluded from the benefits prepared for posterity by the perpetuation of this fund." He did not desire that a permanent organization should be formed, believing, though wrongly, as the event has proved, that such an organization could not be kept efficient and pure under the control of a government like ours ; and his suspicions in regard to the motives of those who seemed interested in the project undoubtedly lessened his power of controlling it. His most important service was to establish the principle that only the interest of the fund should be used, and that the principal should be permanently invested in the Treasury of the United States. This, after all, was his chief ambition — "to secure, as from a rattlesnake's fang, the fund and its income, forever, from being wasted and dilapidated in bounties to feed the hunger or fatten the leaden idleness of mountebank projectors and shallow and worthless pretenders to science." ^ 1 Rhees, "The Smithsonian Institution: Documents," etc., page 849. JOHX QUIIS'CY ADAMS. MEMBER OP THE COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. :: ,1 7 irH T 'ii< miAaA YOTlTTTp ZHOT, HHT 'iO ^ITASr/IAf)aO aHT KO ^.aYTTAT>ia8aH^I?TH TO Fotmciing of the Institution 55 John Davis, of Massachusetts, was the one in the Senate who, in 1836, stoutly maintained, against much opposition, that the government had the right to accept the bequest and to apply it for the purpose indicated by Smithson, saying that "he deemed the establishment of institutions for the diffusion of knowledge a vital principle of a republican gov- ernment." Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, aided by his associates of the National Institute, exercised an influence greater per- haps than any other in shaping the final disposition of the fund. The Smithsonian Institution became in time almost the equivalent of the National Institute, as in 1841 he hoped it would be, — an institution which, having at its command an observatory, a museum containing collections of all the pro- ductions of nature, a botanic and zoological garden, and the necessary apparatus for illustrating every branch of physical science, would attract together men of learning and students from every part of our country, would open new avenues of intelligence throughout the whole of its vast extent, and would contribute largely to disseminate among the people the truths of nature and the light of science. To Poinsett are due: (i) the idea of an important building, which should be a permanent feature at the capital ; (2) the plan for a national museum of science and art, with a staff of curators ; (3) the determining of the location of the Institution upon the Mall ; (4) the main features of the plan of organiza- tion, with the President and his Cabinet as trustees, and a subordinate board of trustees selected by Congress in part from among its own members ; (5) the inauguration of a system of international exchanges of books, under the inspira- tion of Alexander Vattemare, which, though not provided for in the organizing bill, was actually in operation as early as 1 84 1, with indirect aid from the government. 56 The Smithsonian Institution Rufus Choate, of Massachusetts, and George P. Marsh, of Vermont, were instrumental in giving prominence to the library project, upon which so much of the fund was expended during the first few years — a feature which, though at the time almost perilous, undoubtedly had great effect not only upon the development of the National Library, but of the re- lationship of the Smithsonian Institution to other institutions of learning at home and abroad. To Mr. Choate and to Benjamin Tappan was due in large degree the defeat of the aspirations of the National Institute toward the control of the Smithsonian fund, and to Senator Asher Robbins, of Rhode Island, the defeat of Mr. Adams's plan for an obser- vatory, to which at the time he opposed, with considerable prospect of success, a counter-project for a great postgraduate university. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, not only rendered material service in securing the legacy, but was the first to propose a staff of scholarly investigators resident in the national capital, who, by their researches, publications, and lectures, should aid in keeping the United States in touch with the scientific progress of the rest of the world ; and a press for publishing the communications of learned societies and of individuals eminent in science and letters in every part of the world. Most significant, however, was his conception of a permanent national organization, under the wing of the government and indirectly under its control, which should be a center of intellectual activity, and not only maintain its own staff of learned men, but cooperate with and stimulate the scientific and educational work of the government — a plan, as has already been indicated, quite in contrast with that in the mind of Mr. Adams. Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, was the first to bring into harmonious and generally acceptable form the various plans Fo2tnding of the Institution 57 which had been under consideration for ten years before. He prepared the final act of incorporation, which was drawn up by him in 1845, ^'''*^ which was, except in the elimination of his plan for a national normal school, but slightly changed in the substitute which was finally passed. As a member of the first Board of Regents, he was instrumental in selecting and carrying out the plan for the Smithsonian building, and, as chairman of the Organization Committee, drew up, with the assistance of Alexander Dallas Bache, the " Report on Plan of Organization," in which the organizing Act was ana- lyzed and expounded, and many of the possibilities of the future for the first time clearly set forth. From this Com- mittee was also reported at an early meeting the following resolution, from the adoption of which, and its legitimate out- come, there have been more significant results than through any other act of this or any succeeding board : "■Resolved, That it is essential, for the advancement of the proper interests of the trust, that the Secretary of the Smith- sonian Institution be a man possessing weight of character, and a high grade of talent ; and that it is further desirable that he possess eminent scientific and general requirements ; that he be a man capable of advancing science and promoting letters by original research and effort, well qualified to act as a respected channel of communication between the Institution and scientific and literary individuals and societies in this and foreign countries ; and, in a word, a man worthy to represent, before the world of science and of letters, the institution over which this board presides." The successful organization of the Institution has been the result of long-continued effort on the part of men of unusual ability, energy, and personal influence. No board of trus- tees, no succession of officers serving out their terms in rota- tion, could have developed from a chaos of conflicting opinions 5 58 The Smithsonian Listitution a strongly Individualized establishment like the Smithsonian Institution. The names of Henry and Baird are so thor- oughly identified with the history of the Institution during its first four decades that their biographies would together form an almost complete history of its operations. A thirty- two years' term of service was rendered by one, thirty-seven by the other. Perhaps no other organization has had the benefit of so uninterrupted an administration of forty years, beginning with its birth and continuing in an unbroken line of consistent policy a career of growing usefulness and enterprise. The first meeting of the Board of Regents took place Sep- tember 6, 1846, and before the end of the year the policy of the Regents was practically determined upon, for, after decid- ing upon the plan of the building now occupied, they elected to the secretaryship Professor Joseph Henry, and thus ap- proved his plan for the organization of the Institution which had previously been submitted to them. Henry was succeeded in the office of Secretary by Profes- sor Spencer Fullerton Baird, then the leading authority on the mammals, birds, fishes, and reptiles of America, the foun- der of the United States Fish Commission, and of "public fish culture," elected in 1878; and he in turn by Samuel Pierpont Langley, preeminent as physicist and astronomer, the inventor of the bolometer, the discoverer of the greater portion of the infra-red spectrum, and the highest authority upon the physics of the atmosphere, elected in 1888. ''Vi THE ESTABLISHMENT AND THE BOARD OF REGENTS By George Brown Goode ^)HE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION is a corporation or Establishment, created by the act of Congress approved August lo, 1846, " for the increase and diffusion of knowledge ^m:i^r^^ among men." Its statutory members are the President of the United States, the Vice-President of the United States, the Chief Justice of the United States,^ the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, the Attorney-General, the Postmaster-General, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of Agriculture. The duty of the Establishment is the "supervision of the affairs of the Institution and the advice and instruction of the Board of Regents." The Establishment has, from time to 1 The original act of incorporation also named as members of the Establishment the Commissioner of the Patent Office of the United States and the Mayor of the city of Washington. This act was amended March 20, 1871, so as to substitute the Governor of the District of Columbia as an ex officio Regent, in place of the Mayor of Washington, the latter office ha\Tng ceased to exist. In 1874 the office of Governor of the District of Columbia was in turn abolished. In 1877 the Secretary of the Interior, and in 1894 the Sec- retary of Agriculture, were added as members of the Establishment. 59 6o The Smithsonian Institution time, selected eminent citizens of the United States to be hon- orary members of the Institution, and to share with them the responsibihties with which they are charged. The persons thus honored^ have been Doctor Robert Hare, of Philadel- phia ; the Honorable Albert Gallatin, of New York ; Professor Benjamin Silliman, of Connecticut; Washington Irving, of New York; Professor Parker Cleaveland, of Maine; Doctor Augustus B. Longstreet, of Mississippi ; and the Honorable Columbus Delano, of Ohio. The first meeting of the Establishment was held August i, 1849, in the newly completed eastern range of the Smith- sonian building, Zachary Taylor, President of the United States, occupying the chair. Eight meetings have since been held, the last on May 5, 1877, adjourning to meet at the call of the President. The Establishment, though exercising constant supervision over the affairs of the Institution, being represented upon the Board of Regents by two of its members, one of them the Chancellor, as its presiding officer, has never deemed it nec- essary to take any formal action at its meetings, save to adopt, May 17, 1853, a code of by-laws,^ and to listen from time to time to general statements by the Secretary in regard to the condition and affairs of the Institution. The Regents of the Smithsonian Institution are charged by the act of incorporation with the duty of conducting the business of the Institution. Two members of the Establish- ment, the Vice-President of the United States and the Chief Justice, are, in virtue of their office, members of the Board of Regents. There are also three members of the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, and six citizens, no two of whom may be from the same State, though two 1 The law as amended on March 12, 1894, no honorary member has been elected since omits the phrase " such other persons as the year 1873. they may elect honorary memljers," and 2 See "Smithsonian Report," 1853, page 98. The Board of Regents 6i must be residents of the city of Washington. The presid- ing officer of the Board of Regents is the Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution, who is elected by the Board of Regents from among their own number. This office has, however, always been held either by the Vice-President or by the Chief Justice.^ The executive officer of the Board of Regents is the Sec- retary of the Institution, who is elected by them. The duties and responsibilities of Secretary are such as in other institu- tions usually belong to the office of Director : the name by which this officer is designated is that which in Washington is associated with the highest grade of executive responsibil- ity. The Secretary makes all appointments on the staff, the members of which are technically his "assistants." He is re- sponsible for the expenditure and disbursement of all funds of the Institution, is the legal custodian of all its property, and, ex officio, its librarian and the keeper of its museum. He presents to the Regents an annual report upon the operations, expenditures, and condition of the Establishment, which is transmitted by the Board to Congress for publica- tion. By a special act of Congress in 1879 and amended in 1884, an Acting Secretary is provided for, in case of the ab- sence or disability of the Secretary, the designation being left with the Chancellor of the Institution. 1 Vice-President Dallas was the first Chan- cellor, and was succeeded by Vice-President Fillmore. When Mr. Fillmore was elevated to the Presidency of the United States, in 1850, Chief Justice Taney was elected Chan- cellor. In 1857 Mr. Taney resigned the place on the ground that the Vice-President, the liighest in rank of the ofticers of the gov- ernment who are ex officio Regents, was the proper person to preside. " Unfortunate events," he continued, " have for some time past left the government without a Vice-Pres- ident elected by the people. And when that office was vacant the Regents conferred on me the office, which had always before been 5* filled by the Vice-President. And "when I accepted it I regarded the appointment as a temporary one. The reason for the appoint- ment has now happily ceased, and I desire to give the Regents an opportunity of restoring the original plan of organization, in which I fully concurred when it was adopted." Mr. Breckinridge, Vice-President of the United States, who was present at this meeting, moved that the present Chancellor, Chief Jus- tice Taney, be reelected to that oftice. The precedent thus established of electing the Chief Justice to be Chancellor of the Institu- tion has never since been abandoned. 62 The Sniithsoiiian Institution The first meeting of the Regents for the purpose of or- ganization was held on September 7, 1846, in a room in the Patent Office building, assigned for the purpose by the President of the United States. At this meeting were present George M. Dallas, of Penn- sylvania, Vice-President of the United States; Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, Chief Justice of the United States ; Wil- liam W. Seaton, Mayor of the city of Washington ; Senator George Evans, of Maine ; Senator Isaac S. Pennybacker, of Virginia; Robert Dale Owen, Representative from Indiana; William J. Hough, Representative from New York ; Henry W. Hilliard, Representative from Alabama; the Honorable Rufus Choate, of Massachusetts; Doctor Gideon Hawley, of New York; and Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, citizens at large; Doctor Alexander Dallas Bache and Colonel Joseph G. Totten representing the National Institute of Washing- ton. Senator Sidney Breese, of Illinois, was present at sub- sequent meetings during the course of organization. Since the date of organization, the Board of Regents have held 218 meetings, an average of about four to each year. The record of their proceedings up to 1876 occupies a volume of three hundred pages, and if extended up to the present year would require four hundred pages.-^ This record, it need scarcely be said, relates only to the actual transactions of the Board and its committees at its regular meetings. The re- ports of the Board to Congress occupy fifty volumes, includ- ing in all about thirty-eight thousand pages. The regular annual meetings of the Board are held in January. Since January, 1890, the day has been fixed for the fourth Wednesday of the month. The Executive Committee of the Regents provided for by 1 "The Smithsonian Institution : Journals J. Rhees, Washington; published by the of the Board of Regents, Re|)orts of Com- Smithsonian Institution, 1879. Octavo, pages mittee's Statistics," etc. Edited by William v-vii, 844. The Board of Regents (>z the law holds quarterly meetings for the purpose of auditing the accounts for expenditures made in accordance with the appropriations voted by the Board at its annual meeting. The Executive Committee has also customarily performed the duties of a Committee of Ways and Means, besides acting upon many matters directly referred to it by the Board. Two of its members have always been the two Regents resident in Washington, and the third some other member, not a Sena- tor or Representative, living near enough to Washington to be readily accessible. The Executive Committee, therefore, soon became an Advisory Committee, practically always in session, which the Secretary constantly consults in regard to the interpretation of questions of policy, and the method of carrying out the instructions of the Board. The citizen residents have usually served for longer periods than others as members of the Executive Committee, and many of them have become intimately associated with the executive work of the organization. Since the organization of the Board of Regents, fifty years ago, the names of 129 persons have appeared upon its roll. Among these are a large number of the most distinguished citizens of the United States, — men eminent in statesmanship and diplomacy, in governmental administration, in science, in literature, and in arts. Each one of these has contributed his share to the prosperity of the Institution by his counsel and good judgment. The long list of distinguished names here given shows how carefully the Regents have been selected, so that repre- sentative men from every section of the Union might be in- cluded in that important body. From the Middle States: William J. Hough, Gideon Haw- ley, Millard Fillmore, Samuel Sullivan Cox, John V. L. Pruyn, William B. Astor, William A. Wheeler, Andrew D. 64 The Smithsonian Institution White, and Levi P. Morton, from New York ; William L. Dayton, Professor John Maclean, of Princeton University, and William Walter Phelps, from New Jersey ; George M, Dallas, Richard Rush, Edward McPherson, Hiester Clymer, Robert Adams, Jr., and President Henry Coppee, of Lehigh University, from Pennsylvania. From the Southern States : Chief Justice Taney, Henry Winter Davis, James A. Pearce, from Maryland ; Isaac S. Pennybacker, James M. Mason, Robert E. Withers, General Joseph E. Johnston, from Virginia ; William R. King, George E. Badger, from North Carolina ; William C. Preston, from South Carolina; William F. Colcock, Robert M. Charlton, John M. Berrien, Hiram Warner, Lucius J. Gartrell, Benjamin H. Hill, and Alexander H. Stevens, from Georgia; General Henry W. Hillard and General Joseph Wheeler, from Ala- bama; Jefferson Davis, Otho R. Singleton, Randall L. Gibson, from Mississippi ; President William Preston Johnson, of Tulane University, from Louisiana; Garrett Davis, John Cabell Breckinridge, John W. Stevenson, and William C. P. Breckinridge, from Kentucky ; Andrew Johnson, from Ten- nessee ; William Lyne Wilson, from West Virginia ; Samuel B. Maxey, from Texas. From the New England States: Rufus Choate, Henry Wil- son, E. Rockwood Hoar, George F. Hoar, Cornelius C. Fel- ton. Professor Louis Agassiz and Professor Asa Gray, of Harvard University, and Henry Cabot Lodge, from Massa- chusetts ; Lafayette S. Foster, President Theodore D. Wool- sey, Noah Porter, and Professor James Dwight Dana, of Yale College, from Connecticut ; James W. Patterson, from New Hampshire ; George P. Marsh, James Meacham, Luke P. Poland, Justin S. Morrill, and George F. Edmunds, from Vermont; George Evans, William Pitt Fessenden, Hannibal Hamlin, Nathan Clifford, from Maine, The Board of Regents 65 From the Western States : Benjamin Stanton, Salmon P. Chase, Benjamin F. Wade, James A. Garfield, Chief Justice Waite, Ezra B. Taylor, John Sherman, and Benjamin Butter- worth, from Ohio ; Robert Dale Owen, Graham N. Fitch, Thomas A. Hendricks, William H. English, and Schuyler Colfax, from Indiana; Sidney Breese, Stephen A. Douglas, Lyman Trumbull, John F. Farnsworth, Shelby M. Cullom, David Davis, and Chief Justice Fuller, from Illinois; George W. McCrary, Stephen F. Miller, and Nathaniel C. Deering, from Iowa; Robert McClelland, Lewis Cass, David Stuart, Thomas W. Ferry, and President James B. Angell, of the University, from Michigan ; Gerry W. Hazleton, from Wis- consin ; John J. Ingalls, from Kansas; George Gray, from Delaware ; and Aaron A. Sargent and Newton Booth, from California. As representatives from the District of Columbia, the fol- lowing Mayors of Washington served from 1846 to 187 1, ex officio, upon the Board of Regents : William Winston Seaton, Walter Lenox, John W. Maury, John T. Towers, William B. Magruder, Joseph G. Berret, Richard Wallach, Sayles J. Bowen, and Matthew G. Emery ; followed in 1872 by Henry D. Cooke, and in 1874 by Alex- ander R. Shepherd, Governors of the District. Those who have served as citizens from the city of Wash- ington have been Professor Alexander D. Bache, Superinten- dent of the United States Coast Survey ; General Joseph G. Totten, U. S. A. ; General Robert Delafield, U. S. A. ; the Reverend Peter Parker, D. D, ; General William T. Sher- man, U, S. A.; George Bancroft; General Montgomery C. Meigs, U. S. A.; President James C. Welling, of Columbian University; ex-Senator John B. Henderson; and Gardiner G. Hubbard. Among the Congressional Regents, those who were long- 66 The Smithsonian Institution est in service were : Representative Samuel S. Cox, from 1861 to 1865, from 1870 to 1875, from 1882 to 1883, a"'^ again from 1888 to 1889; Senator James A. Pearce, from 1847 to 1862; Representative James A. Garfield, from 1865 to 1873, ^'^'^ from 1878 to 1880; Senator James M. Mason, from 1849 to 1861 ; and Senator Justin S. Morrill, from 1883 to the present. The chairmanship of the Executive Committee was held by Mayor Seaton from 1846 to 1849, by General Totten in 1850 and again in 1862, by Professor Bache in 1851 and again in 1863, by Senator Pearce from 1852 to 1861, by Mayor Wallach in 1864 and 1865, by General Delafield from 1866 to 1870, by Doctor Parker from 1871 to 1883, by Pro- fessor Maclean from 1884 to 1885, by President Welling from 1886 to 1893, by President Coppee in 1894, and by ex- Senator Henderson in 1895 and 1896. Upon the rolls of this committee also appear the names of Robert Dale Owen, General William T. Sherman, Honorable George Bancroft, General Montgomery C. Meigs, Honorable Gardiner G. Hubbard, and Honorable William L. Wilson. Among this company of distinguished men, including many of the Americans most eminent in their day, there have been some who had opportunities to identify themselves more ac- tively than others with the work. It would, perhaps, not be proper, or indeed possible, to make particular mention of any of these but for the fact that the Regents themselves have from time to time recorded in their Journal of Proceedings special words of commendation and appreciation of such of their associates as they considered to have rendered extraor- dinary services. On the occasion of the death of Richard Rush, at the meet- ing of the Board on January 28, i860, Senator Pearce, after alluding to the very important services rendered by him in The Board of Regents 67 England for the recovery of the fund bequeathed by Smith- son, remarked : "The act of Congress of 1846 having established the Smithsonian Institution, he was appointed one of its first Regents, and was constantly continued by Congress a mem- ber of their Board. His zeal for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, and his sound judgment, contributed to the adoption of the system of operations which, so far, has borne the happiest fruits ; and his interest in and care for its successful management furnished one of the enjoyments of a tranquil old age, ' attended by reverence and troops of friends.' " At a meeting held January 31, 1863, Professor Bache, in his eulogy of Senator James Alfred Pearce, of Maryland, said : "Asfain has death invaded our circle, and taken from our councils and our active sympathies one of the most ad- mirably gifted intellects which has at any time been called upon to shape the destiny or direct the labors of the Smith- sonian Institution. A member of the Executive Committee from nearly the second year of the organization under the act of Congress of 1846, attentive to every detail, whether scientific, administrative, or financial, Mr. Pearce was always prompt at the call of every duty. His entire and cordial ac- quiescence in the form of organization adopted for the Insti- tution, his liberal and zealous cooperation with the Board of Regents, his earnest support of, and unfaltering confidence in, the discretion and integrity of its Secretary, were as conspicu- ous as they were productive of the most lasting and important benefits. And though it is true that the general form and policy of the Institution were determined under the authority of Congress, by the first Board of Regents, yet it is quite as cer- tain that strenuous action was afterwards needed to maintain it in its adopted course, and secure it from projected innova- tions which, though strenuously advocated at the time, few now regard with aught but disfavor. To this end no one 68 The Srnithsoiiiaji htstitntion lent more effectual aid than our lamented colleagfue. Al- thouorh from taste and the conditions of his active life he might more properly be styled a literary man, yet were his scientific attainments by no means inconsiderable, and a lib- eral and cultivated mind, which admitted of no narrow views, enabled him to embrace, in all its comprehensive simplicity, the idea of the generous foreigner who, in founding this In- stitution, consecrated his fortune to 'the increase and diffu- sion of knowledge among men.' " The objects which in Congress occupied most of his at- tention, and which it gave him most pleasure to defend and sustain, were those connected with literature and science, and in these he showed the same qualities which, as chairman of our Executive Committee, he has here so often exhibited. With the great interests of State and the high objects of na- tional politics he was abundantly qualified to grapple ; in fact, he shrunk from no occasion in which to exert himself when enlarged views and skilful powers of debate could be ren- dered serviceable to his country or the world. But if duty called upon him from time to time for such efforts, still it was to objects promotive of art and science and high civilization, to means for man's moral and intellectual improvement, and the enlargement of his knowledge and power over nature, that he turned with ever new and unwearied interest. To him probably more than to any other Senator the library of Congress was indebted for the augmented fund which it has now for some years enjoyed, and for the care taken in the se- lection of the materials which render its shelves so useful. The exploring expedition was more than once indebted to his earnest and persistent efforts for the continuance of the means of publication of its results ; the Coast Survey for expositions of its importance to the country and the world ; the Smith- sonian for warding off assaults and reconciling enthusiastic but misguided opposition; the naval and military expeditions, boundary surveys, and explorations, for close, searching in- vestigations which led to important improvements and to cor- The Board of Regents 69 dial support. The great work of the extension of the Capitol found in him a wise advocate and judicious friend. Not afraid of what was new, yet he aimed at nothing for the sake of novelty. In connection with the decoration of our public buildings, our sculptors and painters found in him a most en- lightened appreciator of their works, and one always ready to promote the great cause of their art by legitimate means." At the meeting of January 28, 1867, a resolution was passed referring to the long and gratuitous services of Wil- liam W. Seaton. In this connection. Professor Henry spoke of his association with the Institution in the following terms: " At the first meeting of the Board of Regents he was elected Treasurer, and subsequently one of the Building Com- mittee. The former office he continued to hold until the time of his death, and during the whole of this period, nearly twenty years, discharged its duties without other compensa- tion than the pleasure he derived from an association with the Institution, and the laudable pride he felt in contribut- ing to its prosperity and usefulness. It is well known that at the time of the organization of the Institution a wide diversity of opinion existed as to the practical means which would be most suitable for realizing the objects of the legacy. Mr. Seaton, on mature reflection, finally gave his cordial support to the policy which sought to impress on the Institu- tion a truly cosmopolitan character. He strenuously advo- cated the plan which the Secretary, then recently elected, had been invited to submit to the Board of Regents, and which looked to the advancement of knowledge chiefly through the encouragement and publication of original researches, a sys- tem which, without neglecting other available means for the promotion and difl'usion of scientific enlightenment, may be claimed, without undue pretension, to have made the Institu- tion favorably known, and to have exerted a well-recognized influence wherever men occupy themselves with intellectual pursuits. 70 The Smithsonian Institution "The relation borne by Mr. Seaton to the city of Wash- ington, the deHght with which he watched and aided its pro- gress, a certain native taste also for artistic embellishment, led him to take special interest in the architectural character of the Smithsonian building and the ornamentation of the public grounds around it. " Mr. Seaton was a constant attendant at the meetings of the Board of Regents, and from his familiarity with the early history of the Institution and the state of the funds, as well as from his long experience in public office, was enabled to offer suggestions, always marked by clearness of conception and soundness of judgment. The social attentions which he was accustomed to extend to the Regents, especially those who were called from abroad to attend the annual meetings, and to gentlemen invited to lecture before the Institution, were but the expression of his characteristic hospitality ; but by thus adding to the pleasure of their sojourn in Wash- ington, he contributed largely to increase the number of its friends and supporters. The columns of the ' National Intelli- gencer,' under his direction, were always open to the defense of the policy adopted and the course pursued by the Insti- tution, and he rarely failed to soften, by the courtesy of his manner and the moderation of his expressions, any irritable feeling which might arise in the discussion of conflicting opinions. It would, indeed, be difficult to say in how many and in what various ways he contributed to the popularity as well as to the true interests of the Institution. The Secretary, who was in the habit of conferring with him on all points requiring mature deliberation, may with justice acknowledge that he never failed to derive important assistance from the wisdom of his counsels." At a meeting on February 22, 1867, similar resolutions were passed in honor of the memory of Professor Alexander Dallas Bache, who had served as a Regent and one of the Executive Committee from its first organization to the time of his death. In a eulogy prepared by Professor Henry, at the The Board of Regents 71 request of the Regents, the following statement in regard to his services, which were by the Secretary deemed more sig- nificant than those of any other of its early members, is made : *' In 1846 he had been named in the act of incorporation as one of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, and by successive reelection was continued by Congress in this office until his death, a period of nearly twenty years. To say that he assisted in shaping the policy of the Establish- ment would not be enough. It was almost exclusively through his predominating influence that the policy which has given the Institution its present celebrity was, after much opposition, finally adopted. The object of the donation, it will be re- membered, had been expressed in terms so concise that its import could scarcely be at once appreciated by the general public, though to the cultivators of science, to which class Smithson himself belonged, the language employed failed not to convey clear and precise ideas. Out of this state of things it is not surprising that difference of opinion should arise respecting the proper means to be adopted to realize the in- tentions of the founder of the Institution. Professor Bache, with persistent firmness, tempered by his usual moderation, advocated the appropriation of the proceeds of the funds principally to the plan set forth in the first report of the Sec- retary, namely, of encouraging and supporting original re- search in the different branches of science. Unfortunately this policy could only be partially adopted, on account of the restrictions of the enactment of Congress by which provision was to be made for certain specified objects. He strenuously opposed the contemplated expenditure of a most dispropor- tionate sum in the erection and maintenance of a costly edi- fice; but failing to prevent this, he introduced the resolution adopted by the Board as a compromise, whereby the mischief which he could not wholly avert might at least be lessened. This resolution provided that the time of the erection of the building should be extended over several years, while the 72 The Sjuithsonian histitntion fund appropriated for the purpose, being in the mean time in- vested in a safe and productive manner, would serve in some degree to counterbalance the effect of the great and unneces- sary outlay which had been resolved on. It would be diffi- cult for the Secretary, however unwilling to intrude anything personal on this occasion, to forbear mentioning that it was entirely due to the persuasive influence of the Professor that he was induced, almost against his own better judgment, to leave the quiet pursuit of science and the congenial employ- ment of collegfe instruction to assume the laborious and responsible duties of the office to which, through the partial- ity of friendship, he had been called. Nor would it be pos- sible for him to abstain from acknowledging with heartfelt emotion that he was from first to last supported and sus- tained in his difficult position by the fraternal sympathy, the prudent counsel, and the unwavering friendship of the la- mented deceased. " His demeanor in the Board was quiet and unobtrusive, and his opinions sought no support in elaborated or premedi- tated argument ; but when a topic likely to lead to difficulty in discussion was introduced, he seldom failed, with that ad- mirable tact for which he was always noted, to dispose of it by some suggestion so judicious and appropriate as to secure ready acquiescence and harmonious action. The loss of such a man in the councils of the Institution, when we consider the characteristics which it has been our aim to portray, must, indeed, be regarded as little less than irreparable." At a meeting on December 19, 1873, Mr. Garfield, speaking of the death of Chief Justice Chase, said: "As the Chancellor of this Institution, we saw in happy and harmonious action his ample knowledge of our institu- tions, his wide experience of finance, his reverential love for science and art, and his unshaken faith in the future of his country as the grand theater for the highest development of all that is best and greatest in human nature. No contribu- tion to science offered to this Board escaped his attention. The Board of Regents 73 Nothing that was high or worthy in human pursuits failed to elicit his appreciative and powerful support." At a meeting, January 18, 1882, Chancellor Waite thus referred to the services of President Garfield : " General Garfield first took his seat in Congress at the end of the year 1863. He was then but thirty-six years old. "At the beginning of his second term he was appointed a member of this Board by the Speaker of the House of Repre- sentatives, and was present at the meeting of February 3, 1866. He continued to hold the same position until 1873, when another was appointed in his place. He appeared again, however, in 1878, and we were never afterwards de- prived of his counsels until he was elected President of the United States, which made him ex officio the presiding officer of the Smithsonian Institution. " From the beginning his presence here was felt. He was eminently fitted for such a trust. " He was himself a scholar, and the 'increase and diffusion of knowledge among men ' always gave him the greatest pleasure. "At every meeting of the Board during his successive terms, when he could be present, his name appears among active and thoughtful members. He manifested his appre- ciation of the place he filled by always doing what it was his privilege to do, and doing it well. When on former occa- sions the Board has given expression to its feelings upon the death of a member his words of heartfelt sympathy have often been heard. The records show that he knew and appreciated the great and good qualities of Chief Justice Chase, and that he fully realized the debt science owed to Agassiz. But the crowning act of all was when, out of the fullness of his heart, at the memorial services in the hall of the House of Repre- sentatives, he made those who heard him feel how great the life of Professor Henry had been. " It is not for us to say he ought to have been spared 6 74 The Smithsonian Institution longer. Few men seemed to possess greater power for good. He died as he lived, an honor to human nature." At a meeting on January 21, 1885, on the occasion of the resiofnation of Doctor Peter Parker from the Board, resolu- tions were passed expressing " high appreciation of the valu- able and efficient services he had rendered to the Institution, for, when required, he had worked without weariness and watched without flagging, even after he had begun to feel the burden of age." On the occasion of the death of Chancellor Waite, in 1888, it was by the Regents resolved : " That while an obvious sense of propriety must dictate that we should leave to others in that great forum which was the chosen arena of his life's career the sad privilege of depict- ing, with minute and detailed analysis, the remarkable com- bination of strong and lovely traits which met in the person of the late Chief Justice and gave to the symmetrical char- acter of our beloved friend its blended sweetness and light, we cannot omit, even in this hour of our special sorrow, to bear our cheerful testimony to the pleasing amenity with which he presided over the deliberations of this council chamber as the Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution ; and sharing, as we all do, in a profound admiration for the intelligence he brought to our discussions while ever moder- ating them by the guidance of his clear thought and mild wisdom, we can but render our reverent homage to the en- gaging personal qualities which endeared him to us as a man, while at the same time gratefully confessing our obligations to him for the provident care and deep interest which he always brought to the discharge of his official duties in this place, where, through all the years of his honorable and use- ful service at the head of this Board, the Secretary of the In- stitution, in common with ourselves, has leaned on him as the wise and true counsellor who could be trusted as well for the The Board of Regents 75 rectitude of his moral intuitions as for the clear perceptions of his calm and judicious intellect." At a meeting on January 18, 1889, on the occasion of the death of Professor Asa Gray, after fifteen years of service, a committee of Regents reported as follows : " Upon the Smithsonian Institution his loss falls with par- ticular weight, since his active interest in its welfare is almost continuous with its existence, for he was one of the Com- mittee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the report of which upon the ' plan proposed for the organization of the Smithsonian Institution,' rendered in 1847, has exer- cised so active an influence upon the subsequent history of this Establishment. "Appointed a Regent in January, 1874, to succeed Pro- fessor Louis Agassiz, his efficient and active interest in the welfare of this Institution has been one of its most valuable possessions, and it is with deeper feeling than formal reso- lutions of regret usually convey that we now endeavor to express some part of our sense of irreparable loss." On the death of the Honorable Samuel S. Cox, in 1890, after a period of service as Regent which, though occasion- ally interrupted, continued in the neighborhood of thirty years, at a meeting of the Board on January 8, 1890, a com- mittee reported that — " While he was not a regular attendant at all the meetings of the Board, he was ever ready to advance the interests of the Institution and of science, either as a Regent or as a member of Congress ; and although such men as Hamlin, Fessen- den, Colfax, Chase, Garfield, Sherman, Gray, and Waite, in a list comprising Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Chief Justices, and Senators of the United States, were his associates, there were none whose service was longer or more gratefully to be remembered, nor perhaps any to whom the Institution owes more than to Mr. Cox." 76 The Smithsoitiaji Institution In 1892, General Montgomery C. Meigs, U. S. A., who had been for seventeen years a member of the Executive Committee, died, and Doctor Coppee, in a memorial record presented at the annual meeting, said : " His valuable services to the Institution began, indeed, before he was officially connected with it as Regent, and con- tinued until his death, rendering most important service in 1876 by designing the new building for the National Mu- seum, a marvel of economic design. Directly upon his en- trance into the Board, December 26, 1885, he became an active member of its Executive Committee. He was always present, extremely painstaking, and eminently judicious in his counsel and judgment on important points of business and policy. He had just been nominated as Regent for another term of six years when he was taken away from us by sudden illness. Few Regents have been of such importance to the Institution." Appropriate action was taken at the meeting held on Jan- uary 23, 1895, by the adoption of suitable resolutions in honor of the memory of President Welling. On that oc- casion Doctor Coppee said : " Doctor Welling was one of the most valuable citizens of Washington, to whom was confided many trusts, among them the presidency of the Columbian University and the chairmanship of the Executive Committee of this Institution ; and he did well everything that was confided to him. He was a man pure in thought, honest in purpose and action, and intelligent in judgment. He held a ready pen, and how polished his public utterances were, all here would remember who had heard him when he presented papers and other matters before this Board." Also the following tribute to his interest in the Institution was made by Secretary Langley : The Board of Regents TJ " I will only add, speaking of him still chiefly in his rela- tionship to this Institution, that in 1884 he was chosen one of its Regents, to succeed the Reverend Doctor Peter Parker. For ten years he gave conscientious attention to its interests, and upheld in every way those conservative and dignified traditions of which I have already spoken of him as almost the living embodiment ; and while he did this primarily be- cause of their harmony with his own personal tendencies and convictions as to their value, he did so also because of his affection and reverence for the first Secretary, Joseph Henry, whose pupil he had been in his youth, and with whom in middle life he maintained the relation of friend and confidant. After Henry's death, Doctor Welling consented to add to his already burdensome duties those of the chairman of the Executive Committee, which he performed till his own death, so that he may be said to have been a link between the past and the present in the history of this Institution, though happily not the only one, since it has preserved others in his contemporaries." The death of Doctor Henry Coppee was announced by the Chancellor at the meeting held on March 21, 1895. The following resolutions were presented by Senator Henderson : "That the Board of Regents feels sincere sorrow in the loss of one whose distinguished career as a soldier, a man of letters, and whose services in the promotion of education command their highest respect and admiration. That in the death of Doctor Coppee the Smithsonian Institution and the Board of Regents have suffered the loss of a tried and valued friend, a wise and prudent counsellor, whose genial courtesy, well-stored, disciplined mind, and sincere devotion to the in- terests of the Institution will be ever remembered." General Wheeler said that " forty years ago he was a pupil of Doctor Coppee, and from that time to his death, owing to various connections and associations, by correspondence and 6* 78 The Smithsonian Institutio7i by visit, he had known him, and therefore felt well fitted to speak of the high qualities referred to in the resolutions." It should be remembered, however, that the passing of resolutions and the delivery of eulogies have only been cus- tomary when a member of the Board has continued actively associated with the Institution until the time of his death. It should not be forgotten that several of the Regents who were most active in the defense of the Institution and in the advancement of its interests were so remote in time and place from the organization at the time of their death that no reference to their services stand recorded upon the Journal. In this connection, then, it seems but just to refer to the activities of Robert Dale Owen, in securing the passage of the act organizing the Institution, and as chairman of its Building Committee ; the intense interest shown by Rufus Choate, in the promotion of the library and bibliographical work of the Institution in its days of organization, thus sup- plementing the valuable services rendered at a still earlier day in the Senate in preventing the diversion of the fund to unworthy ends ; the courageous attitude of Henry W. Mil- liard, of Alabama, in defending the Institution and its Re- gents from an attack in the House of Representatives on the part of Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, who desired to see the organization, still in its infancy, destroyed ; the effective service of Jefferson Davis, in preventing the repudiation by the government of the responsibility which it had incurred by ordering the investment of the Smithson bequest in State bonds which had become worthless, and in securing the res- toration to the Treasury of the money thus misapplied and lost; also the bold stand taken by Mr. Davis in 1850, in the Senate, resisting the demand to force upon the Institution the miscellaneous collection of curiosities then housed in the The Board of Regents 79 Patent Office and called "The National Cabinet of Curiosi- ties," without financial provision for its maintenance. Reviewing the history of fifty years, one cannot fail to be impressed with the belief that Congress acted with great wis- dom in determining the character of the corporation to which it intrusted the affairs of the Institution. It was at first pro- posed that the Directors of the Institution should be citizens, selected like those of private institutions, without reference to official connection with the orovernment durin^: their time of service. The plan finally adopted brought the Smithsonian Institution into much closer relationship with the govern- ment, securing for it the administrative supervision of a body of men the majority of whom have always been thoroughly representative members of the executive and legislative branches of the government ; men in the prime of their vigor and trained to the highest administrative responsibilities. To be a Regent of the Institution has always been regarded as a high honor, and those who have held this position, as mem- bers of the Senate and House of Representatives, have been, without exception, eminent for scholarship and general cul- ture, as well as in statesmanship. The citizen members of the Board associated with them have been equally eminent in the fields of scientific, literary, and educational work. Being residents of Washington during their terms of ser- vice, the majority of this group of wise and experienced ad- ministrators had the opportunity of acquiring familiarity witli the activities of the Institution from day to day, and have, without special effort, controlled and regulated all its work. Familiar with affairs, able to feel, almost unconsciously, the workings of manifold interests simultaneously in operation, in constant communication with the executive officers of the Es- tablishment, the supervision which they have exercised has been of the most wholesome and effective character. 8o The Smithsonian Institution Notwithstanding the fears so generally entertained fifty years ago, the Institution has never, in any respect, fallen under the influence of political interference. No member of its staff has ever been appointed because of the influence of powerful friends or for any reason except that he was believed to be the best man available for the place. No sinecures have been created, and no breath of suspicion has ever tarnished the reputation of any officer or employee. Since this can be said in regard to the first fifty years of the Smithsonian Institution, it may fairly be claimed as demon- strated that the plan of organization was wisely and judi- ciously conceived. Regents of the Smithsonian Institution Biographical Notices by William Jones Rhees ROBERT ADAMS, Jr. PENNSYLVANIA. Regent on behalf of the House of Representatives, appointed December 20, 1895. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 26, 1849. A. B., University of Pennsylvania, 1869. Ph. B., Wharton School of Economy and Finance, University of Pennsylvania, 1884. Admitted to the Bar. Member of United States Geological Survey, i87i-'75. Member of Pennsylvania Senate, 1883- '87. U. S. Minister to Brazil, 1889-90. Member of U. S. House of Repre- sentatives from Pennsylvania, January 3, 1894- March 4, 1899. LOUIS AGASSIZ. MASSACHUSETTS. Regent elected by Congress, February 21, 1863 ; reelected March 2, 1869. Bom in Motier, Canton Fribourg, Switzerland, May 28, 1807 ; died in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, December 14, 1873. Educated in College of Lausanne, 1823. Studied medicine in Zurich, 1824, also in Heidelberg and Munich. M. D., Munich, 1829. Ph. D., Erlangen, 1830. LL. D., Edinburgh, 1834; Dublin, 1835; and Harvard, 1848. Member of French Academy of Sciences, 1836. Professor of Natural History in College of Neuchatel, Switzerland, 1832. Professor of Zoology and Geology in Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1848. Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Zoology in the Medical College, Charleston, South Carolina, 1851-54. Curator of the Mu- The Board of Regents 8i seum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1859. Professor (non-resident) of Natural History, Cornell University, 1868. Director Penikese Island School of Natural History, 1873. Original member National Academy of Sciences, 1863. Received Monthyon prize from the Academy of Paris, and Wollaston medal from the London Geological Society. JAMES BURRILL ANGELL. MICHIGAN. Regent elected by Congress, January 19, 1887 ; reelected January 9, 1893. Born in Scituate, Rhode Island, January 7, 1829. Educated in Seekonk, Massachusetts, and North Scituate, Rhode Island. A. B., Brown, 1849. LL. D., Brown, 1868; and Columbia, 1887. Professor of Modern Languages and Lit- erature in Brown University, 1853. Y.i\\\.ox rnn'idcuce Daily Journal, i86o-'66. President of University of Vermont, 1 866-71. President of University of Michigan, i87i-'96. U. S. Minister to China, 1880-82. Commissioner to negotiate a new treaty with China. Commissioner to form treaty with Great Britain in settlement of the fisheries dispute, i887-'88. CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR. NEW YORK. Regent ex officio, as Vice-President of the United States, March 4, 1881. Born in Fairfield, Vermont, October 5, 1830; died in New York City, No- vember 18, 1886. A. B., Union, 1848. LL. D., Princeton, 1884; and Union, 1884. Principal of an Academy in North Pownal, Bennington County, Vermont, 1851. Admitted to the Bar, New York, 1853. Engineer-in-Chief, as Brigadier-General on Governor Morgan's staft", January i, 1861. Acting Quartermaster-General of New York. Inspector-General, 1862. Collector of the Port of New York, 1871-78. Vice-President of the United States, 1881. President of the United States, July 20, 1881-84. WILLIAM BACKHOUSE ASTOR. NEW YORK. Regent elected by Congress, March 2, 1861. Born in New York City, September 19, 1792 ; died in New York, November 24, 1875. Educated in public schools, New York; later in Heidelberg and Gottingen. Engaged with his father John Jacob Astor in trade with China, i8i5-'27. President of the American Fur Company, 1827. Gave $550,000 to the Astor Library, ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. CITY OF WASHINGTON. Regent elected by Congress, August 10, 1846; reelected January 13, 1853, January 17, 1859. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 19, 1806; died in Newport, Rhode Island, February 17, 1867. Graduated United States Military Academy, West 82 The Smithsoiiimi histitntion Point, New York, 1825. A. M., Yale, 1830. LL. D., University of the City of New York, 1836; University of Pennsylvania, 1837; and Harvard, 1851. Assistant Professor of Engineering in United States Military Academy, 1826. Lieutenant of Engineers, 1827-29. Engaged in constructing Fort Adams and other pubHc works. President of Girard College, Philadelphia, 1832-39. Professor of Mathematics in University of Pennsylvania, iS27-'32. Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in University of Pennsylvania, 1828-41, and 1842-43. Principal of Central High School, Philadelphia, i84i-'42. Superintendent of Public Schools. Superintendent United States Coast Sur- vey, November, i843-'67. Vice-President United States Sanitary Commis- sion. President American Philosophical Society, 1855. President American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1850. Original Member and President National Academy of Sciences, 1863. GEORGE EDMUND BADGER. NORTH CAROLINA. Regent elected by Congress, February 27, 1856; reelected January 17, 1859. Born in Nevvbern, North Carolina, April 13, 1795; died in Raleigh, North Carolina, May II, 1866. A. B., Yale, 1813. A. M., Yale, 1825. LL. D., Uni- versity of North Carolina, 1834; and Yale, 1848. Admitted to the Bar in Raleigh, North Carolina. Major in War of 181 2. North Carolina State Legislature, i8i6-'2o. Judge of North Carolina Superior Court, i82o-'25. Secretary of the Navy, March, 1841. Member of U. S. Senate from North Carolina, December 7, 1846-March 3, 1855, GEORGE BANCROFT. CITY OF WASHINGTON. Regent elected by Congress, December 11, 1874. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 3, 1800; died in Washington City, January 17, 1891. Educated in Phillips Exeter Academy, New Hamp- shire. A. B., Harvard, 181 7. Ph. D., University of G5ttingen, 1820. D. C. L., Oxford, 1849. D. J., University of Bonn, 1868. LL.D., Harvard, 1843; and Union, 1840. L. H. D., Columbia, 1843. Tutor in Harvard. Principal of Round Hill School, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1824. Elected to Massa- chusetts Legislature, 1830. Collector of the Port of Boston, i838-'4i. Can- didate for Governor of Massachusetts, 1844. Secretary of the Navy, 1845. Acting Secretary of War, 1846. U. S. Minister to Great Britain, i846-'49. U. S. Minister to Prussia, 1867. U. S. Minister to North German Confeder- ation, 1868. U. S, Mmister to Germany, 1871-74. JAMES GABRIEL BERRET. CITY OF WASHINGTON. Regent ex officio, as Mayor of Washington, June, 1858-June, i860. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, February 12, 1815. Member of House of Delegates of Maryland, 1837-39. Clerk in Register of Treasury's office, The Board of Regents 83 Washington City, 1839-48. Chief Clerk of Pension Bureau, 1848-49. Postmaster of VVashington City, 1853-58. Mayor of Washington City, i858-'6r. Apj)ointe{l Commissioner by President Lincohi on Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, 1862. Member of Washington Police Board, i875-'77. Elector for Maryland, and President of the Electoral College, 1888. Member of Maryland Legislature and Chairman of Com- mittee of Ways and Means, 1891. First Vice-President of Washington Na- tional Monument Society. JOHN MCPHERSON BERRIExN. GEORGIA. Regent elected by Congress, January 13, 1853. Born in New Jersey, August 23, 1781 ; died in Savannah, Georgia, January I, 1856. A. B., Princeton, 1796. LL. D., Princeton, 1829; University of Georgia, 1850; and University of Alabama, 1852. Admitted to the Bar in Georgia, 1799. Solicitor-General of Georgia, 1809. Judge of Eastern Cir- cuit, 1810. Colonel in War of 1812. Member of Georgia Legislature, 1822. Member of U. S. Senate from Georgia, i824-'29, i84o-'46, and i847-'52. Attorney-General of United States, 1829. Judge of Supreme Court of Georgia, i845-'47. NEWTON BOOTH. CALIFORNIA. Regent on behalf of the Senate, appointed March 21, 1879. Born in Salem, Lidiana, December 25, 1825; died in Sacramento, Califor- nia, July 14, 1892. A. B., Asbury University, 1846. LL. D., De Pauw, 1872. Admitted to the Bar in Tcrre Haute, Indiana, 1850. Member of California State Senate, 1863. Governor of California, i87i-'74. Member of U. S. Senate from California, March 9, 1875-March 3, 1881. SAYLES JENKS BOWEN. CITY OF WASHINGTON. Regent r^ ^ 1857. Judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia and Chief Justice, 1872. JAMES CLARKE WELLING. CITY OF WASHINGTON. Regent elected by Congress, May 13, 1884; reelected May 22, 1890. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, July 14, 1825 ; died in Hartford, Connecticut, September 4, 1894. A. B., Princeton, 1844. LL. D., Columbian University, 1868. Studied Law. Associate Principal of New York Collegiate School, 1848. Literary editor of the National Intelligencer in Washington, i85o-'56; its Chief Editor and Manager, i856-'65. Clerk of United States Court of Claims, 1865-67. President of St. John's College, Maryland, 1867. Profes- sor of Belles-lettres in Princeton, 1870-71, President of Columbian Uni- versity, 1871-94. President of Board of Trustees of Corcoran Art Gallery, i877-'94. JOSEPH WHEELER. ALABAMA. Regent on behalf of the House of Representatives, appointed January 10, 1888; reappointed January 6, 1890, January 15, 1892, January 4, 1894, and December 20, 1895. Born in Augusta, Georgia, September 10, 1836. Graduated United States Military Academy, 1859. Lieutenant United States Cavalry, i86o-'6i. Colo- nel, Brigadier-General, and Lieutenant-General in Confederate Army, and Senior Cavalry General, 1861-65. Admitted to the Bar, 1866. Member of U. S. House of Representatives from Alabama, March 4, 1881-March 3, 1883, March 4, 1885-March 4, 1899. The Board of Regents 113 WILLIAM ALMON WHEELER. NEW YORK. Regent ex officio, as Vice-President of the United States, March 4, 1877- March 4, 1881. Born in Malone, New York, June 30, 1819; died in Malone, New York, June 4, 1887, A. B., University of Vermont, 1842. A. M., Dartmouth, 1865. LL. D., University of Vermont, 1867; and Union, 1877. Admitted to the Bar in Malone, New York, 1845. U. S. District Attorney of Frankhn County, New York, 1845-49. Member of New York Legislature, i849-'5o. Member and President //v tern, of New York Senate, i858-'59. Member of U. S. House of Representatives from New York, December 3, 1860-July 17, 1862, March 4, i869-March3, 1877. President of New York Constitutional Convention, i867-'68. Vice-President of the United States, March 4, 1877 March 4, 1881. ANDREW DICKSON WHITE. NEW YORK. Regent elected by Congress, February 15, 1888; reelected March 19, 1894. Born in Homer, New York, November 7, 1832. Educated in Hobart Col- lege, New York. A. B., Yale, 1853. A. M., Yale, 1856. Ph. D., Jena, 1889. LL. D., University of Michigan, 1867 ; Cornell, 1886 ; and Yale, 1888. L, H. D., Columbia, 1887. Professor of History and English Literature in University of Michigan, i857-'62. Member of New York Senate, 1863- '64. President of Cornell University, 1867, 1881-85. U. S. Commissioner to Santo Domingo, 1871. U. S. Minister to Germany, i879-'8i. U. S. Honorary Commissioner to Paris Exposition, 1878. U. S. Minister to Russia, 1892-95. Member of U. S. Venezuelan Commission, 1896. First President of American Historical Association, 1884. HENRY WILSON. MASSACHUSETTS. Regent ex officio, as Vice-President of the United States, March 4, 1873- March 4, 1877. Born in Farmington, New Hampshire, February 16, 181 2; died in Washington City, November 22, 1875. A. M., Williams, i860. LL. D., Dartmouth, 1874. Member of Massachusetts Legislature, i84o-'43, 1850. President of Massachusetts Senate, i85i-'52. Member of State Constitutional Convention, 1853, Member of U. S. Senate from Massachusetts, February 10, i855-March 3, 1873. Vice-President of the United States, i873-'75. WILLIAM LYNE WILSON. WEST VIRGINIA. Regent on behalf of the House of Representatives, appointed January 7, 1884 ; re- appointed January 12, 1886. Regent elected by Congress, January 14, 1896. Born in Jefferson County, Virginia, May 3, 1843. Educated in Charles- town Academy. A. B., Columbian, i860. LL. D., Columbian, 1883; 114 The Smithsonian Institution Hampden-Sidney, 1886, and University of Mississippi; Tulane; and Central College, Missouri, 1895. Professor of Latin, Columbian College, 1865-71. Admitted to the Bar, 1871. President of West Virginia University, 1882. Member of U. S. House of Representatives from West Virginia, March 4, 1883-March 4, 1895. Presidential Elector, 1880. Postmaster- General, i895-'97. ROBERT ENOCH WITHERS. VIRGINIA. Regent on behalf of the Senate, appointed March i, 1877. Born in Campbell County, Virginia, September 18, 182 1. M. D., Univer- sity of Virginia, 1840. Practised medicine, 1840-58. Major and Colonel in Confederate Army, 1861. Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, January i, 1874. Member of U. S. Senate from Virginia, March 4, 1875-March 3, 1881. THEODORE DWIGHT WOOLSEY. CONNECTICUT. Regent elected by Congress, April 2, 1862; reelected January 11, 1868. Born in New York City, October 31, 1801 ; died in New Haven, Connec- ticut, July I, 1889. A. B., Yale, 1820. D. D., Harvard, 1847. LL. D., Wesleyan, 1845; and Harvard, 1886. Studied law in Philadelphia, 1821 ; Theology in Princeton, i82i-'23. Tutor in Yale, i823-'25. Licensed to preach, 1825. Professor of Greek Languages and Literature in Yale, 1831-46. President of Yale University, 1846-71. THE THREE SECRETARIES By George Brown Goode JOSEPH HENRY I. j^HE early history of American science is very closely connected with the life of Professor m Henry. Born with the present century, he participated in the early movements for the ^'Sz^^ ^^^w^ g^ national organization of science. In his later years he was an acknowledged leader in the work of main- taining and extending these, in accordance with the tenden- cies of modern thouo-ht. Between 1827 — when he entered the little company of American investigators, at that time few in number, and for the most part young and inexperienced — and 1878, when he died, a recognized leader of a numerous and well-organized army of trained men, there intervened a full half century, and one which was of great significance in the history of the Western continents, since it was peculiarly a formative period for all those interests upon which the moral and intellectual welfare of our people depends. "5 ii6 The Smithsonian htstitntion For two decades he lived in the laboratory and the lecture- room, and at the end of that period he was accepted as one of the world's great investigators, distinguished alike for skill and originality in experiment and for breadth and philo- sophic comprehensiveness in deduction. Three other dec- ades of his life were given to the organization and develop- ment of the scientific and educational interests of the nation. It is impossible to estimate the extent of the influence of those fifty years of intense, devoted toil, of constant, pains- taking effort, all directed toward one consistent end. Few men have combined so fully the characteristics of the scholar, the teacher, the organizer, and leader ; and few have been so placed that their capacities in such widely different fields of activity could be constantly employed. Henry's success as an administrator was unquestionably due to the versatility of his talents and to the catholicity of his sympathies, which forbade favoritism toward individual interests or men. His lofty character and self-sacrificing de- votion were so manifest in his face and in his actions that all were impressed by them, and thereby rendered incapable of opposition. Rivalry and enmity never entered into his rela- tions to those with whom he worked. The noblest and best of his associates were always valued and devoted friends, and there were few of the greatest of his countrymen, whether statesmen, divines, or men of letters, who were not proud to say that they knew him well and loved him. The organization of the Smithsonian Institution was the task to which his later years were devoted. This will always be regarded, by the few who appreciate the necessities and difficulties of scientific administration, as his most important achievement. There can be no doubt that he himself so re- garded it, since he felt justified in practically abandoning the career of an investigator at the time when it was full of the The Three Secretaries 117 most brilliant promise, notwithstanding the protests of many who considered it a waste of high talent for him to give up his own investigations for the sake of providing opportunities for the work of others. The story of his administration will be found interwoven with that of the Institution in every chapter of this book. In this place attention will be directed chiefly to his contribu- tions to science and to his personal traits and interests. II. Joseph Henry was born in Albany, December 17, 1799. His father was William Henry, his mother was Annie Alexander. His grandparents on both sides, the Henrys and the Alexan- ders, came in the same ship from Scotland to the colony of New York on June 17, 1775, landing while the first guns of the American Revolution were sounding. During early childhood he lived in Albany, and from the age of seven to thirteen near the country village of Galway, in the adjoining county of Saratoga. He was seemingly an idle boy, whose mind was full of romance, and whose time was chiefly occupied in the read- ing of novels, poetry, and Shakspere. His young life was full of dreams, and the efforts of his relatives to induce him to give attention to practical matters were for a time fruitless. He was apprenticed to a watchmaker ; but, notwithstanding his natural taste for mechanism, the occupation was uncon- genial, and was soon abandoned. For the time the theater was more to his taste. When in Albany ^ visiting his rela- 1 There was from 1813 to 1816 an excel- Samuel Drake, Henry Placide, Norah M. lent theater in Albany under the manage- Ludlow, and Frances Ann Denney (Mrs. ment of Mr. John Bernard, one of the best Drake), all of whom were noted in the his- of the English comedians, author of" Retro- tory of the American stage. See Sol Smith's spectus of the Stage " and " Rctrospectus of " Theatrical Apprenticeship," which was pub- America, 1 797-1 81 1." In his company were lished in Philadelphia in 1845. ii8 The Smithsonian Institution tives this was his chief interest. He became an amateur actor, organized a juvenile theatrical company, "The Ros- trum," and translated a play from the French, which his young friends acted under his direction. Thus, perhaps, were laid the foundations of subsequent success as a public speaker and presiding officer. His taste for books was first aroused by Sir Henry Brooke's " Fool of Quality," which he chanced to open when a boy of eight or ten. This philosophical romance aroused his interest in social problems, and led him through the pathway of fiction to form the habit of reading. President Porter has pointed out the intimate relationship between this early aimless life and his later career: " His early musings and questionings, his boyish sports and adventures, were fondly remembered by him as the in- spiration of his rational and scientific life. ' The cultivation of the imagination,' he writes, ' should be considered an es- sential part of a liberal education; and this may be spread over the whole course of instruction, for, like the reasoning faculties, the imagination may continue to improve until late in life.' ' Memory, imitation, imagination, and the faculty of forming mental habits exist in early life, while the judgment and reasoning faculties are of slow growth.' 'The order of nature is that of art before science, the entire concrete first and the entire abstract last.' These are wise and weighty words, but they are of special interest when we bethink our- selves that the writer, when he penned them, was doubtless all the while thinking of a dreaming boy, half buried in the grass, looking up wistfully into the sky, thinking wondrous thoughts too deep for tears, perhaps peopling with phantoms and fairies that world of nature which he subsequently pene- trated by those wise questionings and ingenious theories which his sagacious experiments turned into solid verities. He certainly could have been thinking of no one else when in the same connection he so positively affirms, ' The future '^ i^>:| ^ nnk# vwvs r • >^ ■ JOSEPH HEI^RT. FIEST SECRETARY OF THE S:M1THS0XIAX IXSTITUTIOX. 1846-1878. f'ical company, ^.■ um the F^ "*- ^- cii hl- irection. ihus, perhaps, success : <^ V_/ AV>_ boy ol aroused h thrc- ' ■"^•lons.aij./ iciiCi" oa. ultivation e cor :1 the reasoning late / of . . -if the. pntire con>-_ . ^'-=^6 and V- ._y oms pene- venties. 'Ise \v' • ^Mi^^rV^e Jst^-V^^^ ^' he (v ,T^0ITTJTTT8"ZI ^AIT108HTIM8 HHT '50 YHATHaoaa T8fll'5 .8T8r-».^8I TJie Three Secretaries 119 character of a child, and that of a man also, is in most cases formed probably before the age of seven years.' " It was not until 181 5 that he discovered the real tendency of his mind toward scholarship, through the instrumentality of a work entitled " Lectures on Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy, and Chemistry, intended chiefly for the Use of Young Persons," published in London, in 1809, by the Rev- erend George Gregory, D.D., editor of the "New Annual Register." The book, which the chance of fortune placed in his hands, is still preserved by his family, and upon one of its blank leaves, written by the hand of Henry, are the following words : " This book, although by no means a profound work, has, under Providence, exerted a remarkable influence on my life. It accidentally fell into my hands when I was about sixteen years old, and was the first book I ever read with attention. It opened to me a new world of thought and enjoyment ; invested things before almost unnoticed with the highest interest; fixed my mind on the study of nature, and caused me to resolve at the time of reading it that I would immediately commence to devote my life to the acqui- sition of knowledge. J. H." The purpose of his life having been determined, his future might easily have been predicted by any one familiar with his peculiar mental and physical endowments. An iron constitu- tion, capable of fatigueless effort for sixteen hours or more each day, year in and year out, and an indomitable will, even more powerful in control of self than in that of others, to- gether with a mind clear and original, shaped by many generations of ancestors living in the rural simplicity of old Scotland; a pleasing presence, and an attractive personality, were his heritage. The community in which he lived was I20 The Smithsoman Institution intelligent and liberal, and all gates were open to a young man of integrity and enterprise. He now entered upon serious work — first as a pupil in a night school ; then in the Albany Academy, as scholar and teacher ; later as a medical student, a private tutor, and a surveyor. At the age of twenty-six he was appointed Pro- fessor of Mathematics in the Albany Academy, and his scientific life was fairly begun. His famous paper in Silliman's "American Journal of Science," printed in January, 183 1, demonstrated his right to a place among advanced investigators in the field of electro- magnetism, and led to his election, in 1832, to the professor- ship of Natural Philosophy in the College of New Jersey, where he remained for fourteen years. Of his life at Prince- ton Professor Asa Gray has written : " Here he taught and investigated for fourteen fruitful and happy years ; here he professed the faith that was in him, entering into the communion of the Presbyterian Church, in which he and his ancestors were nurtured ; and here he developed a genius for education. One could count on his being a clear expositor, and his gifts for experimental illus- tration and for devising apparatus had been already shown. But now, as a college professor, the question, how to educate, came before him in a broader way. He appreciated, and he made his associates and pupils appreciate, the excellence of natural philosophy for mental discipline, for training at once both the observing and the reasoning faculties. A science which rises from the observation of the most familiar facts, and the questioning of these by experiment, to the considera- tion of causes, the ascertaining of laws, and to the most re- condite conceptions respecting the constitution of matter and the interplay of forces, offers discipline to all the intellectual powers, and tasks the highest of them. Professor Henry taught not only the elementary facts and general principles from a fresh survey of both, but also the methods of philo- The Three Secretaries 121 sophical investigation, and the steps by which the widest generahzations and the seemingly intangible conceptions of the higher physics have been securely reached. He exercised his pupils in deducing particular results from admitted laws, and in then ascertaining whether what was thus deduced ac- tually occurred in nature ; and if not, why not. Though very few of a college class might ever afterward undertake a phys- ical or chemical investigation, all would, or should, be con- cerned in the acquisition of truth and its relations ; and by knowing how truth was won and knowledge advanced in one field of inquiry, they would gain the aptitude which any real investigation may give, and the confidence that springs from a clear view and a sure grasp of any one sul^ject. " He understood, as few do, the importance of analogy and hypothesis in science. Premising that hypothesis should al- ways be founded on real analogies and used interrogatively, he commended it as the prerequisite to experiment, and the instrument by which, in the hands of sound philosophers, most discoveries have been made. This free use of hypothesis as the servant and avant-courier of research — as means rather than end — is a notable characteristic of Henry." In 1830 he married his cousin Miss Harriet L. Alexander, who on the death of her father, Alexander Alexander, an active and successful business man of Schenectady, had come to live in Albany. It was largely through Henry's influence that her elder brother, Stephen Alexander, was called to Princeton in 1833, where he subsequently became" professor of astronomy. Mrs. Henry survived her husband but a few years, and died in Washington City on March 25, 1882. The memory of Henry is lovingly cherished at Princeton, where a bronze tablet by Augustus St. Gaudens was erected in 1885, to commemorate his connection with the University.-^ IThe memorial address delivered by'Ed- of the most eloquent and satisfactory appre- ward N. Dickerson, LL. D., upon the occa- ciations of the cliaracter and achievements of sion of the presentation of this tablet, is one Professor Henry. 122 The Smithsonian Institution III. Henry's experimental work was done, for the most part, between 1826 and 1847. Many of his broader generaHzations were published later, though these were largely based upon the work of early years. His studies in electricity began in 1827, while he was a teacher in the Albany Academy, and it was not long before Sir David Brewster was moved to say: "On the shoulders of young Henry has fallen the mantle of Franklin ! " His laboratory work in Albany included the only continuous series of physical investigations which any one had up to that time attempted in America. In the course of these researches he transformed an ineffi- cient piece of electrical apparatus — the significance of which had been but partially understood by Ampere, Arago, and even Sturgeon, by whom it had been greatly improved — into the powerful electro-magnet, and laid the foundation for the most important discoveries of the century, — not only his own, but those of the great masters of Europe. The electro-magnet in 1828 was still an ineffective instrument. Barlow had tested its capabilities in London three years before, and had found its effect so diminished at the distance of only two hundred feet that he pronounced telegraphy by its use impossible. In Henry's hands the feeble toy of Sturgeon was converted into instruments of infinite possibilities. He made two dis- tinct forms of magnets, one capable of excitation at a distance, which he named the "intensity magnet"; another having possibilities of infinite development of strength, to which he gave the name of " quantity magnet." He so named the magnets because he had discovered that with the one, in order to overcome the resistance opposed to the passage of electricity by the long, fine wire of which it The Three Secretaries 123 was composed and the long circuit in which it was placed, it was necessary to use an "intensity battery," — that is, a bat- tery of many plates — for the reason that this battery pos- sesses more electromotive force ; while with the other, formed of many coils of short, thick wire, offering less resistance, a "battery of quantity" should be employed. "I was the first," he wrote, " to point out this connection of the two kinds of battery with the two forms of the magnet in my paper in Silliman's Journal, January, 1831, and clearly to state that when magnetism was to be developed by means of a com- pound battery, one long coil was to be employed, and when the maximum effect was to be produced by a single battery a number of single strands were to be used." The importance of this discovery of the necessary law of proportion between the electromotive force in the battery and the resistance in the magnet cannot be too highly estimated ; not only does the telegraph depend upon this law, but every action of galvano-magnetism. As has well been said by his daughter, " he married the intensity magnet to the intensity battery, the quantity mag- net to the quantity battery, discovered the law by which their union was effected, and rendered their divorce forever impos- sible." The intensity magnet is that which is to-day in use in every telegraph system. With the discovery of these two agents began a new epoch in science and in the arts. They brought the force of electric- ity, hitherto only in part subdued, fully under the control of man. Before Henry, the only electro-magnet which had been made, though under the influence of a battery of 125 plates, was incapable of lifting more than nine pounds ; but he, after a few months of experiment, produced one which, with one pair of plates, sustained 39 pounds, or fifty times its own weight; in 1830, 750; in 1831, 2300; and in 1834, 3500 124 ^^^ Smithsonian Institution pounds. These improvements rendered possible not only his own subsequent discoveries, but also those of Faraday, which began first to assume importance after the invention of Henry's magnets. The quantity magnet perfected by Henry in 1830 was the means by which both he and Faraday discovered magneto- electricity. It has been used in almost all electrical work, scientific or practical, which has since been attempted. Stur- geon wrote in 1832 : " Henry has been enabled to produce a magnetic force which completely eclipses every other in the whole annals of magnetism ; and no parallel is to be found since the miraculous suspension of the celebrated Oriental impostor in his iron coffin."^ "The importance of this discovery," wrote Professor Wil- liam B. Taylor of the intensity magnet, " can hardly be over- estimated. The magnetic 'spool' of fine wire — of a length tens and even hundreds of times that ever before employed for this purpose — was in itself a gift to science, which really forms an epoch in the history of electro-magnetism. It is not too much to say that almost every advancement which has been made in this fruitful branch of physics since the time of Sturgeon's happy improvement, from the earliest researches of Faraday downward, has been directly indebted to Henry's magnets. By means of the Henry ' spool ' the magnet almost at a bound was developed from a feeble childhood to a vigor- ous manhood. And so rapidly and generally was the new form introduced abroad among experimenters, few of whom had ever seen the papers of Henry, that probably very few in- deed have been aware to whom they were really indebted for this familiar and powerful instrumentality. But the historic fact remains, that prior to Henry's experiments in 1829, no one on either hemisphere had ever thought of winding the limbs of an electro-magnet on the principle of the 'bobbin,' and not till after the publication of Henry's method in January of 1 83 1, was it ever employed by any European physicist. "^ Philosophical Magazine, London, March, 1832, Volume xi, page 199. The TJiree Secretaries 125 " But in addition to this large grift to science, Henry (as we have seen) has the preeminent claim to popular gratitude of having first practically worked out the differing functions of two entirely different kinds of electro-magnet : the one surrounded with numerous coils of no great length, desig- nated by him the ' quantity' magnet, the other surrounded with a continuous coil of very great length, designated by him the ' intensity ' magnet. The latter and feebler system (requiring for its action a battery of numerous elements,) was shown to have the singular capability (never before suspected or imagined) of subtle excitation from a distant source. Here for the first time is experimentally established the important principle that there must be a proportion be- tween the aggregate internal resistance of the battery and the whole external resistance of the conjunctive wire or con- ducting circuit. This was a very important though uncon- scious experimental confirmation of the mathematical theory of Ohm, embodied in his formula expressing the relation be- tween electric flow and electric resistance, which, though pro- pounded two or three years previously, failed for a long time to attract any attention from the scientific world. " Never should it be forgotten that he who exalted the 'quantity' magnet of Sturgeon from a power of twenty pounds to a power of twenty hundred pounds, was the absolute crea- tor of the 'intensity' magnet; and that the principles in- volved in this creation, constitute the indispensable basis of every form of the electro-magnetic telegraph since invented."^ The first labor in which this infant giant was employed was to demonstrate the practicability of the telegraph. By its aid Henry was enabled in 1829 or 1830 to pass a current throuorh a wire 1060 feet in length and to lift at its end a considerable weight. "This was the first discovery of the fact that a galvanic current could be transmitted to a great distance with so little diminution of force as to produce mechanical effects." So said Henry in 1857, critically reviewing the progress of elec- 1 Taylor, W'illiam B. "Memorial of Joseph Henry," page 226. 9* 126 The Smithsonian Institution trical science during the period of nearly thirty years which had elapsed since this early experiment was made/ To strike signals upon a bell at the distance of 8000 feet was a result accomplished in the same year in the commence- ment hall of the Albany Academy. The importance of this experiment in connection with the history of the telegraph is discussed at greater length elsewhere. All these experiments were made in the autumn and early winter of 1829 or 1830, as seems to be very clearly shown by Miss Mary A. Henry in her recent essays.^ The fixing of these dates is of considerable moment, since upon them de- pend the dates of two other discoveries, that of self-induction and that of magneto-electricity. The former, that of the so-called "extra current," made August, 1829 or 1830, though it was not announced until 1832,^ is now conceded to him by all* and it was chiefly in recognition of the discovery of self-induction that his name was given to the standard unit of inductive resistance at the International Congress of Electricians in Chicago, in August, 1893, thus bestowing upon him, as Mendenhall ex- presses it, " the high honor of a place in the galaxy of famous physicists whose names shall be perpetuated in the metro- logical nomenclature of all languages." At this congress, composed of twenty-six representative men of science, from nine great nations, Professor von Helmholtz presided. " It was gratifying to the American delegates in the Chamber at Chicago," writes Mendenhall,^ " that the motion 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1857, page 1 10. 3 A7tierkan Journal of Science, 1832, Vol- 2 Henry, Mary A., "America's Part in the ume xxil, page 403. Discovery of Magneto-Electricity — A Study 4 This was, in 1834, rediscovered by Fara- of the Work of Faraday and Henry." I-V, day, who did not until some time after per- The Electrical Engineer, 1892, Volume xiil, ceive the relation of his work to that which page 27 et seq. "The Electro-Magnet; or had preceded. Joseph Henry's Place in the History of the 5 Mendenhall, T. C, "The Henry," At- Electro-Magnetic Telegraph," I-XII ; //'/(/., lantic Monthly, \o\\\m& i.xxill, pages 613- XVII, 1894, page I et seq. 614, No. 439, May, 1894. The Three Secretaries 127 to adopt * henry ' as the name of this unit came from Professor Mascart, the distinguished leader of the French delegation, for among the French, some years ago, another name, the 'quadrant' or 'quad' had been proposed, and since that time much used ; that it was seconded by one of the leading delegates from England, Professor Ayrton, who had himself, a few years ago, proposed the word 'sec-ohm,' as being a proper name for the unit of induction, a proposition which for a time found much favor; and finally, that it received the unanimous approval of the entire Chamber, thus furnishing a testimonial of the highest order of the estimation in which the work of Joseph Henry is held, and a recognition of his rank as a natural philosopher which some of his own countrymen have been somewhat tardy to appreciate and acknowledge." The discovery of magneto-electric induction in 1830 fol- lowed that of the extra or self-inductive current, which, for that matter, Henry always maintained should be considered to be identical with magneto-electricity,^ and in connection with which he, first of all men, obtained electrical manifestations from a magnet. "An electric current," writes Kennelly, "was in 18 19 found [by Oersted] to have magnetic properties. Here in 1830 the converse relation was first noticed, [by Henry] that a conductor in motion through magnetized space developed electrical properties. The propositions in these terms did not receive full proof or recognition for some years, but Henry seems to have been the first to observe an electrical cur- rent induced by a magnet." - Faraday made the same discovery in 1831 with the aid of Henry's two forms of magnets, and was the first to print the 1 The Electrical Engineer, March 9, 1892, American Inventions," in " The United States Volume XVII, page 249. of America," edited by X. S. Shaler, New 2 Kennelly, A. E., in chapter on "Typical York, 1894, Volume II, page 143. 128 The Smithsonian Institution results of his observations.^ Since discovery without announce- ment cannot claim a place in history, except as a matter of biographical incident, this discovery is generally accredited to him. It is proper that this should be so, and Henry him- self was too generous a man ever publicly to claim any honor in this connection. He often, however, mentioned to his friends the fact that he had anticipated Faraday by nearly a year.^ It is even pathetic to read the words of praise which he somewhere printed concerning Faraday, speaking of him as "the discoverer of magneto-electricity, which had made his name immortal." It surely cannot be unjust to the memory of Faraday that Henry should stand in the records of science as an original and independent discoverer of magneto-electricity, nor just to Henry, not to state the fact, that, although anticipated in publication, he was actually the first. While in Albany he constructed the electro-magnetic en- gine, which will be referred to later, and also, as his daughter has shown, began the construction of an instrument corre- sponding to the modern dynamo.^ After his removal to Princeton, he carried on many re- 1 It was by the same means that Faraday Unfortunately he failed to publish his dis- subsequently investigated the phenomena covery. In continuing his remarks, he added of magnetism, and the effect of magnetic that Faraday, some time after, successfully action upon polarized light. See Franklin L. tried the same experiment, and at once an- Pope, Joicrnal of the American Electrical nounced it, before Professor Henry's success Society, 1879, Volume II, page 126. was publicly known." 2 George W. Carpenter, his associate and The Reverend Doctor Cuyler, one of his assistant in Albany, in 1826-32, writes : "In earliest pupils in Princeton, said he often a well remembered conversation with me he spoke to him of his disappointment about alluded to an incident in his own experience. that discovery. " I ought to have published After retinng one night, he worked out men- earlier," he used to say. "I ought to have tally how he could probably draw a spark pul^lislied, but I had so little time. I desired from the magnet. Upon rising in the morning to get out my results in good form, and how he hurried to his working room, arranged could I know that another on the other side of the apparatus, tried the experiment, when the Atlantic was busy with the same thing? " success crowned his labor. He had accom- 3 The Electrical Engineer, Volume Xlli, plished what had never been done before. pages 54, 251. The T J tree Secretaries 129 searches, all of which are described in Doctor Taylor's well- known discourse.^ There he prosecuted his later studies upon induction. He developed his apparatus for the combi- nation of circuits, the principle of which underlies the various forms and uses of the relay magnet, and the receiving magnet and local battery, since employed in the telegraph. He car- ried on his classical investigations upon successive orders of induction.^ He found that a second induced current could induce a third, and the third a fourth, and so on indefinitely ; that a current of intensity could produce one of quantity, and the converse ; and that these currents could be induced at a distance. He obtained an induced current in one room from a primary current in the next room. From two wires stretched perpendicularly several hundred feet apart, and finally con- necting the tin roof of his house with his study, he mag- netized needles by induction from a thundercloud eight miles away. The discovery of the oscillatory character of the discharge from the Leyden jar — one of his most important contribu- tions to science — followed in 1842. He ascertained that in the discharge of a jar an equilibrium is not instantaneously effected by the spark, but is attained only after several oscil- lations of the flow; a fact which was not only in itself signifi- cant, but led to important advances in theory.^ As Doctor Oliver Lodge has shown, the explanations offered by him in connection with these early experiments were almost pro- phetic of the great generalizations subsequently made by Clerk-Maxwell and others, but which in the state of electrical 1 Taylor, William B., " The Scientific Work 3 See Barker, George F., " Physics," New of Joseph Henry." Bulletin of the Philo- York, 1892, page 613; Lodge, Oliver J., sophkal Society of Washington, 1878, Vol- " Modern Views of Electricity," London, ume II, page 230. "Memorial of Jo;,eph 1889, page 369; Taylor, W. B., "Memorial Henry," 1880, pages 205-425. of Joseph Henry," page 255; Houston, '-2 Transactions American Philosophical So- Edwin J.," Electricity a Hundred Years Ago ciety, 1838, Volume vi, page 303. and To-day," New York, 1894, page 61. 130 The Smithsonian Institution science at that day it was impossible that any finite mind should have reached. In addition to his brilliant contributions to electrical science, he carried on studies in many other departments of physics. Those in meteorology were very extensive. His experiments upon the effect of the discharge of lightning from the clouds, and upon the condition of lightning-rods while transmitting discharges of electricity, were perhaps the most conspicuous of these. In molecular physics his attention was given to capillary absorption and the cohesion of liquids, as well as to a discussion of the atomic hypothesis of Newton. He made investigations on certain phenomena connected with light and heat. By his experiments on the phosphoro- genic ray of the sun, he first demonstrated that it is polariza- ble and refrangible by the laws which govern light. In con- nection with Professor Alexander, he carried on a series of experiments on the relative heat-radiating power of the sun- spots. He reflected heat from concave mirrors of ice, and from his experiments drew conclusions as to the source of the heat derived from the moon. He constructed a thermal-tele- scope, composed of a common pasteboard tube, covered with gilt paper and blackened internally, with which he measured the heat of distant objects : with this he could detect the heat of a man's face a mile off, and that of a house five miles off; and with it ascertained that the coldest spot of the sky is at the zenith. He also invented the method now generally em- ployed for determining by the use of electricity the velocity of the flight of projectiles. Not only in ingenious experiment and the interpretation of its results, not only in the practical application of Nature's laws, but still more in his philosophical comprehension of Nature was manifested the greatness of Henry. The English physicist Fleming, in a recent work, writes : The Three Secretaries i ^ i "At the head of this long line of illustrious investigators stand the preeminent names of Faraday and Henry. On the foundation-stones of truth laid down by them all sub- sequent builders have been content to rest. The 'Experi- mental Researches' of the one have been the guide of the experimentalist no less than the instructor of the student, since their orderly and detailed statement, alike of triumph- ant discovery and of suggestive failure, make them indepen- dent of any commentator. The ' Scientific Writings' of Henry deserve hardly less careful study, for in them we have not only the lucid explanations of the discoverer, but the sug- gestions and ideas of a most profound and inventive mind, and which indicate that Henry had earl)- touched levels of discovery only just recently becoming fully worked." Such praise as this is excellent evidence of the influence of Henry's discoveries upon the marvelous progress of electri- city during the past five or ten years, and what Fleming has written concerning electricity is equally true of his work in many other branches of science. IV. The relation of Henry to the beginnings of the telegraph have been for half a century the subject of much discussion and of controversies in which, during his lifetime, he stead- fastly refused to participate. In 1857, however, statements were made concerning- some of his acts which he felt it his duty to bring to the attention of the Board of Regents, by whom his relation to the whole matter was carefully inves- tigated. The testimony presented by himself and others at this time is of the greatest interest and importance. It is not my purpose to make far-reaching claims for him, yet a biographical sketch would be incomplete which should 132 The Smithsonian Institution make no reference to the facts upon which such claims have been founded by others. His own position in regard to these matters should not be misunderstood. He was professedly a discoverer, and not an "inventor." He said: "My ambition is to add to the sum of human knowledge by the discovery of new truths which may be of some use to the world. The practical application of these I leave to others." When asked why he had not patented his application of the electro-magnet to the tele- graph, he only replied, simply: "I thought it unbecoming the dignity of true science to curtail the use of discovery to personal and selfish uses ; on the contrary, I thought it right to give it to the world as a means of advancing humanity." His testimony on behalf of the defendant in the Supreme Court case of Morse vs. O'Reilly, in 1849, is convincing evi- dence of his magnanimity, for he made no allusion to his own experiment in Albany in which long-distance telegraphic signals had been made. " Had he done so," writes Pope, "and had others then living and familiar with the circum- stances been brought forward to corroborate his statement, the result would inevitably have proved fatal to Morse's claim to the process of producing sound-signals at a distance by electro-magnetism, and would virtually have thrown the whole invention open to the public, a result which Henry could not but have foreseen." Before Henry's magnets, and his discoveries in relation to them, had been made, the modern telegraph was still an im- possibility. It is true that when he began his work the idea of an electro-telegraph was nearly a century old. Morrison, of Greenock, Scotland, had as early as i 753 suggested a prac- tical mode of transmitting messages by frictional electricity, and galvanic and chemical telegraphs had been in use from the time of Salva of Barcelona to that of the first projects of The Three Secretaries 133 Davy and Morse. The modern, or electro-magnetic, tele- graph was not proposed, however, until 1820, after the revi- val by Oersted of the knowledge of the power of the galvanic current to deflect a suspended magnetic needle. The " needle-telegraph," that in which intelligence is trans- mitted by the motion of the galvanoscopic indicator, was the form to which the attention of European theorists and in- vestigators was now directed. Ampere, before 1823, had worked out the theory of a telegraph with several needles. The first operative system of this type was that devised in 1828 by Triboaillet, who employed a single wire and a gal- vanoscopic indicator. Schilling exhibited in Russia in 1832 a single-circuit instrument with thirty-six needles. This was improved and used in experimental work at a distance of 9000 feet in Gottingen, in 1833, by Gauss and Weber, who utilized the discoveries of Henry and Faraday.^ The needle- indicator used by these investigators was essentially the same as that still occasionally employed, especially in connection with long submarine cables. The other form of telegraph is that in which sounds and permanent signs are made by the attraction of an electro- magnet. It was this system which Henry devised and used in a simple form, and this which Morse and his staff, acting avowedly under the advice of Henry, were first to develop into a practical agency for the transmission of words. Henry was the first, as already remarked, to demon- strate the fact that a galvanic current could be transmitted to a great distance with so little diminution of force as to pro- duce mechanical effects adequate to telegraphic uses. He actually constructed, and operated in Albany, as early as 1830, the first electro-magnetic machine for producing at will sounds that could be heard at a distance, and published at 1 Gray, Thomas, "Proceedings and Addresses, Patent Centennial Celebrations," page i8i. 134 The Smithsonian Instihition this time a statement that the improvements made by him were "directly appHcable to the project of forming an electro- magnetic telegraph."^ In other words, he was the first to construct and use an electro-magnetic acoustic telegraph of a type similar to that which is at present more generally employed than any other form. The code of signals now in general use was yet to be invented. Provided with such a code, any operator could, by the use of Henry's apparatus, have transmitted, in 183 1, mes- sages of unlimited length, though of course at slow speed. ^ Before Henry made his magnets, and his discoveries in re- lation to them, the telegraph was an impossibility, for until then science was not ripe for the telegraph. Henry's inten- sity magnet was the only electro-magnet which had ever responded to electrical influence at any distance. Before it was created there could be no electro-magnetic telegraph. Equally essential was his discovery of the law by which mag- net and battery were bound together in mutual proportion. Henry was also the first to use the earth for a return cir- cuit, although the credit for this is usually given to Steinheil. This practice was in some degree foreshadowed by Watson and Franklin, both of whom used water to conduct a return current. Watson in this manner lighted alcohol on the further side of a pond ; Franklin, across the river Schuylkill. Watson passed a current through the earth ; Franklin immediately showed by experiment that this was due to the constant moisture of the earth. It was Henry, however, who first practically used the earth for a return current. It is true that 3 Atnerican Journal of Science, January, telegraph was the invention of the steel style 1831, Volume XIX, page 404. in the extremity of the sounding lever, and a 2 The introduction of the second voltaic bat- grooved roller into which it could strike the tery rendered possible results in respect to paper as it was drawn onward over the roller speed not at that time within the range of to emboss upon it the alphabetical characters, human achievements. All that was needed (F. O. J. Smith, letter to the Regents of the to perfect Henry's invention into a recording Smithsonian Institution, March 30, 1S72.) The Three Secretaries 135 in his testimony before the Supreme Court in 1849, he, with characteristic modesty, alluded to Steinheil as a discoverer of this use of the earth, ^ In 1876, however, with the fuller knowledge which he then possessed, he wrote to Reverend S. B. Dod in Princeton : " I think the first actual line of telegraph, using the earth as a conductor, was made in the beginning of 1836. A wire was extended across the front campus of the college grounds, [in Princeton] from the upper story of the library building to the philosophical hall on the opposite side, the ends termi- nating in two wells. Through this wire, signals were sent, from time to time, from my house to my laboratory."^ Another step was his device, used in Princeton as early as 1833, of opening one circuit by means of another. By this he was able to carry out his plan of utilizing the power of a quantity magnet at great distances, through the agency of the more sensitive intensity magnet. Of the utmost importance has this combination proved to the telegraph — its principle underlying all the various forms and uses of the relay magnet and the receiving magnet and local battery since employed.^ "One morning," writes Professor Trowbridge, "he came into my laboratory at Cambridge, and, after I had shown him various pieces of scientific apparatus, he stood before an elec- tro-magnet which was working a relay and looked long at the magnet, and then at the battery which was coupled for quantity, and remarked in a quiet tone, as if half to himself. ' If I had patented that arrangement of magnet and battery I should have reaped great pecuniary reward for my discovery of the practical method of telegraphy.' " 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1857, page 113. 3 A circuit-breaker made and used by 2 "Memorial of Joseph Henry, "' i8So, Henry in Princeton is now in the United page 150. States National Museum. 136 The Smithsonian Instittition Sir Charles Wheatstone, who, with his associate, Sir Wil- liam Fothergill Cooke, developed the system of Schilling after it left the hands of Gauss and Weber, was the first to bring tlie telegraph into practical commercial use ; and although his plan, involving as it did the employment of a number of separate line wires and needle-indicators, was soon abandoned on account of its expense and perplexity, it is still the popular belief in England that Wheatstone was the inventor of the electric telegraph. The reason for this is, in part, that he was the first in England to secure patents for the telegraph; and, in part also, that he at one time claimed to have been the discoverer of the intensity magnet. There is, nevertheless, good reason to believe that Wheatstone was directly indebted to Henry for the information which enabled him to utilize the intensity magnet in connection with his telegraph. He was engaged in his experiments when visited by Henry and Bache at King's College, in April, 1837, and his apparatus was examined and his plans discussed by them. He had al- ready found the electro-magnet inefficient as a sound-signal, and was endeavoring to introduce a secondary circuit as a remedy for the diminution of force encountered in the long circuit. Henry has recorded that he then explained to Wheatstone a different method of bringing the second gal- vanic circuit into action, and it was Henry's method which Wheatstone employed in his final successes.^ "It is evident," writes Mr. Fahie, an English expert, "that it was not until after the interview with Henry that Wheat- stone recognized the applicability of Ohm's law to tele- graphic circuits."^ Mr. Fahie, however, ignores the fact that it was Henry's discovery, and not Ohm's formula, which was 1 Cooke records that on many occasions in 2 Fahie, J. J., " A History of Electric Tele- March and April the efforts of Wheatstone graphy to the Year 1837," London, 1884, and himself to excite magnetism at long dis- page 515. tances were unsuccessful. The Three Secretaries 137 adopted by Wheatstone, for Ohm's law was at that time un- known in England, as well as in America. Although Wheatstone in his controversy with Cooke, in 1 84 1, claimed as his own the discovery that electro-magnets may be so constructed as to produce the required effects by means of a direct current, even in very long circuits, he sub- sequently, in 1856, referring to the same early experiments, wrote: "With this law and its applications, no persons iii England who had loefore, occupied themselves with experi- ments relating to electric telegraphs, had been acquainted."^ This can only be interpreted as an admission of Henry's priority." There was never, it is true, an acknowledgment from Wheatstone of his indebtedness to Henry for advice which enabled him to perfect his experiment in 1837; but, as has been pointed out, it is a very significant fact that in March, 1837. the magnet was discarded by Wheatstone ; in April his interview with Henry took place, and in April the magnet was again employed and the success of the English telegraph secured. The following summary is quoted from a well-known Eng- lish authority : " It was only by Henry's discoveries that the electro-mag- netic telegraph of Morse became possible, and Morse himself, before he became involved in patent ligitation, freely acknow- ledged his indebtedness to Henry. But Professor Henry, long before Morse's telegraph came before the world, had sug- gested the application of his electro-magnets to telegraphy, and had even constructed a form of bell-telegraph for experi- mental purposes which answered remarkably well. Henry, however, had for his object 'the advancement of science, 1 Cooke, William Fothergill, " The Elec- 2 The Electrical Engineer, January 13, trie Telegraph: Was it Invented by Pro- 1892, Volume xili, page 30 (footnote) ; Pope, fessor Wheatstone ? " Part li, London, 1857, Franklin Leonard, "Life and Work of page 57. A series of controversial papers Joseph Henry," iS"]^, Journal 0/ the Ameri- between Cooke and Wheatstone. can Electrical Society, Volume 11, page 134. 10 138 The Smithsonian Institution without any special or immediate reference to its application to the wants of life or useful purposes in the arts.' He sought no patents for inventions, and solicited no remunera- tion for his labors, other than credit for having done what it was in him to do for the promotion of scientific knowledge. He gave freely to the world the results of his researches, and others devoted themselves to the practical applications of the principles which he discovered. Of these were not only Morse in America, but Wheatstone and Cooke in this coun- try. It has been amply demonstrated that these inventors were at a standstill in the early part of 1837 for the want of a means of producing a strong effect at the receiving station. Although Henry had clearly shown the advantage of employ- ing closely wound coils of fine wire in 1831, Wheatstone knew nothing apparently of this, and remained in ignorance until April, 1837, when he was enlightened by Professor Henry himself. We are firmly convinced that Henry did more for the advancement of the telegraph than has ever yet been adequately acknowledged." ^ Another practical outgrowth of his early investigations in connection with which his name has less frequently been mentioned, because perhaps there has been less controversy in regard to its history, was the production of mechanical power by electro-magnetism. Henry in 1829 constructed the first electro-magnetic motor, an oscillating machine with automatic pole-changer. This he described in 1831." In 1833 Sturgeon constructed the first rotary motor, which he exhibited to the learned men in Lon- don, giving to Henry credit for priority in construction of electro-magnetic engines. The English electrician Joule writes : "It is to the ingenious American philosopher that we are indebted for the first form of the working model of an engine 1 Electrical Revic7v, London, August 12, 1887, Volume xxi, page 162. 2 American Jomita I of Science, 183 1, Volume xx, page 340. The Three Secretaries 139 upon the principle of reciprocating- polarity of soft iron by electro-dynamic agency." ^ Henry's oscillating machine was the forerunner of all our modern electrical motors. The rotary motor of to-day is the direct outgrowth of his improvement in magnets. It should also be stated that he had as early as 1832, or before, applied one of his great magnets to the separation of magnetic iron from other substances, and in 1833 this system, which has since become one of great industrial importance, was put into actual use at the Penfield Iron-Works, in the village of Port Henry, named at that time in honor of the Albany professor. Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith from Salisbury, Vermont, who visited the Port Henry iron-works about this time, bought one of the magnets and used it in the experiments which led not only to the construction by him of the earliest operating rotary motors, but which within two years led " to the beginning of the electric railroad; for he exhibited in 1835, in Springfield, Troy, and Philadelphia, not only rotary motors in action, but a model engine carrying its own magnet, which ran around upon a circular track. Even more sicrnificant than the invention of this enoflne was Henry's philosophic and far-reaching appreciation of what it meant for the future. "So far from giving way to the natural enthusiasm of the successful inventor," writes Pope, ** Henry proceeded, with calm sobriety of judgment, to fore- cast the future possibilities of the new motor. He was soon led to see that under the conditions of knowledge then exist- ing, the power could only be derived from the oxidation of zinc in a galvanic battery, and hence the heat energy re- 1 Joule, James P., " Historical Sketch of the cal, Statistical, and Technical."' A paper read Rise and Progress of Electro-magnetic En- before the New York Electric Club, January gines for Propelling Machinery." 22, 1891, by Franklin Leonard Pope. See 2 " Notes on the Electric Railway : Histori- The Electrical Etigimer, January 28, 1891. 140 The Smithsonian Institution quired in the original smelting of the metal must represent at least an equal amount of power. Hence his conclusion that the fuel required for that purpose might with better advan- tage be employed directly in performing the required work. "While feeling thus sure that electricity could not hope to compete with, much less to supersede, steam as a primary source of power, Henry, nevertheless, did not hesitate to pre- dict that the electric motor was destined in the future to oc- cupy an extensive field of usefulness, particularly in applica- tions in which absolute theoretical economy was subordinate to more important considerations. " Time has shown that Henry's conception of the legitimate held of the electric motor was prophetically accurate.' " 1 V. With the oreanization of the Smithsonian Institution in 1846 came an entire change in Henry's life. Many years before, while he was still a teacher in Albany, Smithson had died in Genoa, leaving his bequest "for the increase and dif- fusion of knowledge among men." When Henry first visited Europe, in 1837, the bequest had only just become known, and the claim of the United States was in course of prosecu- tion in London. To this circumstance may, perhaps, be at- tributed the interest which he seemed always to have felt in the disposition of the Smithson fund. In the fall of 1846, after the Regents of the new Institution had been appointed, a committee of their own number was chosen to digest a plan to carry out the provisions of the Act to establish the Smith- sonian Institution. Henry's advice was sought by them, and the plan proposed by him was embodied in the report which they presented to the Board on the first of December. It 1 The Electrical Engineer, London, February 13, 1891, Volume Vll, page 169. The Three Secretaries 141 was with a knowledge of this fact that, at their meeting of December 3, he was elected to the Secretaryship, after the following resolutions had been passed: " Resolved, That it is essential, for the advancement of the proper interests of the trust, that the Secretary of the Smith- sonian Institution be a man possessing weight of character, and a high grade of talent ; and that it is further desirable that he possess eminent scientific and general acquirements ; that he be a man capable of advancing science and promoting letters by original research and effort, well qualified to act as a respected channel of communication between the Institution and scientific and literary individuals and societies in this and foreign countries ; and, in a word, a man worthy to represent before the world of science and of letters the institution over which this Board presides." " It does not need to be said," writes Doctor Welling, " that Professor Henry did not seek this appointment. It came to him unsolicited, but it came to him from the Board of Regents, not only by the free choice of its members, but also at the suggestion and with the approval of European men of science like Sir David Brewster, Faraday, and Arago, as also of American scientific men like Bache and Silliman and Hare. I well remember to have heard the late George M. Dallas (a member of the constituent Board of Regents by virtue of his office as Vice-President of the United States) make the re- mark on a public occasion, immediately after the election of Professor Henry as Director of the Smithsonian Institution, that the Board had not had the slightest hesitation in tender- ing the appointment to him * as being peerless among the recoQfnized heads of American science.' " He accepted the election on December 7, and on the 21st appeared at a meeting of the Board of Regents and en- tered upon the duties of his ofiice. The first duty imposed 10* 142 The Smithsonian Instihttion upon him by the Board was the preparation of a program of organization, which was presented on December 8, 1847, and in its essential features adopted on the 13th. By this •'Plan of Organization" and the brief essay in which it was explained and illustrated, the future character of the Institu- tion was determined. It was shown that the Institution is not a national establishment in the sense in which institutions dependent on the government are so, and that its operations ought to be mingled as little as possible with those of the government, and its funds applied exclusively and faithfully to the diffusion of knowledge among men ; that the bequest is intended for the benefit of mankind in general, and that its influence ought not to be restricted to a single district or even nation ; that the terms "increase" and "diffusion" of know- ledge are logically distinct, and should be literally interpreted with reference to the will ; that the increase of knowledge should be effected by the encouragement of original re- searches of the highest character and its diffusion by the pub- lication of the results of original research, by means of the publication of a series of volumes of original memoirs ; that the operations of the Institution should not be restricted in favor of any particular kind of knowledge, though if prefer- ence is to be given to any branches of research, they should be to the higher and apparently more abstract, to the dis- covery of new principles rather than of isolated facts. These were, in brief, the principles announced in this mas- terly treatise. In the second part of the program propositions were made in regard to the promotion of certain interests pre- scribed in the plan adopted by Congress: the accumulation and care of collections of objects of nature and art, the de- velopment of a library, the providing of courses of lectures, and the organization of a national system of meteorological observation. The Three Secretaries 143 It was from the beginning Henry's belief that expenditures from the Smithson fund for objects such as those last men- tioned were not justifiable, and that museums, libraries, and lectures, being in one sense local objects, should be supported from the revenues of the government. Still more strenuously was he opposed to the erection of an expensive building, and by painstaking economy during his long period of office he succeeded in restoring to the fund the amount which, in his opinion, had been improperly invested in stone and mortar. He never ceased to urge upon the Regents and upon Con- gress the impropriety of burdening the legacy of the founder with expenditures which he deemed in large degree local, either to the City of Washington or to the United States, and to urge that "the bequest was intended for the benefit of man in general." As the result of this policy he had the satis- faction, before his death, of seeing the library, which soon became great and cumbersome, received and cared for at government expense in connection with the Library of Con- gress; the meteorological service transformed into a perma- nent weather bureau and transferred to the War Department ; the National Museum supported by direct appropriations, and the system of international exchanges in large part main- tained by government grants; while the resources of the In- stitution were left comparatively free, to be used for the increase and diffusion of knowledge for the benefit of the entire world. Concerning the details of his administrative work, more cannot be said than that in the routine of each day he em- ployed the same conscientious methods and the same powers of mind which he had been accustomed to use in his investi- gation of the laws of nature. But for the man, the devotion with which he worked, and the fact that his life was spared to labor for the Institution for nearly a third of a century, it is 144 The Smithsonian Institution not impossible that the uncanny predictions of John Quincy Adams as to the fate of the Smithsonian bequest might have been fulfilled. It was much for the Institution to have secured as an or- ganizer a man of such commanding abilities, of such wide and lofty aims, and one whose character was noble beyond the possibility of any tarnish. It was much, on the other hand, for Henry to abandon the life of an investigator, at the very time when the promise of the future was so brilliant. He was fully conscious of his own great powers and that he was sacrificing, as he expressed it, "future fame to present reputation." He understood, however, the opportunities for good which the new position would afford, and, with a full appreciation of what he was doing, cheerfully sacrificed his own scientific career to what he knew would be for all time a powerful aid to the work of investigators without number. By this act he did much toward establishing the profession of scientific administration — a profession which in the com- plexity of modern civilization is becoming more and more es- sential to scientific progress. That he himself appreciated this fact is clearly shown in his loving eulogy of his friend Alexander Dallas Bache ; and yet it is not impossible that he was mistaken in supposing that this change of activities had lessened the chance of future fame. For so lono- as the o Smithsonian Institution endures, the name of its first Sec- retary will be remembered with it. VI. After his election to the Secretaryship, Professor Henry, although by a special resolution of the Board of Regents, January 26, 1847, "requested to continue his researches in physics, and to present such facts and principles as may be TJie Three Secretaries 145 developed for publication in the ' Smithsonian Contributions,'" did not find it consistent with his duties, as he understood them, to take time necessary for any continuous laboratory work in connection with the labors of organizing and shap- ing the character of the new foundation. His annual reports, which were models of full and exact administrative treatment, were always written by himself, and abounded in critical and philosophical remarks bearing not only upon the work of the Institution, but also upon the sig- nificance of the work in which it was engaged, and its rela- tions to the scientific questions of the day. During the first ten years his papers were but few. At the meeting of the American Association in 1850, he remarked, at the conclusion of a brief conversation, that for the last three and a half years all his time and all his thought had been given to the details of the business of the Smithsonian Institution ; he had been obliged to withdraw himself entirely from scientific re- search ; but he hoped, now the Institution had been gotten under way, and the Regents had allowed him some able as- sistants, that he would be enabled, in part at least, to return to his first love — the investigation of the phenomena of nature. His anticipations were not, however, to be realized in the manner hoped for. His subsequent work in science was for the most part that which grew out of his official connections, and his published papers such as embodied trains of thought suggested by the administrative work which he was directing. His studies upon direct and reflected sound grew out of his experiments to remedy the defects of a Smithsonian hall intended for public speaking. His generalizations in regard to the primary powers in connection with which he expressed his views on the correlation of physical and organic forces, were developed in an address upon "The Improvement of 14^ The Smithsoniait Institution the Mechanical Arts,"deHvered at an exhibition of the Wash- ington Mechanics' Institute. His classical "Thoughts on Education " were delivered by him on the occasion of his re- tirement from the presidency of the Association for the Ad- vancement of Education. Out of the wealth of his obser- vations and reflections in connection with the Smithsonian meteorological work was developed his memoir upon "Meteor- ology in Connection with Agriculture," which was published in the reports of the Commissioner of Agriculture for five successive years, 1855 to 1859. This forms a volume of four hundred pages, by far the most extensive of his published writings, which is still a standard work of reference among students of this science. There was, indeed, no subject in which he took a keener interest than meteorology, and to his practical methods was due the daily weather map, essentially in its present form. How early this interest began is shown by the following extracts from his note-books, hitherto un- printed. Under date of February 9, 1849, occurs the following entry : " I have had in my mind a fine scheme with the telegraph. Instantaneous observations, on the Aurora, on the thunder- storm, the beginning of storms, etc., etc." Also, under date of March 12, the following: " Mr. Redfield highly approves plan of using telegraph for meteorological purposes. The following places should be made stations: Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Mo- bile, Pensacola, Augusta, Nashville, New Orleans (northern and southern). "Galena, St. Louis, Chicago, Buffalo, Albany, Boston (western). The Three Secretaries 147 "Times — mornino-, noon, and night, or morning and night. Most important observations : i. Barometer. 2. Face of the sky. 3, Direction and force of the wind. The rise of the barometer will precede a fall." Under May 19, is the following entry : "Wrote to Judge McLean to give me an account of his obs. on thunderstorms. Thunder storms come from the west at Washington — on the opposite side of the river divide, one part down, the other to Baltimore. Prepare circulars relative to storms of this kind." The "Instructions for Meteorological Observers" were writ- ten by his own hand. The instruments for distribution were tested by him, and that magnificent corps of observers whose contributions, covering a period of thirty years, constitute a considerable portion of the foundation of meteorological science, was kept together by his personal labor in corre- spondence. His original study was not limited, however, to electricity or to physics. He entered every field into which human thought may enter. He was, perhaps, the first to work out a theory of the cor- relation of physical, chemical, and vital forces. This was in 1844. His conclusions were essentially as follows: ^ "They who are disposed to continue the speculation . . . may extend the generalization so as to reduce all mechanical motion on the surface of the earth to a source from without. Thus . . . the mechanical power exerted by animals is due to the passage of organized matter in the body from an un- stable to a stable equilibrium [or, as it were,] (from the combus- "^ Proceedings of the American Philosophical page 215; The London, Edinburgh, and Society, 1844, Volume iv, page 127; Anier- DuUin Philosophical Magazine, 1845, Vol- ican Journal of Scietue, 1845, Volume XI.VIII, ume xxvi, page 541. 148 The Smithsonian Institutioti tion of fuel).^ It would therefore appear to follow that animal power is referable to the same sources as that from the com- bustion of fuels [namely, the decomposing- energy of the sun's rays]. . . . Vitality is that mysterious principle which propa- gates a form and arranges the atoms of organizable matter, while the power with which it operates, is derived from the divellent power of the sunbeam." ^ Later, in 1857, his theory was more fully elaborated, and even then long antedated Doctor William B. Carpenter's bet- ter known essay, "On the Application of the Principle of the Conservation of Force to Physiology," 1884, in which much of the same ground was gone over as if for the first time, the author being evidently in ignorance of Henry's previous paper. Others had, however, been at work between 1844 and 1857, and it was to this fact that Professor Lovering alluded when he said : " In this connection Henry's views on the correlation of the physical and organic forces may be recalled, which only lacked the fuller development and wider publication which he finally gave to them to have secured for him the first com- plete announcement of one of the grandest generalizations of modern science." ^ The latest and most comprehensive generalization in phy- sics — that which culminated in the researches of Hertz — seems also in a certain way to have been foreseen by Joseph Henry, much as those of Joule were foreseen by Lord Bacon and by Thompson. "Faraday's immortal researches, Clerk Maxwell's pro- phetic investigations, and Hertz's convincing experiments," 1 This condensation is Henry's own, and is 2 «< Scientific Writings of Josepli Henry," contained in Professor Taylor's " Memorial Volume I, page 222. of Joseph Henry," page 273. 3 « Memorial of Joseph Henry," page 438. The Three Secretaries 149 writes Preece, "have definitely and conclusively proved the existence of one medium throughout all space, called the ether, through which waves of energy, called radiations, are propagated with the same velocity, but in different forms and with different frequencies, although all of the same charac- ter. At one end of the scale we have actinic disturbances producing photographic impressions ; at the other end of the scale electric waves producing electro-magnetic disturbances, while the intermediate radiations give light and heat." ^ Compare now the summary of present opinions just quoted, omitting only the words within the brackets (which I have myself added), with what Henry wrote nearly half a century before : "We cannot avoid the conclusion [that] all the phenomena of the imponderables result from the different actions of one all-pervading principle. . . . An iron rod, rapidly hammered, becomes red hot, or, in other words, emits heat and light. The same rod, insulated by a non-conductor, exhibits electri- cal attraction and repulsion. Again, if this rod be struck with a hammer while in a vertical position, it becomes magnetic. We have here the evolution of the four classes of phenomena by a simple agitation of the atoms. We cannot, in accor- dance with the known simplicity of the operations of nature, for a moment imagine that these different results are to be referred to as many different and independent principles."^ So far as theory goes, it would seem that Clerk Maxwell's proposition in 1865, that light is an electro-magnetic distur- bance, was simply a variation of the previous proposition of Henry, and that Henry's utterance was an indication of the deep insight into the inevitable future course of experimental research in this direction. The facts brought out by Max- 1 " Electric Signalling without Wires," '^ Proceedings of (he American Association Journal of t/ie Sociefy of Arts, Volume XLII, for the Advancement of Science, 1851, Vol- pages 274, 275, February 23, 1S94. ume VI, pages S4-91. 150 The Smithsonian Institution well, taken in connection with the experiments of Hertz, have demonstrated that optics is a department of electricity. "To produce radiation," comments Barker, "it is necessary- only to produce electric oscillations of sufficiently short period. An atom of sodium vibrates five hundred million times in one millionth of a second. Could we produce electric atomic oscillations at this rate and permanently maintain them we could produce light. The problem of the age is, how to con- vert some other form of energy into the energy of light. That this is possible in theory, Rayleigh long ago showed. That it is actually accomplished in nature, Langley's remark- able measurements upon the glow-worm abundantly confirm."^ Another evidence of the penetration, as well as the inde- pendence of his thought is shown by the fact that he was among the earliest of American men of science to approve the theory of evolution, as announced by Darwin. In 1864 he wrote to Asa Gray, who soon after the publication of the " Origin of the Species" had become one of the warmest and most influential of its authorized champions, in these words: "I have given the subject of evolution much thought, and have come to the conclusion that it is the best working hy- pothesis which you naturalists have .got. It, in fact, gives you the first basis or real scientific foundation to stand upon which you have ever had." Doctor Gray was at that time in the midst of a vigorous controversy upon this subject with many of the principal American naturalists, the most uncompromising of whom was Agassiz. Although Henry's views were not made public, it was generally understood that he sympathized with Darwin and Gray. Agassiz, at that time a Regent of the Institution, earnestly remonstrated with him and urged that he should 1 Barker, George F., " Physics," New York, 1892, page 873. The Three Secretaries 151 take no stand for or against the theory; and his remon- strances were supported by those of a number of his friends in Washington, members of the church which he was accus- tomed to attend, who were greatly disturbed that he should entertain opinions which seemed so heterodox and dangerous. His attitude was never shaken, however, although he never felt called upon to express his views publicly. " I am a physi- cist, and not a naturalist," said he, "and it is not proper for me to participate in this discussion ; but if there is any science in natural history, this is the first step which has ever been taken to demonstrate it." Much of his most careful work was in connection with eco- nomic problems submitted to him individually, or as a member of various commissions, by the government of the United States. In 1851 he was actively concerned in the modes of testing building materials, in connection with the examination of marble for the extension of the United States Capitol. In 1855 he used the great tower of the Institution building for experiments to test a new process for procuring alcohol, for which a patent had been granted. In 1852, when the Lighthouse Board of the United States was organized. President Fillmore appointed him one of its members ; and on this Board he served until his death, and from 1 87 1 to 1877 was its chairman. He thus had opportunity to make his famous researches on sound in relation to foe- signaling, in connection with which grew up his discussion of the subject with Professor Tyndall, These researches were of the highest scientific value, and at the same time led to immediate practical results of the greatest importance. He also conducted the experiments on illuminants which resulted in a complete revolution in the methods of lighthouses, re- placing sperm-oil by lard-oil in 1866, which substitution, com- petent authorities estimated in 1877, ^"'^^ already saved to the 152 The Smithsonian Institution government not less than one million dollars. To these ex- periments he gave much attention, devoting to them the time of his summer holiday for many years. It is generally con- ceded that the high efficiency of our national lighthouse system is largely due to his labors. During the Civil War he was, together with Professor Bache and Admiral Davis, the member of a commission to examine and report upon various investigations and experi- ments intended to facilitate the operations of war and to im- prove the art of navigation. Many of the experiments were conducted at the Institution. From the top of the great tower, night after night, lights were flashed to distant stations, in connection with tests of methods of signaling; and many a time Professor Henry's companion in these studies was Presi- dent Lincoln, glad to leave the scene of turmoil in which his days were passed and to seek rest and inspiration in the quiet companionship of such a man as Henry. Out of the labors of this commission grew the National Academy of Sciences, established in 1863 by act of Congress, to advance science and to report upon such questions of sci- entific character as might be connected with the operations of the government. Bache was its first president, and Henry succeeded him, holding that place until his death. VII. It has already been shown that his original investigations during his thirty years at the Smithsonian Institution were not of great extent ; but his influence, not only upon the de- velopment of scientific work in the United States, but upon its character, cannot be overestimated. His official position brought him into constant contact, either personally or by letter, with all in the United States who were engaged in The Three Secretaries 153 scientific work, and the inspiration and the direct control which he exercised were constant and far-reaching. The cordial hospitality of his home in Washington was never forgotten by any to whom it was given, and all who came to it received a hearty welcome. He lived, from 1855 until his death, in the east wins;- of the Smithsonian buildinor. His wife, whom as Miss Harriet L. Alexander he married in 1830, and his three daughters, aided him to make it one of the centers in the intellectual life of Washington, and there were few distin- guished visitors to the city who did not enter his doors. Many remember his presence at the meetings of the Amer- ican Association for the Advancement of Science, and the impression made by his brief addresses, often simply a few words of greeting, not even reported in the proceedings. In his later years, in 1871, the Philosophical Society of Washing- ton was organized, and he was its president as long as he lived. The meetings, occurring every two weeks through the winter, were events in Washington, and were attended not only by students of science, but by many of the greatest of our public men, while visiting men of science who made communications were not few. Here, for the first time, was announced the discovery of the telephone. The discussions were often remarkable for their brilliancy and weight, and the society in those days, unaffected by the withdrawal of special- ists to form organizations devoted to particular branches, was a very remarkable one. The spirit of Henry dominated the whole, and his stately presence as he presided and his im- pressive remarks when, as not infrequently happened, he par- ticipated in the discussions, made every meeting memorable. His address on the organization of a scientific society, at the time of its foundation, presents the highest ideal of what a local scientific society should be. And the height of his ideals for science and for men of science is shown by his II 154 The SiuitJisouian Institution closing address to the National Academy of Sciences, a few days before his death : "Whatever might have been thought as to the success of the Academy, when first proposed by the late Professor Louis Agassiz, the present meeting conclusively proves that it has become a power of great efficiency in the promotion of sci- ence in this country. To sustain this effect however much caution is required to maintain the purity of its character and the propriety of its decisions. " For this purpose great care must be exercised in the selection of its members. It must not be forgotten for a moment that the basis of selection is actual scientific labor in the way of original research, (that is in making positive addi- tions to the sum of human knowledge,) connected with unim- peachable moral character. "It is not social position, popularity, extended authorship, or success as an instructor in science, which entitles to mem- bership, but actual new discoveries ; nor are these sufficient if the reputation of the candidate is in the slightest degree tainted with injustice or want of truth. Indeed, I think that immorality and great mental power actually exercised in the discovery of scientific truths are incompatible with each other, and that more error is introduced from defect in moral sense than from want of intellectual capacity." A few clays before his death, unable to pursue his custom- ary routine of work, his mind became more than usually con- cerned upon the mystery of existence and the meaning of human life ; and at this time, without the knowledge of his family, he wrote to his friend Mr. Patterson a letter, in which he recorded the results of his lifelong thoughts upon this subject : "After all our speculations," he wrote, "an attempt to grapple with the problem of the universe, the simplest con- ception which explains and connects the phenomena is that The Three Secretaries 155 of the existence of one Spiritual Being — infinite in wisdom, in power, and all divine perfections, which exists always and everywhere — which has created us with intellectual faculties sufficient, in some degree, to comprehend His operations as they are developed in Nature by what is called ' Science.' "This Being is unchangeable, and, therefore, His operations are always in accordance with the same laws, the conditions being the same. Events that happened a thousand years ago will happen again a thousand years to come, provided the condition of existence is the same. Indeed, a universe not governed by law would be a universe without the evidence of an intellectual director. " In the scientific explanation of physical phenomena, we assume the existence of a principle having properties suffi- cient to produce the effects which we observe ; and when the principle so assumed explains, by logical deductions from it, all the phenomena, we call it a theory. Thus, we have the theory of light, the theory of electricity, etc. There is no proof, however, of the truth of these theories, except the explanation of the phenomena which they are invented to account for. " This proof, however, is sufficient in any case in which every fact is fully explained, and can be predicted when the conditions are known. In accordance with this scientific view, on what evidence does the existence of a Creator rest ? '' Fn'st. It is one of the truths best established by experi- ence in my own mind, that I have a thinking, willing /'r/;^- ciple within me, capable of intellectual activity and of moral feeling. " Second. It is equally clear to me that you have a similar spiritual principle within yourself, since when I ask you an intelligent question you give me an intellectual answer. " Third. When I examine the operations of Nature, I find everywhere through them evidences of intellectual ar- rangement, of contrivances to reach definite ends, precisely as I find in the operations of man ; and hence I infer that these two classes of operations are results of similar intelli- gence. 156 The Sjuithsonian Institution "Again, in my own mind, I find ideas of right and wrong, of good and evil. These ideas, then, exist in the universe, and, therefore, form a basis of our ideas of a moral universe. Furthermore, the conceptions of good which are found among our ideas associated with evil, can be attributed only to a Being of infinite perfections, like that which we denominate * God.' On the other hand, we are conscious of having such evil thoughts and tendencies that we cannot associate our- selves with a Divine Being, who is the Director and Governor of all, or even call upon Him for mercy, without the interces- sion of One who may affiliate himself with us." Notwithstanding his sacrifice of investigation to adminis- tration, there is no greater name in American science. What Franklin was to the last century, Henry is to this, and as the years go by his fame is growing brighter. The memorial service in his honor, held in 1878, in the hall of the United States House of Representatives, was a national event. In 1883 his monument in bronze, by the greatest of American sculptors, was erected by Congress in the Smithsonian Park. The bestowal of his name upon the unit of induction in 1893 was an indication of his foreign appreciation, while, as a still nobler tribute to his fame, his statue has been placed under the great rotunda of the National Library, the science of the world and of all time being symbolized by these two great men, Newton and Henry. The Three Secretaries 157 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD I. NO name occupies a more honorable place in the annals of American science than that of Professor Baird, His personal contributions to systematic biology were of great extent. His influence in inspiring and training men to enter the field of natural history was very potent. As an organ- izer, working at a most fortunate time, he knew how to utilize his extraordinary opportunities, and he has left his im- press forever fixed upon the scientific and educational institu- tions of the United States, more especially upon those under government control. He was one of those rare men, perhaps more frequently met with in the New World than elsewhere, who give the impression of being able to succeed in whatever they under- take. Although he chose to be a naturalist, and of necessity became an administrator, no one who knew him could doubt that he would have been equally eminent as a lawyer, physi- cian, mechanic, historian, business man, soldier, or statesman. II. It is always interesting to search for the sources of intellec- tual force and capacity, especially so in this country, where the races of the Old World have mingled with such rapidity and in such volume as to develop very remarkable phases in the problem of heredity. For an inquiry of this kind there is excellent material in the case of Professor Baird, for though he gave little atten- II* 158 The Smithsonian Institution tion to such matters in his later busy life, there is still in ex- istence an elaborate "genealogical tree," prepared by himself at the age of sixteen, by the aid of which it has been practi- cable to identify his ancestors up to and including all those of the fifth degree, thirty in number, and in many lines far beyond. His grandparents were all the children of colonial Pennsyl- vanians. He was emphatically an American, for over eighty per centum of his progenitors in the sixth degree were living in the colonies during the seventeenth century. Out of the total number of thirty-two, one, or perhaps two, were of Swedish blood; one a Huguenot, and one or two others from the Palatinate — companions of Pastorius in the founding of the first German community in America. The others were either natives of Great Britain or their descendants estab- lished in the American colonies. Of these there were several of Scotch, Irish, or Scotch-Irish blood, and one or two from Wales. Although in one sense only agencies in the concentration and transmission of the various traits derived from previous generations, his immediate ancestors — with their personal traits, the results of education and environment — were those who had the most direct influence upon his character. His father, Samuel Baird (i 786-1833), was a lawyer, a man of fine culture, an independent and original thinker, and a lover of nature and of outdoor sports. His mother, Lydia McFunn Biddle (i 797-1861), who sur- vived her husband nearly forty years, was a woman of fine executive powers, fascinating manners, and of a sunny and equable temperament. His father's father, Samuel Baird, served as a quartermas- ter in the Revolutionary Army ; he was a surveyor, and was interested in the opening of coal-mines in eastern Pennsyl- vania, in association with his cousin, Colonel Thomas Potts, SPENCER FULLEBTON BAIRD. SECOND SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 1878-1887. 158 "" ■' Hon uusy life, there is still in ex- )gical tree," prepared by himself aid of which it has ors no to r^nd including all those of ^^- lines fell .^v,_)«^.id. asyl- ^hty ig tin ^enth centurv, .otal number of thirty -two, one, or p*^-' '' "dish blood ^^ not, and or is in the fo commu! ic or two les in the con . from nre\ ^ ancestors — wx-u lin^i perse """ t education and en ' influence upon his charr 6-1833), was a la^ . -id origii.„- ^-- ... - >orts. 4aartermas- ■ , ; -".S .' ennsyl- .TIOITUTITBIHI TlAI'KOgHTlMa MITT '50 YaATaaOEfB a"HO'ja8 .V881 -8TttI The Three Secretaries i59 who was the first to discover the valuable properties of an- thracite coal, and who interested Franklin and Rittenhouse in devising methods for its use as a fuel. Samuel Baird's father, Thomas Baird, was of Scotch- Irish origin ; he came to the colony before the middle of the century, and following the current of westward travel, settled as a frontiersman in the beautiful Cumberland Valley, near the present site of Chambersburg, the westernmost of the Pennsylvania settle- ments, and at the very verge of civilization. His wife, Mary Douglass, was of the same race. At the close of the Revolu- tion, her husband having died, she, with all her children but the eldest son, joined the train of emigrants which for a quar- ter of a century she had seen wending westward past her door, and removed to the new territory of Kentucky, and later to Fort Vincennes, Indiana, where she was still living in 1785. His father's mother, Rebecca Potts (i 753-1830), was the daughter of Thomas Potts (1721-62), of Colebrookdale, and eranddauofhter of Thomas Potts, who came from Wales to Germantown early in the eighteenth century, and was a pioneer in the development of the American iron industry. His descendants owned the region in which the Continental Army was encamped in 1778. The Valley Forge belonged to Colonel Dewees, the husband of Rebecca Potts' sister, in whose house she was living at that time, while Washington occupied the home of her uncle on the other side of Valley Creek. During that long winter Mrs. Washington taught her how to net, and gave her a silver netting-needle, still treasured by the family. Her mother was the daughter of William Pyewell (1685-1769), of Philadelphia, one of the earliest wardens of Christ Church, and her grandmothers were Magdelen Robeson, descended from Swedish colonists on the Delaware, and Mary Rutter. of Huguenot origin. i6o The Smithsonian Institution Professor Baird's mother's father, William McFunn Biddle, was the son of William McFunn, an officer of the British Navy, who was present with the fleet at the siege of Quebec, and while stationed on the Delaware was married, in 1752, to Lydia Biddle. Ordered to duty at Antigua, he contracted a disease which caused his death, at Philadelphia, in i 768. In that most interesting volume, the " Autobiography of Charles Biddle," are occasional references to Captain McFunn, who was evidently a bluff and hardy English seaman of the old heroic type. His son, William Biddle McFunn, became, by transposition of his two last names, William McFunn Biddle. He was a banker, an accomplished musician, and the friend of Robert Morris, and became involved in some of the ambi- tious projects which "the financier of the Revolution" or- ganized in the early days of the Republic — especially the American Land Company. At one time the richest young man in Philadelphia, he went with Morris to a debtor's cell, where he remained until relieved by the passage of the first United States bankrupt law, in 1800. His mother, Lydia Biddle, belonged to an old Philadelphia family, for many gen- erations prominent in commercial and banking enterprises and as officers in the Army and Navy, the descendants of William Biddle, one of the first Quaker colonists of Penn- sylvania. She was descended maternally from Nicholas Scull, the friend of Franklin, one of the earliest members of the American Philosophical Society, and the first surveyor- general of Pennsylvania. His mother's mother, Lydia Spencer Biddle, survived her husband for half a century, and died in 1858 at the age of ninety-three. Her memories of the Revolution were vivid, for her father was the patriot preacher Elihu Spencer, who had been a chaplain in the French and Indian Wars, and was despatched by Congress to North Carolina to aid in winning The Three Secretaries i6i over the Scotch colonists, who were slow to abandon their allegiance to the British Crown — a man whose eloquence rendered him so conspicuous that a reward was offered for his head. Her sister's husband, Jonathan Dickinson Ser- geant, was a member of the Continental Congress. As a young lady at Trenton she talked with General Mercer just before he marched to his death at Princeton, and on Christ- mas night in 1776 saw Washington depart for the crossing of the Delaware. Her father was the brother of General Joseph Spencer of the Revolution, second cousin to Timothy Edwards, the great New England theologian, and own cousin to John and Edward Brainerd, missionaries to the Indians; she was aunt to John and Thomas Sergeant, of Philadelphia, eminent lawyers, the former a candidate for Vice-President with Clay in 1832, the latter judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Through her mother, Joanna Eaton, she was descended from Thomas Eaton, one of the earliest American Quakers, who came to Rhode Island in 1761, and also from Thomas Wardell and Isaac Perkins, first-comers to Massa- chusetts Bay (1630-35), who, as disciples of Anne Hutchin- son in the Antinomian controversy, were banished from the colony as heretics, and went with the Reverend John Wheel- wright beyond the limits of the colony into the forests of New Hampshire. Among her nearest of kin, the children and grandchildren of her aunts, were all the LeContes, emi- nent in science as zoologists, geologists, and chemists ; John McPherson Berrien, of Georgia, the "American Cicero," early Attorney-General of the United States and Regent of the Smithsonian Institution; as well as Admiral Montgomery and Commodore Berrien, of the United States Navy. These were all representative men and women, leaders in the communities in which they lived, a group even more re- markable for their abilities than for their diversity in origin 1 62 The Sniithsoniaji Institution and character. Many of them were Quakers, but there were also Churchmen, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. Among them were soldiers, sailors, clergymen, lawyers, financiers, survey- ors, miners, farmers, mechanics, military officers, British and American ; patriots and loyalists, Whigs and Tories, Feder- alists and Republicans. With such ancestral resources to draw upon, it is not strange that Professor Baird should have been a man of varied and commanding abilities. His admin- istrative capacity, his power of directing and controlling men, and his personal charm of manner, came to him perhaps chiefly from his mother; while to his father's family he owed his love of outdoor life, his taste for the study of nature, and his magnificent physique, a heritage from generations of pio- neers and frontiersmen. Those who knew him best may be disposed to attribute to his Quaker ancestry his quiet and unassuming manner, his dislike for publicity, and his prefer- ence for a simple garb of gray. III. Spencer Fullerton Baird was born February 23, 1823, in Reading, Pennsylvania. His father died when he was ten years old, and his mother soon removed with her family to Carlisle, a village in the beautiful Cumberland Valley, which was the seat of Dickinson College and of a government military post, and the home of many people of culture and refinement. When he was eleven he was sent to a Friends' boarding- school, kept by Doctor McGravv, in Port Deposit, Maryland ; a year later entered the grammar school in Carlisle, and in 1836 Dickinson College, from vvliich he was graduated in 1840, at the age of seventeen. His interest in collecting and classifying facts and in ob- The Three Secretaries 163 serving nature began when he was still a boy. His early note-books contain systematic lists of various kinds. He gathered specimens of the wood and leaves of plants, and at the age of fourteen joined his elder brother William, who had similar tastes, in making a collection of the game-birds of Cumberland County. Specimens prepared by these boys sixty years ago are still preserved in the National Museum. After leaving college, since he was too young to enter any profession, he was allowed to follow his own tastes for a time, and his inclination for science developed in such a remarkable manner that his mother felt that she was justified in allowing him to devote himself for several years to his favorite pur- suits. There were at that time no schools for young natural- ists, and his education was in a large degree self-directed. He began to read medicine, attended a course of lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York in the winter of 1841-42, and made excursions, often on foot, in search of specimens and to visit collections. He made long visits to friends in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and thus saw the museums and important private collections and became familiar with what were at that time the principal centers of learning. In those days were formed many of the friendships and scientific partnerships which influenced his after life. Among his early companions and correspondents were George N. Lawrence (1841), Charles Pickering and John Torrey (1842), John Cassin and James D. Dana (1843), Thomas M. Brewer, Stephen S. Haldeman, Joseph Leidy, and Frederick E. Melsheimer (1844), John G. Morris (1845), Jared P. Kirtland (1847), and Philo R. Hoy and John S. Newberry (1850). Still earlier was his friendship with Audubon, with whom he began a correspondence in 1838, and from whom he re- 164 The Smifhso7uan Institution ceived instruction in making drawings of birds ; and it was to him, and perhaps still more to his own kinsman, Major John LeConte, one of the early Southern naturalists, that was due his determination to devote his life to natural history. In 1843 he translated Ehrenberg's work on the corals of the Red Sea for Dana, who was then engaged upon his re- port for the Wilkes exploring expedition. In 1846 he ap- pears to have been occupied in the preparation of a synonymy of North American birds, and to have visited Boston to con- sult in the libraries of Amos Binney and the Boston Society of Natural History certain books not to be found in Phila- delphia. That he was already at that time a trained student is shown by the fact that the material then gathered was utilized by him twelve years later in his " Birds of North America." During all this time he was engaged in organizing a private cabinet of natural history, taking long excursions through the mountains of Pennsylvania; in making dissec- tions and preparing slides for the microscope ; and in pre- serving specimens, most of which are still in existence and available for scientific study in the National Museum. In 1841 he walked 420 miles in twenty-one days; on the last day 60 miles between daylight and rest. In 1842 he walked more than 2100 miles. In the course of these excur- sions he visited Audubon, Haldeman, Melsheimer, and Morris, in order to examine their collections. His fine physique and capacity for work in after days were perhaps due in part to these years of outdoor life. I find in his note-book a memorandum that on his birthday in 1840, at the age of seventeen, his height was five feet ten and a quarter inches; a year later he measured five feet eleven and three quarters inches, and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. During his long walk in the following fall The Three Secretaries 165 he made some curious experiments upon himself. At night, after carrying a load of forty pounds for ten miles, he mea- sured five feet eleven and a quarter inches, and the next morning six feet, showing that his height had been com- pressed by weight three quarters of an inch. His home studies were carried on for a number of years, and were scarcely interrupted by his election in 1846 to the chair of natural history and chemistry in Dickinson College. In this capacity he taught the seniors physiology ; the sopho- mores, geometry ; freshmen, zoology ; and the preparatory students, something else. He found time, however, to carry on the work begun in previous years and to make each sum- mer an extended collecting expedition: in 1847, ^^ ^^^ Adi- rondacks; in 1848, to Ohio, to collect, in company with Doctor Kirtland, from the original localities of the types, the species described by him in his work on the fishes of Ohio; in 1849, to the mountains of Virginia, with C. B. R. Kennedy; and in 1850, to Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario. He remained in Carlisle until 1850, and there he married, in 1846, Mary Helen Churchill, the daughter of General Syl- vester Churchill, Inspector-General United States Army. He used to say that his wife won his heart as a girl by the beau- tiful labels she wrote for his collections, and she was always afterward his companion and assistant in his work. The coming of Agassiz to America in 1846 was an inspira- tion to the young naturalist. One of the first great works projected by the Swiss savant was a memoir upon the fresh- water fishes of North America, in the authorship of which Professor Baird was to be his associate — a work which was never completed. Agassiz did not establish himself in Cambridge until 1848, and to Baird should belong the credit of having introduced into American schools the system of laboratory practice and 1 66 The Smithsoniaji htstitiition field exploration as an essential part of instruction in natural history. Doctor Moncure D. Conway, one of his pupils, has often spoken to me of his fascinating explanations of natural phenomena, and how the contagion of his enthusiasm spread among his pupils, who frequently followed him over the hills twenty or thirty miles a day. Once, while collecting insects In the field, they were surrounded and captured by a party of German farmers, who thought they were escaped lunatics and proposed to take them to an asylum. IV. His mentor at this time was the Honorable George P. Marsh, of Vermont, who was always his friend and admirer, and to him Professor Baird always felt that he owed his real start in life. Mr. Marsh, feeling that his protege was disposed to bury himself in the technicalities of a specialty, insisted that he should undertake to translate and edit an edition of the ** Iconographic Cyclopaedia," a version of Heck's " Bilder- Atlas," published in connection with the famous " Konversa- tions-Lexikon " of Brockhaus. This, his first extensive liter- ary task, though exceedingly laborious and confining to a man so young and entirely untrained in literary methods, was efficiently and rapidly performed. The result was a great expansion in his tastes and sympathies, while the train- ing and confidence which he acquired served as an excellent preparation for the tremendous literary tasks which he un- dertook without hesitation in later years. It was also to Mr. Marsh, who was one of the earliest Smithsonian Regents, that he owed his election as Assistant Secretary of the Institution, then recently organized. His selection, as is indicated by a statement in Professor Henry's fifth report, was due quite as much to his training in editorial The Three Secretaries 167 methods as to his professional acquirements. His appoint- ment, as is there stated, was made at that time more particu- larly that he might have charge of the publications, and that the Institution might take advantage of the ample experience which he had gained in editorial work. He first met Henry, as his diary shows, on July 17, 1848, visited with him the building then being constructed, and undertook to collect natural history objects for the Smith- sonian. The Regents of the Institution did not, of course, appre- ciate the fact that he had originated, in connection with his work upon his own private collections, a system of museum administration which was to be of the utmost value in the management of the great National Museum, which developed so rapidly under his charge. All the efficient methods which are now in use in the Na- tional Museum were practised in the little museum which he had organized at home, and which he brought with him to form the nucleus of the Smithsonian collection. Among the treasures of his cabinet, which filled two large freight-cars, and which are still cherished by the Institution, were a num- ber of the choicest bird skins collected by Audubon, who en- tertained for him a sincere friendship from the time when he proposed to him, a boy of nineteen, that he accompany him on a voyage to the headwaters of the Missouri, and who sought him as partner in the preparation of the great work " Quadrupeds of North America." The position of Assistant Secretary was accepted Jul)- 5, 1850, and on the third of October, at the age of twenty- seven years, he entered upon his life-work in connection with the Smithsonian Institution. 1 68 The Smithsonian Institution V. It would be interesting to dwell upon the details of his work, but his life was so full of interests that it is only by- careful condensation that even an adequate outline of its eventful features can be presented in this volume. There were several distinct activities in his career, dis- tributed somewhat as follows: (i) a period of twenty-six years (1843-69) devoted to laborious investigation of the vertebrate fauna of North America; (2) forty years (1840-80) of continuous contribution to scientific literature, of which at least ten were devoted to scientific editorship ; (3) four years (1846-50) devoted to educational work; (4) forty-one years (1846-87) devoted to the encouragement and promotion of scientific enterprises, and the development of new workers among the young men with whom he was brought into con- tact ; (5) thirty-seven years (1850-87) devoted to adminis- trative work as an officer of the Smithsonian Institution and in charge of the scientific collections of the government — twenty-eight years (1850-78) its principal executive officer and nine years (1878-87) the Secretary and responsible head of the Institution; (6) sixteen years (i87i-'87) as head of the United States Fish Commission, a philanthropic labor for the increase of the food supply of the world, and inciden- tally for the promotion of the interests of biological and phys- ical investigation. VI. The published list of his writings contains over one thousand titles. Although very many of these are brief notices and critical reviews, and a considerable number are reports and other official publications, there still remain two hundred which are formal contributions to scientific literature. The Three Secretaries 169 His work in ornithology was, perhaps, the most extensive and that which contributed more than any other to his repu- tation ; for although he published only eighty papers, several of them were monographic, and so exhaustive and critical in their character that their publication was epoch-making. The first of his large works, the " Birds of North America," which constituted the ninth volume of the reports of the Pa- cific Railroad Survey, was published in 1858, a quarto work of more than one thousand pages, which for twenty years re- mained the principal authority. Indeed, this and his " Re- view " are still regarded by every American ornithologist as absolutely indispensable for constant reference. Coues has declared that with its publication began the "Bairdian Period " in American ornithology, a period covering almost thirty years and characterized by an activity without a parallel in the history of the science. " It represents the most impor- tant single step ever taken in the progress of American or- nithology in all that relates to the technicalities. The no- menclature is entirely remodeled from that of the immediately preceding Audubonian period, and for the first time brought abreast of the then existing aspect of the case. It was adopted by the Smithsonian Institution, and thousands of separately printed copies of the * List of Species ' were dis- tributed during succeeding years to institutions and individu- als ; the names came at once into almost universal employ, and so continued, with scarcely appreciably diminished force, until about 1872." ** The appearance of so great a work, from the hands of a most methodical, learned, and sagacious naturalist, aided by two of the leading ornithologists of America [John Cassin and George N. Lawrence], exerted an influence perhaps stronger and more widely felt than that of any of its prede- cessors, Audubon's and Wilson's not excepted, and marked 12 170 The Smithsonian Institution an epoch in the history of American ornithology. The syn- onymy and specific characters, original in this work, have been used again and again by subsequent writers, with vari- ous modification and abridgment, and are in fact a large basis of the technical portion of the subsequent ' History of North American Birds ' by Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway. Such a monument of original research is likely to remain for an in- definite period a source of inspiration to lesser writers, while its authority as a work of reference will always endure." In pursuance of the same thought, Coues, Stejneger, Dall, and Ridgway have united in the characterization of what they call the " Bairdian School of Ornithologists"; a school char- acterized by exactitude in matters of fact, conciseness in de- ductive statement, and careful analysis of the subject in all its various bearings ; a school whose work is marked by a care- ful separation of the data from the conclusions derived from them, so that the conclusions or arguments can be traced back to their sources and duly weighed. As Doctor Stejneger has shown, the writings of the older European naturalists afford little basis for analysis, and the investigator has no recourse but to accept an author's state- ments and conclusions on his own responsibility. It is scarcely probable that any American naturalist would have ventured to claim for a fellow-countryman so radical an advance in scientific method, but I am not aware that the generalization of Stejneger has met with any opposition abroad. Indeed, during the twelve years which have passed since Stejneger's characterization of the Bairdian School, its methods have been generally adopted among advanced work- ers on the other side of the Atlantic. The development of this school was due not alone to the publication of the " Birds of North America," but still more to the direct influence of its author, exerted by personal inter- The Three Secretaries 171 course and by correspondence upon a large number of Amer- ican naturalists and collectors, and it is due in part to his influence that ornithology is to-day being pursued in this country by a larger number of competent and well-equipped naturalists than any other branch of natural history. The publication of the "Review of American Birds" was begun in 1864, but ne«ver completed, having ceased with the issue of the first volume. This has been described by com- petent authorities as a work of unequaled merit, displaying in their perfection the author's wonderful powers of analysis and synthesis — a work which has received unstinted praise from all competent to estimate it, and one which has made a more profound impression on foreign ornithologists than any other single work on American birds. There were numerous minor contributions to ornithology, but no other great one from his unaided pen. The monu- mental " History of North American Birds," in five volumes, by Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, presented fully the results of the labors of the Bairdian School up to 1874; and his favorite pupil and assistant, Mr. Ridgway, is now engaged upon a most important systematic treatise, which, as a sum- mary of all that is known of the morphology and classifica- tion of the birds of north and middle America, will, when it is published, repeat in its effect the volume of 1858. In his early years he published many minor papers upon the mammals of the West, and in 1857 appeared the eighth volume of the Pacific Railroad Survey Reports, which was devoted almost entirely to the mammals of North America. Nearly forty years have elapsed, and still no general work has been published to take its place. Everything which has been said in previous pages about his " Birds of North Amer- ica," published in the same series in the following year, applies with equal or greater force to his work upon the 172 The Smithsonian Institution mammals. The greatest of living American mammalogists said to the writer not long ago, that in his work to-day, when he had a description by Baird before him, he did not deem it essential to examine the specimen to which it related ; something, he added, which he could not say about any other writer.^ In the field of herpetology Professor Baird was still more of a pioneer, and, with the exception of Cope, to whom he resigned the field in 1859, as his chosen successor, his formal memoirs in this department were more extensive than those of any other. In his day material did not exist for a compre- hensive work covering the entire continent, but in his elab- orate reports upon the collections of the transcontinental sur- veys, and in his catalogue of North American Serpents in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as in his scattered papers, he very nearly covered the same field which was occupied by his two great volumes on birds and mammals. Nearly two hundred new species and numerous new genera of reptiles were discovered and named by him, either under his own name or in association with his assistant, Charles Girard. To illustrate the fundamental character of this work, it may be said that when the great collection of snakes, con- taining several thousand specimens, was taken up for study, each specimen was individualized by attaching a number tag, which served as a key to its locality. They were all then thrown into one great pile, and by a process of compari- son with absolute disregard for what had previously been written, assorted, first into families, then into genera, and then 1 To illustrate his methods of work and writing July, 1858, and printing October, the facility which he acquired with practice, 1858; having in the last instance written it may be stated that he began the mammal about two thousand quarto pages of original volume in Elizabethtown, New York, August, matter of the most technical character within 1853, and finished printing July, 1857; he a period of eleven months, and put it through began the bird book in August, 1857, finished the press in the three which followed. The Three Secretaries 173 into species and varieties. After this had been done, de- scriptions and analytical keys were prepared and provisional names were given to each. Last of all, the books were con- sulted in order to determine which of them had already been described and provided with names. Never in the history of zoology has a continent been classified in a manner so free from complications of previous discussion. He published little on the morphology and classification of fishes. A few papers, in association with Girard, upon new forms found in the fresh-waters of the Southwest, and a report upon the fishes observed upon the coast of New Jersey and Long Island during the summer of 1854, were early and useful pieces of work, though not especially significant. After he became Commissioner of Fisheries his time was so occupied that he was obliged to carry on his studies through the agency of others. In his first annual report, however, — that for 1871, — he discussed the life-histories of two important economic species, the bluefish and the scup- paug. These were the beginning of a new method in ich- thyological work, and served as a model and guide for all the more recent American students. These essays were life-his- tories of the most comprehensive type. In them he discussed geographical range, migrations, movements, habits of life, phenomena of reproduction and growth, questions of food, enemies, temperature, and all the manifold relationships of each form to its environment. Then followed a discussion of the relation of these fishes to man, the relative destructive- ness of different methods of capture, and the effects of these methods in the past. The evidence in regard to the diminu- tion of numbers was critically examined, and the statistics for the region, with which he was familiar, were treated in an ex- haustive manner. A life-history equal to that of the bluefish. then printed, has never been \vritten by any other naturalist. 12* 174 The Smithsonian Institution It was his intention to have continued this series of papers, and had the scope of the Fish Commission not been subse- quently expanded so as to include artificial culture, he would probably have been able to do this for all the fishes of the Atlantic coast. His material in resfard to the herrino- and menhaden was particularly abundant and important. After six years of waiting, however, he decided that it was impossible for him to give his personal attention to work of this kind, and in 1877 he proposed to me to take up the work, at the same time handing over a great mass of classi- fied material — his own observations supplemented by letters and extracts relating to all the economic fishes of the United States. This was the foundation of the somewhat voluminous publication entitled "The Fishery Industries of the United States," which was published under his direction by the writer and a staff of associates. Although he had abandoned this portion of the work, he by no means lost interest in it, but had in preparation at the time of his death a paper which, had he completed it, would have been one of the most important contributions to the lit- erature of the fishes ever issued, dealing as it did in the broadest and most philosophical manner with the principles underlying the whole subject of fishery economy. He attempted in later years no personal work upon the fishes, but he saw every specimen obtained by the Commis- sion and inspected every collection, as soon as it was re- ceived, with eager enthusiasm. He was often the first to detect undescribed or novel forms, and knew more about them all than the men whom he designated to write accounts of them. It was so also with the invertebrates, especially in the early years, before the extension of the investigation into the deep sea brought in such an overwhelming wealth of new material. The Three Secretaries 175 It was so in the Museum in every department, and each of his associates knew that he was many times competent to do the work which he had made over to others. Particularly keen was his insight into North American archaeology. The great collection of the Smithsonian Insti- tution grew up under his hands, and up to the time of his death every single object was handled by him as soon as it was received. No one was so quick to perceive a new fact or so keen in the detection of a fraud, and although he never published a formal contribution to archaeology, there was in his day no archaeologist in America who was so learned. He was, indeed, an "all round " naturalist — one of the last of a school which has now almost ceased to exist. But that he, like Professor Henry, was willing to give up the pleasure of doing things himself, in order that he might provide the means by which hundreds of others might be enabled to work, the sum total of his contributions to science would have been much greater. It was his self-chosen task to amass material for research, to secure the money for the prosecution of studies upon it, to select the men, to train them and point out to them the results to be accomplished, to watch their progress, and, when satisfied that an adequate result had been reached, to secure its publication. Like most men of active mind, he delighted to enter unfamiliar regions, to become thoroughly familiar with all that was known, and to begin some research in each field in order to satisfy himself of his competency to enter it if he chose. This having been done, he was quite willing to hand over his accumulations of notes and material to some one else, and to this trait of his character many naturalists since prominent have owed their first establishment in the fields of research which they have since occupied. Reference has been made to the characteristics of the 176 The Smithsonian Instihttion Bairdian Period and School of Ornithology, which have been recognized. No one has proposed similar periods and schools in other departments of zoology, but in mammals particularly there is even more justification for the use of these terms, for his influence is here even more dominant to the present day. Indeed, these terms might well be extended to cover the en- tire field of systematic zoology in North America, in which he has been even more prominent than was his contemporary Agassiz in the related field of animal morphology. VII. The most judicious estimate of the biological work of Baird is, perhaps, that presented by Doctor Billings in his memoir read before the National Academy in 1889. Doctor Billings points out that his writings contain not merely descriptions of a large number of new species, but a general revision of the classification and nomenclature, and that the principles upon which these were founded have for the most part stood the test of time, showing the keenness of his insight into what may be called "fundamental morphol- ogy." His larger works are still standards of reference, and the additions which have been made to them are mainly the work of his own pupils or of those who have been trained in his methods. His work was necessarily confined to descrip- tive morphology, systemizatlon, and nomenclature, but his early training as a field naturalist entirely removed him from the category of mere species describers. His determinations were founded mainly on bones and skins, which formed the bulk of the material available at the time. "It is not," continues Doctor Billings, "an easy matter to estimate fairly the importance of this kind of work and the influence which it has on scientific progress and general cul- The Three Secretaries 177 ture, and it is very likely to be either under- or over-valued by those who are not familiar with the study of living organisms. Classification, description, and naming of the different forms are the essential foundations of scientific biology, for until this has been done identification of particular forms is either diffi- cult or impossible, cooperative work on the part of scattered students is greatly restricted, and broad generalizations can only be put in the form of theories and conjectures. Such work as was done by Professor Baird in this direction gives a starting point to many observers and investigators in different localities, stimulates farther inquiry, and, when done on the extensive scale on which he did it, based on the examination and comparison of a large number of specimens from widely different localities, exercises a powerful influence for years to come on lines of exploration, collection, and critical research. To those who have never tried it, it may seem an easy matter to sort out specimens of different kinds when a large number are brought together, or to prepare descriptions sufficient to enable another man to identify his specimen ; but in reality it requires not only much experience and careful study, but a certain aptitude, power of grasping salient points, and of put- ting aside unessentials such as are rarely possessed by any man." As an example of Professor Baird's ability in generaliza- tion, Doctor Billings cites his paper on the distribution and migrations of North American birds. In this he maps out the country into regions corresponding to the distribution of different kinds of birds ; discusses the relations of these re- gions to surface topography, altitude, temperature, mountain chains, etc. ; points out that there are certain correspondences in the distribution of reptiles and fishes, and draws the con- clusion that North American birds of wide distribution in lati- tude, whether migrants or residents, will be found to be larger 178 The Smithsonian Institution the higher the latitude of their place of birth ; that specimens from the Pacific coast are apt to be darker than those from the interior, and that specimens from near the line of junction of two well-marked provinces or regions often show the influ- ence of hybridization. When he comes to discuss migrations, it is in their relations to the laws of the winds of the Northern Hemisphere that he studies them, and concludes that the trans- fer of American birds to Europe is mainly due to air currents. He did not himself produce much of this sort of scientific literature, for he had not the opportunity, since at the very period of his career when he was best fitted to make such studies, he had to give almost his whole time and energy to routine administrative duties. "This paper alone," says Billings, " is sufficient evidence of his capacity for general- izing from a series of isolated facts." "The two men," continues Billings, "who have exerted the strongest influence upon natural history studies in this country are Louis Agassiz and Professor Baird. In many respects they were very unlike ; circumstances gave them widely different fields, and they worked on different plans and by different methods. They began their public career in this country almost together ; but Agassiz was already famous as the result of seventeen years' incessant work, while Baird was an almost unknown youth. Agassiz was a born teacher, a fascinating lecturer, gifted with eloquence which won its way everywhere ; Baird could only speak freely in the pres- ence of a few, and for the most part taught only by the pen and by example. Each of them created a great museum in spite of many obstacles, the first winning the means largely from private contributions, which were a tribute to his elo- quence ; the second gaining his end more indirectly, through his connection with the Smithsonian Institution and gov- ernment. Each of them gathered around him young men The Three Secretaries 179 who were stimulated and encouraged by his example, who followed his methods, have continued his work, and have tauorht others, so that there are now observers and workers almost everywhere. The first made great use of the micro- scope and of embryology ; the second very little, for he had to use the material available. The first had a vivid imagina- tion which led him to frame many theories and hypotheses to be verified or disproved by future investigation and research ; the second classified the facts before him, but theorized very little. Professor Baird's career as an original investigator was hampered and finally stopped by his administrative work, but in proportion as this latter increased he was able to fur- nish materials and opportunities for others. The pupils of Agassiz and Baird are the working naturalists of to-day and the teachers of those who are to come, and the two methods of study are being combined and developed to produce re- sults of which we already have good reason to be proud, and the end of which no man can foresee." VIII. The influence of Professor Baird in the encouragement of scientific enterprise was exceedingly great. The relation of the Smithsonian Institution to scientific exploration, espe- cially in natural history and ethnology, is for all time in- separably connected with the history of the country. This department of its work was from its inception under the di- rection of the Assistant Secretary, and so intimately through him was the Institution connected with the scientific work of the exploring expeditions that the annual reports from 1851 to 1871 contain what is practically a complete history of the work of the government in the exploration of the great un- known reoions of the West. This constitutes, in fact, the i8o The Smithsonian Instihttion only systematic record of government explorations for this period which has ever been prepared. The decade beginning with 1850 was one of great activity in exploration. Our frontier was being rapidly extended toward the West, but in the territory between the Mississippi were immense regions which were entirely unknown. Nu- merous government expeditions were sent forth and enor- mous collections were gathered and sent to Washington to be reported upon. The Institution had been designated by law custodian of these collections, and within its walls as- sembled the naturalists by whose exertions they had been brought together. Professor Baird was surrounded by con- ditions most congenial and stimulating, for he found full scope for his energy in arranging scientific outfits for these expedi- tions, preparing instructions for explorers, and, above all, in inspiring them with enthusiasm for the work. To him also fell in large part the task of receiving the col- lections, arranging for the necessary investigations, and the accumulation and publication of the results. The natural history portion of the reports of the Mexican Boundary Surveys, the Pacific Railroad Surveys, and the expeditions of Ives, Marsh, Stansbury, McClellan, and others, as well as those of the Wilkes exploring expe- dition, which remained still under investigation, were all prepared with his cooperation, and in large degree under his supervision. This, however, was only a small part of his work, for he maintained relationships with numerous private collectors, who derived their materials, their books, and, to a consider- able extent, their enthusiasm from him. The various "In- structions to Collectors," which have passed through several editions, as well as numerous circulars written with a similar purpose, originated with him. The Three Secretaries i8i As a result of this work, a large number of men were trained as collectors and observers ; among them not a few who have since become eminent in various departments of science: Gill, Hayden, Girard, Kennicott, Dall, Bannister, Culbertson, Stimpson, Ridgway, Rathbun, Bean, Ryder, True, and Gushing. The list might be extended for many lines. Amone the older men who were thus associated with him were Meek, Cooper, Kennerly, Suckley, Gibbs, New- berry, Parry, Powell — all names familiar in the history of American exploration. Many army officers detailed for this same work became enthusiastic naturalists, and sent in important collections and notes. Some of these men subsequently became famous as military leaders. I have seen a manuscript on the "Moun- tain Sheep," written by General George H. Thomas and pre- pared for the press by Professor Baird. General Winfield Scott and General George B. McClellan both made collec- tions of reptiles in the West, the genus Scotophis and the species PituopJiis McClellanii commemorating their names ; and among other monuments to men also known as military heroes are the species named for McCall, Van Vliet, Graham, Couch, Fremont, and Emory. Even more striking was the enthusiasm of the officers of the Hudson Bay Company in the far North, and with all these men an active personal relationship was m.aintained. " Collections and correspondence," writes Dall, " poured in upon Professor Baird in extraordinary quantity. Not alone was the shedding of its horn by the antelope on the Western plains, or the nesting of the canvasback among Alaskan marshes, the theme of eager letter writing. The ladies of his household might often have been seen among the shops, seeking novels for the army officer at some isolated post, a necktie for a Northern voyager, or the dress goods for a 1 82 The Smithsonian Instihition wedding to come off on the banks of the Mackenzie during the crisp Arctic September." The war of 1861-65 broke rudely into these happy days, and after it closed the old relationships were never entirely resumed, although the Institution was closely related to the natural history work of the early surveys of Hayden, Wheel- er, King, and Powell. Many of the Polar expeditions, and still earlier, the natural history survey of Alaska under the direction of Kennicott and Dall, were largely under the influ- ence of Professor Baird ; while later his interest in Arctic zo- ology manifested itself in the pains which he took to secure the appointment of naturalists as observers at the various stations of the International Meteorological Service. The important explorations of Nelson, Turner, and Murdoch in the far Northwest, and of Kumlien and Turner in Labrador, were thus provided for. IX. Natural history and the directing of explorations were only a portion of that for which he was held officially responsible, for his first duty was from the start in connection with cer- tain departments of routine. The system of international exchanges, for instance, was organized by him in all its de- tails. His first task after entering upon his duties on Octo- ber II, 1850, was to distribute the second volume of the " Contributions to Knowledge." In connection with his pri- vate enterprises he had already developed a somewhat extensive system of exchanges with European and Amer- ican correspondents, and the methods thus established were expanded to meet the wider needs of the Institution. He had in charge also the details of organizing the corps of meteorological observers, and for twenty years wrote out The Three Secretaries 183 with his own hand daily a large number of briefs of letters for the signature of the Secretary. The development of the natural history collections was the work for which he cared the most. As has already been in- dicated, the private collection which he brought with him to Washington formed the nucleus of the Smithsonian Museum. The only specimens in the possession of the Institution at the time of his arrival were a few boxes of minerals and plants. The gatherings of the Wilkes expedition — the legal nucleus of the Museum — were at that time under the charge of the National Institute and arranged in the Patent Office building; but it was not until 1857 that the Regents finally consented that this material should be transferred to its building. Be- fore this time Congress had granted no funds for the support of the Smithsonian cabinets, and its collections had been ac- quired and cared for at the expense of its own endowment. They had, however, become so large and important before 1857 that the so-called "National Collection" at that time acquired was but small in comparison. The National Museum had thus a double origin, its actual, though not its legal, nucleus having been the collection as- sembled at the Smithsonian prior to 1857. Its methods of administration were the very same which had been de- veloped by Professor Baird in Carlisle as early as 1845, and are still in use, having stood the test of nearly fifty years without any necessity for their modification having become apparent. In the fifth annual report of the Institution, now exceed- ingly rare, is a communication by the Assistant Secretary in charge of the Natural History Department, which after enu- merating the specimens belonging to the Museum January i, 1 85 1, discussed fully the possibilities for the development of natural history collections in W^ashington — a remarkable 184 The Smithsonian Institution paper in which the germs of all future development were embodied. The period of the Civil War was one of comparative quiet, though much was accomplished by Baird and his pupils ; and his two most scholarly memoirs — the " Review of Amer- ican Birds " and the " Distribution and Migrations of North American Birds" — were then written. During this decade were continued the summer expedi- tions, usually extending through a period of two or three months, which were yearly more and more exclusively de- voted to the investigation of aquatic life, and ultimately led to the organization of the Fish Commission in 1871. During this period, too, the tendencies toward interest in the problems of general science growing out of his early connection with the " Iconographic Cyclopaedia" began to revive, and he felt a new interest in the popularization of scientific subjects. At the solicitation of Mr. George W. Childs, he took charge in 1867 of the column of scientific intelligence in the Phila- delphia Public Ledger, and about 1870 became the scientific editor of the periodicals published by Harper & Brothers, of New York. His connection with this firm continued until 1878, and in addition to his contributions to other periodicals, there resulted eight volumes of the "Annual Record of Sci- ence and Industry." About the time he became Secretary of the Institution these editorial labors were abandoned, but the idea of the annual record was continued in the appendices to the Smithsonian Report until 1888 under the title of " Record of Progress." X. In 1 87 1 an entirely new interest was intrusted to his care, when he was appointed by President Grant United States The Three Secretaries 185 Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. The duties of this office, although not permitted to interfere with his other offi- cial work, occupied nevertheless a large portion of his time and much of his best thought for the remaining years of his life. The interests of the Fish Commission, so limited at first that they were performed largely by himself and a few volun- teer associates, soon became so extensive that he was obliged to give up personal studies and to work entirely through the agency of others. So rapidly did the work extend in later years that notwithstanding the large and competent staff which the increased appropriations enabled him to employ, the burden of routine grew greater than he was able, with his other responsibilities, to endure, and led to his untimely death. The work of the Fish Commission while under his charge was the most prominent of all the efforts of the government in the way of aggressive scientific research. The law which authorized the appointment of a Commis- sioner of Fish and Fisheries defined his duties as follows : "To prosecute investigations and inquiries on the subject [of the diminution of valuable fishes], with the view of ascer- taining whether any and what diminution in the number of the food-fishes of the coast and the lakes of the United States has taken place ; and, if so, to what causes the same is due ; and also whether any and what protective, prohibitory, or precautionary measures should be adopted in the premises ; and to report upon the same to Congress." The same resolution required that the Commissioner should be a civil officer of the government, of proved scientific a?id practical acquaintance with tJie fishes of the coast. Only one man was eligible under these conditions. Indeed, the office had been made for Professor Baird. 13 1 86 The Smithsonian Institution The work of the Commission was at first limited to the in- vestigation of the causes of the decrease in the food-fishes of the Atlantic coast, and it was in this connection that the sum- mer stations were established in successive years at Eastport, Noank, Portland, Newport, Gloucester, Providence, and finally at Woods Hole, where a permanent station and biological laboratory were erected. It soon came to pass that the Great Lakes and also the rivers were included in the province of the Commission, and that the Commissioner was required to undertake extensive operations in practical fish-culture. This last has now become the most prominent part of the work of the Commission, but was in early years regarded by Profes- sor Baird as incidental to his own interest, which was to dis- cover the facts upon which fish-culture, fishery legislation, and fishery economy in general, must of necessity forever rest. In making his original plans, he had insisted that to study only the food-fishes would be of little importance, and that useful conclusions must need rest upon the broad foundation of purely scientific investigation. The life-histories of econo- mic species were to be understood from beginning to end, but no less requisite was it to know all about the animals and plants upon which they feed or upon which their food is nour- ished ; the habits of their enemies and friends, and the foes and friends of their friends and enemies ; as well as the cur- rents, temperatures, and other physical phenomena of the waters which are so intimately related to migration, repro- duction, and growth. In furtherance of these views, he carried on an exhaustive biological survey of the waters of the United States and of the adjoining regions of the Atlantic and Pacific. What was done by the Fisk Hawk and the Albatross, vessels designed by him and constructed under his personal supervision, has given to our nation a most honorable place among the Gov- The Three Secretaries 187 ernments of the world in the field of deep-sea research. The achievements of the British ship Challenger are famous throughout the world on account of the magnificent series of reports, published by the Government, based upon its collec- tions. The material accumulated by Professor Baird's ves- sels was quite as extensive, and had he lived the reports would have been equally famous. The marine biological laboratory at Woods Hole is the most extensive, and at the time of its completion was one of the best equipped, in the world. Had his plans for it come to fruition, it would have been without a rival among such es- tablishments. Notwithstanding his own taste and inclinations, all per- sonal work in natural history was soon abandoned to others, and his own great powers of administration applied to the practical side of the work — a task for which he had little per- sonal liking. He nevertheless did it with enthusiasm, since he was convinced that the increase in the food supply which he was thus rendering practicable was of the greatest impor- tance to millions of his fellow-citizens. To him was due the inception of what I have termed "public fish-culture," to dis- tinguish it from all previous work of this kind, performed, as it always had been, upon a limited scale, and for the benefit of a few individuals. "Public fish-culture" is fish-culture for the benefit of the masses. It does not depend for its effectiveness upon the as- sistance of protective legislation. It is based upon the idea that it is better so to increase the supply of fishes by artificial propagation that protective laws are not necessary ; that it is cheaper to make fish so abundant that the fisheries need not be restricted, than to spend large sums of money in prevent- ing people from fishing. " Public fish-culture " is essentially democratic and American. In 1S83 I wrote: "'Public fish- 1 88 The Smithsonian Institution culture ' scarcely exists except in America, though in Europe many eminent men of science appreciate its importance and are striving to educate the people up to the point of support- ing it." These words, after the lapse of thirteen years, are still true. In 1883 Professor Huxley remarked: " If the people of Great Britain are going to deal seriously with the sea fisher- ies, and not let them take care of themselves, as they have done for the last thousand years or so, they have a very considerable job before them, and unless they put into the organization of the fisheries the energy, the ingenuity, the scientific knowledge, and the professional skill which char- acterize my friend Professor Baird and his assistants, their efforts are not likely to come to very much good." " I do not think," he added, " that any nation at the present time has comprehended the question of dealing with fish in so thorough, excellent, and scientific a spirit as the United States." The juries of the Fishery Exhibition in Berlin in 1880 said in their official report : " We must thank America for the prog- ress which fish-culture has made during the past decade." The principal French authority, M. Raveret-Wattel, wrote: " Nowhere has a Government given so much enlightened care to the rational cultivation of the waters, and afforded such efficient protection and generous encouragement." The importance of his services to fishery economy were perhaps more fully recognized in Germany than elsewhere. At the first great International Fishery Exhibition, — that held in Berlin in 1880, — the magnificent silver trophy, the first prize of honor, was awarded to him by the Emperor. His portrait was placed over the entrance to the American court, and Herr von Behr, president of the German Fishery Union, never passed beneath it without taking off his hat in honor of The Three Secretaries 189 the man whom he deHghted to call the " first fish culturist of the world " : he insisted that whoever might be in his com- pany should follow his example, and the late Emperor Fred- erick, at that time Crown Prince and " Protector of Fisher- ies," did homage in the same manner to the American phil- anthropist. The German Fishery Union issued a circular immediately after his death, which contained the following appreciative eulogy : " Ein edler Freund in weiter Feme, — ein Wohlthater des Deutschen Fischerei-Vereins, ist dahin geschieden. Wir trauern am Grabe des uneigenniitzigen, schlichten Gelehrten, der ein langes Leben lang den Austausch geistiger Arbeit zwischen Europa und Amerika auf vielen Gebieten der Na- turkunde gepflegt hat, der seit Jahren auch unermiidlich be- strebt war, von dem Reichthume amerikanischer Gewasser an Deutschland abzugeben. Keines Lobes oder auch nur Dan- kes gewartig, hielt sich Professor Baird taglich und stiindlich bereit, Fragen zu beantworten und Aufschliisse zu ertheilen. Noch mehr ; aus eigenem Antriebe bot er dem befreundeten deutschen Fischerei-Verein das beste an, was nach seinem gewiegten Urtheile sich fiir uns eignen konnte. Ihm ver- dankt die Fauna unserer vaterlandischen Strome seit 1878 die Zufiihrunsf von nicht weniger als vier der edelsten Fische aus dem Salmonidengeschlechte, die sammtlich bereits durch Nachzucht unser bleibendes, gesichertes Eigenthum geworden sind, namlich : des Binnensee-Lachses (landlocked salmon), der Regenbogenforelle (rainbow trout), des Bachsaiblings (brook trout), und der amerikanischen Marane (white fish). Auch den in Amerika sobeliebten Black Bass und den Catfish (Zwerwels), von dem wir uns Nutzen fiir die heimischen Strome versprechen, danken wir ihm. Nicht weniger als zehn Millionen befruchteter Eier mogen in seinem Auftrage aus den unermesslichen Schatzen, iiber welche die ' United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries ' zu verfiigen hat, iiber den Ocean uns zuorecrancren sein. 13* iQo The Smithsonian Instihition " Herr Spencer F. Baird war es auch, dessen kraftiger For- derung wir i. J. 1880 den Entschluss der Bundesregierung, die berliner Internationale Ausstellung zu beschicken, we- sentlich verdanken. Mit solcher Umsicht und mit so s^ross- artiger Vollstandigkeit wurde die amerikanische Abtheilung derselben ausgeriistet, dass man sie ohne Weiteres als die lehrreichste und wichtigste aller Ausstellungen der Fremde bezeichnen konnte, so dass der grosse Ehrenpreis Sr. Maje- stat des Kaisers dem Professor Baird zugesprochen wurde. *' Moge Amerika die Verdienste des edlen Mannes einge- hend darstellen und dauernd ehren, der das Ehrenamt als Vorsitzender der ofenannten Kommission, durch iiberreiche Zuwendung der Bundeskasse und die Freigebigkeit der Ei- senbahngesellschaften unterstlitzt, mit so kraftiger Initiative zur Erneuerung des bereits dezimirten Fischbestandes aus- nutzte, — der die nur in einzelen Stromgebieten heimschen Fische alien andern im Osten und Westen des gewaltigen Landes zuganglich machte, — der sogar Dampfschiffe bauen liess, um sie als bewegliche Bruthauser zu benutzen, — dem auch jeder Versuch willkommen war, europaische Fische driiben zu akklimatisiren. Dass wir in letzterer Hinsicht dem unvergesslichen Freunde auch unserseits haben dienst- bar sein konnen, gereicht uns zur lebhaften Genugthuung. Zwei dem amerikanischen Festlande frliher unbekannte Ar- ten, der Karpfe und die Forelle, sind von Deutschland aus dort eingefUhrt worden. Beide mit staunenswerthem Erfolge. Der Karpfe, namentlich, hat driiben (wenn der Ausdruck ge- stattet wird) ein neues Leben begonnen. Wie er in kijrze- ster Frist zu kaum gekannten Massen heranwachst, so bemii- hen sich die Amerikaner ihrerseits mit wahrhafter Vorliebe um den Ankommling; eine eigene Zeitschrift beschaftigt sich seit Kurzem mit den Schicksalen des Karpfen in jedem Theile der Union. Wir vernehmen mit Befriedigung, dass sein mehr jahriger Mitarbeiter, Herr Professor Brown Goode, nunmehr seine Stelle iibernehmen soil. Moo^e der liebenswUrdio-e Ge- lehrte, dessen sich viele von unserer Fischereiausstellung her erinnern werden, in die Fusstapfen seines Vorgangers voll und wiirdiglich eintreten. Uns wird er allezeit bereit finden, The Three Secretaries 191 mit ihm in demselben Geiste der Briiderlichkeit, der uns niit dem Verewigten verband, waiter zu arbeiten. "Spencer F. Baird war am 8 Februar 1823 zu Reading in Pennsylvanien geboren. Er war Vorsteher des Smithsonian Institute zu Washington. Am 18 August d. J. verschied er zu Wood's Holl. Im Herzen seiner deutschen wie seiner amerikanischen Freunde wird er lange, lange fortleben. Ave, cara anima / " ^ XI. In May, 1878, he was unanimously elected to succeed Pro- fessor Henry as the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In this position he continued the policy of his predecessor, though with more attention to exploration. The number of publications was increased and more attention paid to the development of the library. He secured legislation authoriz- ing the expansion of the endowment fund invested in the Treasury to one million dollars, and began to agitate the question of scholarships in connection with the Institution. During his administration, too, was erected the annex build- ing to contain the overflow of the collections of the National Museum, which had been so suddenly expanded through his influence at the Philadelphia Exposition. To the construc- tion of this building, which covers an area of nearly two and a half acres, he gave his personal attention, and completed it for less than the amount of the appropriation, turning a small balance into the Treasury, something which has rarely hap- pened in the erection of government buildings, and which is still remembered in Congress as remarkable. The building has been severely criticized because of its lack of architectural dignity, but it is by far the cheapest structure of the kind ever built, the cost for each square foot of floor space available for exhibition having been only two 1 Circular No. 4 (pages 59, 60), Berlin, October 13, 1887. 192 The Smithsonian Institution dollars and a half, while no other museum building has cost less than eleven dollars for the same unit. It was regarded by Professor Baird as a temporary structure, and he acted upon the theory, which experience has shown to be a wise one, that in order to secure for the future a museum worthy of the nation, the first necessity was a building of great ca- pacity, in which the extraordinary opportunities at that time presented for accumulating and organizing great collections could be utilized. The larger portion of his time was still occupied by his duties as Commissioner of Fisheries, yet the Institution and its dependencies were constantly in his mind, and the ten years of his incumbency were marked by an extraordinary expansion in every direction of the Institution's potentiality for the future. Honors were showered upon him from every quarter of the world. The King of Norway and Sweden, in 1875, made him a Knight of the Order of St. Olaf; in 1878 he received the medal of the Acclimatization Society of Melbourne ; in 1879 the gold medal of the Societe d'Acclimatation de France. He was an honorary member of many scientific societies in England, Germany, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Austra- lia, New Zealand, Holland, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States. Even Japan was not unmindful of his services to science, and from distant Yezo came soon after his death a little volume printed on silk containing his portrait and an appreciation in Japanese. A few months before his death, at the 250th anniversary of Harvard University, he received the degree of LL. D. This was one of the few occasions upon which he was ever induced to ascend the platform in a public place. The village of Baird, in Shasta County, California, was named for him in 1877. The Three Secretaries 193 His most lasting memorials, however, are those living- monuments which commemorate the activity of naturalists — the animals which are named for them by their disciples. Of these there are more than forty, conspicuous among which are Baird's Tapir {E lasmogiiatJius Bairdii), a large mammal of Central America ; Baird's Dolphin {Delphinus Bairdii), a species found in the Pacific waters of the United States ; and Baird's Octopus, the first conspicuous new form of inver- tebrate discovered in the early explorations of the Fish Com- mission on the New England coast. The most modest of men. Professor Baird cared not for public recognition. Mis indifference to self was his most conspicuous characteristic. He could never be induced to address an audience, something which seems all the more remarkable to his friends, who remember how winning was his eloquence when he talked in the presence of a few. The power of his persuasive suavity was never better seen than when in the presence of the committees of Congress be- fore whom he was summoned from year to year to justify his requests for money to be used in the extension of his work. He was always received with the heartiest welcome, and these keen, bustling, practical men of business, who ordinarily rushed with the greatest of expedition through the routine of the day, forgot their usual hurry when Professor Baird was before them, and listened so long as he could be induced to talk, and not infrequently would wander from the business before them to ask him questions upon subjects which his re- marks suggested. A very practical evidence of their appre- ciation was the prompt action upon the bill, passed soon after his death, giving twenty-five thousand dollars to his widow in recognition of the uncompensated services which he had ren- dered as Commissioner of Fisheries. 194 The Smithsonian Institution XII. His personal traits have been sympathetically described by intimate friends in the many eulogies which were published soon after his death, and the appreciations of his character presented by Billings, Dall, Ridgway, Sharpe, and Powell have a peculiar interest, since each writer has depicted a phase of his character especially familiar to himself To these are now added two others, the first written by Pro- fessor John S. Newberry, who had known him as early as 1850, and the other by Professor Harrison Allen of Phila- delphia, whose acquaintance was of somewhat later date. Professor Newberry writes : " His most marked characteristics, and those which gained the affection and admiration of all who were brought into contact with him, were his great knowledge, his geniality, and his phenomenal industry. His courtesy was proverbial, and his remarkable success in dealing with jealous and often antagonistic government departments was largely due to his tact and sagacity. He seemed always to get what he wanted, but it was by a geniality which melted down all opposition, and never by the tricks and subterfuges so common among politicians. His suavity was irresistible, making allies and helpers of friends, and disarming all antagonists. " As a consequence of the possession of all these charming qualities, and as a reward for the kindness he was sooner or later doing to every one about him, he was without an enemy, and more popular and beloved than any other man I have known. " I have said that his industry was phenomenal : he really seemed never to waste a moment ; he had a wonderful head for details and was an ideal business man. All the innumer- able ramifications of the practical work of the Smithsonian were not only known to, but were really controlled by him ; The Three Secretaries 195 every moment of his time was occupied, and he worked with singular speed and efficiency ; yet he was never hurried or flustered and never so much engrossed in his work but that he had a pleasant word for strangers, and an open ear to all the wishes or complaints of his numerous assistants and em- ployees. When busiest in tabulating the results of the enor- mous collections which were accumulated at the Smithsonian by his means, if his daughter, then a child, came with any request, he turned from his work to listen to her prattle, and lent himself to her wants and wishes as though he had nothing else in the world to attend to. His wife was a great invalid, and there were days when, very nervous, she could scarcely spare him from her sight. I have known him to sit for many hours at her bedside, holding her hand in one of his while with the other he went on with his writing, ready at any instant to administer to her wants and wishes, and yet utilizing every free moment. " His administrative abilities were of the very highest order. As has been said, he not only managed the business of the Institution in all its arrangements with remarkable success, but he instituted and carried out a system of observa- tions and collections in natural history that covered the entire North American continent. All the departments of govern- ment were ready to make their machinery tributary to his wants ; the express companies and other lines of transporta- tion carried all his articles free, the agents of the Hudson Bay Company even to the Arctic Circle ; and both officials and private persons in Mexico and the West Indies constituted themselves representatives of the Smithsonian, and were con- stantly sending in gratuitously collections which would have cost, if paid for, thousands of dollars. Within the United States Professor Baird had friends and correspondents every- where, who were working along his lines in the interest of science. In all this he really was Napoleonic, and the result was that the old Smithsonian building was crowded with priceless treasures in every department of natural science, and the National Museum, his creation, was erected and filled ; and now the channels he opened are bringing to 196 The Smithsonian Insfitufion Washingfton such a flood of material that a new museum is absolutely indispensable for its reception.^ "The Fish Commission, with all its grand results, is the product of his enterprise and good management. This in it- self would constitute a monument that should satisfy the am- bition of any man, but it is only one of the good works of the purest, best, kindliest, and most useful man of science America has yet produced. " He was constantly doing good to others, and was the most unselfish of men. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to encourage and push forward the young men about him. "Among the collections which I brought from Oregon was a woodpecker, supposed to be new. Of this he wrote and published a description, crediting the species to me without my knowledge or consent, for the credit of the discovery all belonged to him. He was just as generous in his dealings with all others, and he seemed to be entirely free from the desire for notoriety which is so common among scientific men. He had his ambition, of course, but it was of a lofty and un- selfish kind, for the advancement of science ; and for the ac- complishment of this he preferred to encourage and help all true workers rather than to monopolize material and gain honor and fame for himself. " Only once did I have any difference with Professor Baird. I questioned the policy of Professor Henry, who desired to make the Smithsonian a mere bureau of information and an 1 Doctor Billings writes : " It was the pos- friend, Mr. Marsh, about a scheme for a na- sibility of creating a great museum of natural tional museum, and a year later he got so far history that inducedhim to come to the Smith- as to consider plans and size of buildings, sonian, and he never lost sight of this object ; having in view apparently something like the but for a long time he had to work largely by Crystal Palace. He was not working aim- indirect methods. He did not directly op- lessly all those years. He could not have pose the policy of Professor Henry, and al- what he wanted just then, but he had faith ways worked harmoniously with him, but he in the future, and meantime went on with his lost no opportunity of increasing the collcc- duties, which Mr. Marsh [Life and Letters tions, and constantly urged that the best way of George P. Marsh. Volume i, page 262]. to induce Congress to grant the means of characterized as 'answering of foolish letters, caring for such things was to accumulate ma- directing of packages to literary societies, terial worth caring for until its amount and reading of proof-sheets, and other mechanical value should be such that pulilic opinion ojierations pertaining unto tlie diffusion of would demand ample accommodation for it. knowledge.'" ("Biographical Memoirs of the So early as 1853 we find him writing to his National Academy." Volume III, page I45.) The Three Secretaries 197 office for the publication of such scientific papers as were too voluminous or abstract to be given to the public through other channels. The library and museum were, therefore, looked upon by him with little favor. On the contrary, I thought the Smithsonian should be a bureau of investigation, where scientific material should be accumulated and studied by the help of a fine scientific library. So I opposed the transfer of the library to the Capitol as the giving up of an important part of the machinery of the Smithsonian. What- ever Professor Baird's private views on this subject may have been he was so loyal to his chief as never to encourage or countenance any opposition to his wishes. I felt, as I feel now, that the influence exerted by the Smithsonian on the government and the people of Washington will be measured by the space it occupies and the tangible evidence it furnishes to the public of the work it is doing. So I rejoice that the Smithsonian has preserved and greatly increased its collec- tions, until its museum is now the finest in the country, and a source of instruction and delight to the thousands on thou- sands who visit the capital. Time has, I think, vindicated my views with reference to the library, and it is recognized that, as one of several collections of books, a scientific library is an indispensable part of its machinery. " An effort was made by those who were envious of the great success of Professor Baird in accumulating scientific material to have the abundant collections brought to the Smithsonian by governmental expeditions distributed to other museums. Fortunately, Professor Baird's opposition to this scheme prevented its success ; yet no one, except those who were about him at the time, knows how much labor and anxiety the retention of the museum cost him. But for him, the splendid array of scientific material which is now the glory of the Smithsonian would never have been gathered or retained." Professor Allen writes : "My acquaintance with Professor Baird began in 1861. At that time I was studying medicine in Philadelphia, and. 198 The Smithsonian Institution since the study of the natural sciences was recommended, I was in the habit of frequenting the library of the Academy of Natural Sciences. One day, while reading Griffith's transla- tion of Cuvier's " Regne Animal," I was approached by a gen- tleman who asked me what I was reading. I chanced to be looking over the chapter which treated of the bats. In the course of the conversation that ensued he advised me to go to the specimens rather than to content myself with reading about them. This was the first notice I had ever received from any one, and the advice made a deep impression upon my mind. I afterward ascertained that the strange gentle- man was Professor Baird. He was often in Philadelphia, being in constant communication with Mr. John Cassin, the ornithologist, and I had many opportunities of meeting him. The training in habits of exact observation gained by study- ing zoology has been of great advantage to me in my profes- sion, and I have always felt an indebtedness to Professor Baird for his advice and encouragement. " During the period that I remained in the army as assis- tant surgeon, Professor Baird exerted his influence to obtain for me posts of duty which permitted me to pursue my stud- ies in natural history. I remained for the most part from 1862 to 1865 in close association with him at the Smithsonian Institution. " Professor Baird impressed me as a great organizer. His interest in men was much the same as that taken by a gen- eral in the officers under his command. It appeared to be created by a desire to get certain work done by his lieuten- ants, but ended in awakening in his mind an affectionate con- cern for their happiness. The field before him was so vast that he had need of all collaborators. Nothing appeared to give him more satisfaction than to hear of new students com- ing forward. " It is too soon to estimate the value of his achievements in perfecting a scheme of a national collection. But this much can be temperately said — namely, that the plan of the magnifi- cent museum at Washington is entirely of his own creation. The difficulties which attended the formation of this plan The Three Secretaries 199 were greater than is generally known. On one occasion, at least, these would have led in any other man less sagacious than himself to failure of the entire conception. He came to the Smithsonian Institution at a time when its policy was not defined. No one can now estimate as he did the obstacles to be overcome in giving shape to the materials about him ; for not only the apathy of the public, but the opposition of men of influence, both in and out of Washington, had to be overcome and changed to sympathy at every step. " Professor Baird was optimistic in his views of life, judi- cial in temperament, liberal in religion, catholic in his opin- ions, wise and shrewd in his conduct of affairs. He had a genial vein of humor. In his literary tastes he was singularly free from pedantry, and entertained a sympathy so wide that he was the most approachable of men. I have often won- dered at his patience. Nothing appeared to excite him. I never saw him in ill-temper. To an extent probably without parallel in the history of science, he combined the functions of administrator and investigator. This combination did not interfere apparently with the kind of work he selected. This was purely descriptive and was pursued in a fragmentary way, — subject to innumerable interruptions and revisions with- out impairment. He once told me that he wrote his book on North American birds in sittings which could not have aver- aged over fifteen minutes. His industry was enormous. He lost no time either by impaired health or by misdirected ef- forts ; indeed, he was a personification of systematic energy. Thus doubtless it came to pass that the ends for which he so persistently fought were achieved, and his name will be asso- ciated for all time with the first comprehensive plan for the organization of science in America." XIII. About sixteen years before his death, his elder brother, to whom he was devotedly attached, and who had been his as- sociate in his earliest natural-history work, died of heart dis- 200 The Smithsonian Institution ease. As early as 1855 Professor Baird had been conscious of weakness in the same organ, probably the result of the sudden change from athletic outdoor pursuits to desk-work which accompanied his coming to the Smithsonian. In 1873, when he proposed to me to become his confidential assistant, he told me that his condition was such that all exertion, and even mental anxiety, was to be avoided at any cost. I do not doubt that this knowledge of physical weakness and the re- sultant discipline contributed to strengthen the calmness and self-control to which so much of his success in later years was due. This habit had been formed in very early life. Only twice was he ever known to show anger : when, at the age of twenty, some one abused his favorite Newfoundland dog ; and once in the first years of his connection with the Institu- tion, when a confidential letter from his aged mother was opened and read by a clerk in the course of official routine. From early youth until failing strength forbade he kept a journal of his daily pursuits, and this, together with immense piles of copy-books and letter-files, will afford a treasure to his biographer. When the history of his life and times shall be written, it will be a history of the natural sciences in America in the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. He once remarked to me that he was satisfied that no man's life was of such importance to the people among whom he lived that he might not easily be replaced by another who would fully fill his place. As I looked at the man before me, a giant in body and in mind, a treasury of untransferable ex- perience and wisdom, it seemed to me that if his judgment was in general a true one, in him at least there was an ex- ception. And so it has proved. Ten years have passed by since he died, and his like has not been found. The T J tree Secretaries 201 SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY I. SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY was born in Rox- bury, Massachusetts, August 22, 1834. At the age of eleven he entered the Boston Latin School, and afterward the Boston High School, from which he was graduated in 1 85 1. He was not sent to college, since his tastes tended at that time entirely toward mathematical and mechanical pursuits. Astronomy, the study which attracted him most, could scarcely in those days be expected to offer a career. He decided to become a civil engineer, since in that profes- sion he would find employment for his mathematical taste, for his natural manual dexterity, and his aptness in the use of mechanical methods. From engineering to architecture is not a distant remove, and he presently entered the office of a Boston architect, as student. In 1857 he began the practice of his profession in the West, but the panic of that year interfered seriously with his prospects. The next few years were passed in Chicago and St. Louis, leading to little profit at the time, though the business discipline and the skill as a draughtsman which he then acquired were to be fruitful of results in later years. In 1864 he returned to Boston, having decided to abandon architecture, but with no other plans for the future. His brother, John Williams Langley, also at this time returned to his old home in Roxbury, having just finished three years of active service as surgeon in the navy. The two brothers devoted some months to the building of a telescope, and then 14 202 The Smithsonian Institution went together to Europe, where they remained for nearly a year. Here they studied the Continental languages and made leisurely visits to the principal art collections and to places of historic interest. In the fall of 1865 they returned to New England. Still uncertain as to the future, but not yet supposing that its promise could possibly be in the direction of astronomy, he learned that the observatory in Cambridge was to be reorganized, and that new assistants were being selected. Presenting himself to the Director, Professor Joseph Win- lock, he was cordially received, and the dream of his life was realized. He was at last to become an astronomer. Thus at the age of thirty he began the serious work of his life. He was by no means a novice, for he had been an eager student of astronomical works, and had made with his own hands telescopes of successively larger size, one of which, with a seven-inch aperture, was mounted so effectively that it could be used in serious work of observation. Strange to say, however, he had never formed the acquaintance of any astronomer, and had scarcely, except as a tourist in Europe, visited an astronomical observatory. From this time on progress was sufficiently rapid to make amends for his diversion to other interests in earlier years, and before he had reached the age of forty he was recognized as one of the most brilliant observers and one of the most original philosophic reasoners and astronomers of the century. In 1866 he went from Cambridge to Annapolis, having been offered the place of Assistant Professor of Mathematics in the United States Naval Academy. Here, in connection with his other duties, he reorganized the small observatory which had been projected by Professor Chauvenet about i860 but abandoned upon the removal of the Academy to Newport during the Civil War. He remounted and put into service The Three Secretaries 203 the equatorial and the meridian circles, and prepared the observatory for practical work, an experience which was to be of much service to him in the greater responsibilities of his next field of duty. In the following year he was invited to become Director of the Allegheny Observatory, and Professor of Astronomy and Physics in the Western University of Pennsylvania, with which this observatory was connected. The university was in Pittsburg, but the observatory was seated on the crest of a lofty hill in the adjacent city of Allegheny. This posi- tion he accepted with the expectation of occupying it for a short time only ; but in Pittsburg and Allegheny he was to remain and labor for twenty years to come. In 1887 he was appointed by Professor Baird First Assis- tant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in charge of Library and Exchanges. He still retained his place in Pitts- burg, where he passed part of the year, but owing to the failing health of Professor Baird it soon became necessary for him to assume the duties of Acting Secretary. After the death of Professor Baird in 1887, he was elected to the Sec- retaryship. II. From early boyhood he was interested in the very questions to which the studies of his later years have been devoted. In regard to this he has recently related some very suggestive reminiscences : " I cannot remember when I was not interested in astron- omy. I remember reading books upon the subject as early as at nine, and when I was quite a boy I learned how to make little telescopes, and studied the stars through them. Later I made some larger ones, and though they were, of course, nothing like those we use here, I think myself they were very 204 The Smithsonian Institution good for a boy. One of the most wonderful things to me was the sun, and as to how it heated the earth. I used to hold my hands up to it and wonder how the rays made them warm, and where the heat came from and how. I asked many questions, but I could get no satisfactory replies, and some of these childish questions have occupied many years of my later life in answering. I remember, for instance, one of the wonders to me was a common hotbed. I could not see how the glass kept it warm while all around was cold, and when I asked, I was told that ' of course ' the glass kept in the heat ; but though my elders saw no difficulty about it, I could not see why, if the heat went in through the glass, it could not come out again. Since then I have spent many years in studying the way that that great hotbed, the earth itself on which we live, is, by a like principle, made warmer by the atmosphere that covers it." Professor John W. Langley, of the Case School of Applied Sciences in Cleveland, writes in response to a recent letter of inquiry : " My brother quite early in life showed a marked fondness for astronomy. I remember that when he was about twenty years old he used to make small telescopes. In this work I used to help him, and being his junior in years, my position was that of first assistant. '* With these early telescopes it was possible to see Jupi- ter's moons, and the phases of Venus ; Saturn appeared as an elliptical object with a faint indication of a separation between the planet and its ring. "Somewhat later, in the autumn of 1864, we had about three months in which both of us were free from fixed duties, and we decided to build a reflecting telescope. My brother and I had made the acquaintance of Alvan Clark, Sr., who at that time was a portrait painter. He had a studio in Tremont Street, Boston, but he was just abandoning art for optics, and his studio contained about as many lenses in an unfinished state as it did portraits, also incomplete. At this SAMUEL PIERPOI^T LANGLEY. THIRD SIOCRKTAIiY OF THE SMITHSOXIAX INSTITrTrOX. ELECTED IN 1887. most wonderful tl it and wondc: t came hnvo nr.c: .,.r1 T ,-vM Ar] ■■V : i 1 U cLil di ■ LUiU Lii. ^ i- < . r , .,.-,,,..^^. icat ; LUL Luuuga n'r' '^ t see 1 • r ■ that that gicat he :e pri wa'- ho we jnomy. . old he used to make sn rst assistant. early telescopes it nhases o^ Venus : was about twei Ii of s n 'irait p. T T 1. .' Ui "'i^- rrM'Ai)Vi ls, ai -mplete. At .7881 Vil aaTOSTJJI The Three Secretaries 205 time the Smithsonian Institution had recently published a monograph by the younger Draper, of New York, on the making of a reflecting telescope. This, and the advice of Mr. Clark, were all we had to go upon. We had a small foot- lathe and a few tools in the barn belonging to the house where we were living, and with this outfit we undertook to make a reflecting telescope seven inches in diameter by five feet in focal length, all the work on which, both optical and me- chanical, was to be by our own hands, and nothing but crude material and a few necessary tools were to be purchased. Above all things, no lenses or other completed optical appara- tus were on any account to be bought; we were to make it all. ** Under these conditions of limited outfit and no experi- ence, progress was slow, but we persevered. After weeks of labor, a speculum would be assumed to have the right shape, and ready for an optical test. This generally showed all stars with wings, like small comets, and single objects like a distant flag-staff, as a double stick with an attendant company of ghosts. Then the speculum went back into the grinding bed and was wholly reshaped. Eventually all the spare time of nearly three years was spent on this telescope, but suc- cess was finally reached, the instrument showing practically perfect definition for one of its type and size ; but probably the finished reflector represented at least twenty others abandoned or reground before this result was reached. My brother's interest in astronomy and his perseverance would not allow us to be satisfied with anything short of a practical degree of perfection." In those days of boyhood, as the writer has often heard Mr. Langley relate, he was deeply interested in the question of flight, and spent many an afternoon watching the motions of hawks and other birds. His taste for mechanical pursuits was early developed. He made all kinds of tools and instruments which were re- quired in his boyish experiments, and the degree of his skill may be judged from the fact that he was able to grind mir- 14* 2o6 The Suiithsonian Institution rors, sufficiently accurate for good astronomical work, with apparatus entirely of his own making. III. The career of which an outline has now been presented is full of susfo-estions for those who have under consideration the theory of educational methods. Still more instructive is it to the student of heredity ; all the more so because there exists in this case a somewhat unusual opportunity for the examination of the sources whence has doubtless been de- rived the power of this sturdy and potent intellect. It often happens in America, that "smelting-pot of the nations," as Froude has called it, that among the ancestors of any individual are included not only several European races, but the residents of a number of different colonies, almost as distinct in mental characteristics and tendencies, in early days, as the several European nations. In this case it is not so. Mr. Langley's forefathers all came, in the first instance, to Massachusetts, mostly in the early part of the seventeenth century, and in Massachusetts their descendants, with few exceptions, remained until the end of Colonial days. The names of nearly one hundred and fifty of them are known, and they bear for the most part old English sur- names with a slight intermingling of Welsh, and one which has a French sound. All are characteristic of Boston, and of the neighboring towns which are now actually or practi- cally absorbed in it.^ The mingling, in this case so potent 1 The names, for which, for tlie most part, Hayward, Hills, Howell, Kettell, Langley, I am indebted to the antiquarian knowledge Ludkin, Lynde, Mather, Mayo, Phillips, of Mr. A. Howard Clark, are the following : Pierce, Pierpont, Pratt, Reynn, Shapleigh, Allen, Anderson, Bachelder, Baker, Boyls- Sheperdson, Smith, Sprague, Stalham, Sum- ton, Bradish, Branson, Call, Clap, Clark, ner, Sweetser, Thompson, Tufts, Upham, Corbin, Cotton, Crosswell, Davis, Deming, \Vaite,Ward, West, Wetherell,WharfT, White, Dowse, Fosdick, Foster, Franklin, Goffe, Wigglesworth, Williams, \\'ise, Wood. The Three Secretaries 207 in result, has been that of famiUes of diverse origin and occupation, such as would scarcely have been likely to come together in an old and established community. If one were asked to say what elements it would be best to mingle to produce Mr. Langley's peculiar type of mind, the theoretical response would probably be very close to that which is found to exist in fact. Of the eighty male ancestors who have been identified, the occupations of only about thirty- five are certainly known ; most of the others were probably farmers or others of quiet, retired pursuits, who lived to ripe old age, handing down to their descendants great vitality and powers of long-living. An unusual number, at least eighteen or twenty, were skilful mechanics and artisans ; six at least were mariners, and most of these were sea captains. On the other hand is found a group of the most intellectual men of early New England ; four of them clergymen, three school- masters, one a physician, five at least graduates of Harvard, one of Oxford, and one of Cambridge. Besides these, there were a number who were leaders in public affairs, and who aided in extending the frontier of the infant nation, and in protecting it against invaders, Indian and European. Six were members of Colonial legislative bodies, three were lawyers and judges, eight held military commissions in the Colonial wars, or in the Revolution, while among the col- laterals closely related to these same ancestors were many who held representative places in the intellectual life of the young colony. Among the ancestors were the Reverend Richard Mather, who came from Lancaster, in England ; his son, the Reverend Doctor Increase Mather, President of Harvard College, and author of the first American work upon astronomy; ^ and his 1 Kometographia, or a Discourse Concern- Stars is Enquired into: With an Historical Ac- ing Comets ; wherein the Nature of Blazing count of all the Comets which have appeared 2o8 The Smithsonian Institution grandson, the Reverend Cotton Mather, the last two both early members of the Royal Society of London ; also, the Reverend John Cotton, D.D., author of nearly fifty books, all published in London, — he who introduced into New Eng- land the custom of keeping the Sabbath from evening to evening. Others were Colonel John Phillips, of Charleston, treasurer of the Province of Massachusetts ; Lieutenant Ralph Sprague, lieutenant of the Provincial forces in the Pequot War, and Captain John Sprague, his son, both members of the Massachusetts General Court ; William Sumner and his son. Lieutenant George Sumner, of Dorchester and Milton, both deputies to the General Court ; Edward Howell, Esquire, one of the founders of Southampton (in 1642, the first Eng- lish settlement within the present limits of New York), and his son. Major John Howell, both members of the Provincial Legislature of Connecticut; Captain Stephen Williams, of Roxbury, who commanded a troop of horse on the frontier from 1707 to 1 71 2, and Colonel Joseph Williams, his grand- son, who served in the Mohawk War, the Canadian campaign of 1758, and in the Revolution, Captain Samuel Langley, Mr. Langley's great-grandfather, was also a Revolutionary soldier and commanded a company of veterans engaged in the suppression of Shay's Rebellion. And then there was another military ancestor, remembered in family tradition, who always wore a red coat, and who " when he saw a man whose face he did not like, knocked him down." This may have been Joseph Pierpont, of Roxbury, who, local history tells, fought with the Honorable Captain William Montagu, brother of the Earl of Sandwich, commonly called " Mad Montagu," and drubbed him within an inch of his life ; so from the beginning of the World into this pre- Boston, in New England. . . . Boston in sent year MDCLXXXIII. . . . As also two New England. Printed by S. G. for S. S. Sermons Occasioned by the late Blazing Stars. and sold by F. Browning. . . . 1683. octo- By Increase Mather, Teacher of a Church at decimo, pages (12) I-143+I. ■ The Three Secretaries 209 thoroughly, Indeed, that Montagu held him in high regard ever after. ^ Among those who were close of kin to Mr. Langley's forefathers were Michael Wigglesworth, author of that stern Calvinistic poem, "The Day of Doom," and the Reverend Nathaniel Ward, the earliest of political satirists in America, whose pamphlet, "The Simple Cobler of Aggawam," is one of the classics of our literature. There were also Doctor Zabdiel Boylston, of Boston, the successful pioneer of small- pox inoculation in America, elected to the Royal Society in 1785, in recognition of his achievements as a naturalist, and his son John Boylston, founder of the Boylston Fund ; the Reverend John Cotton, who revised and edited Eliot's Indian Bible, and his brother Josiah, missionary, and author of the first vocabulary of the language of the Indians of Massa- chusetts ; and all the Mathers, — a wonderful group of men. A little further removed were John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Presidents of the United States, and John Cotton Smith, Governor of Connecticut. These facts, however interesting in themselves, are men- tioned here solely because of their bearing upon the question of heredity. Traits and tendencies transmitted from parent to child cannot be measured and summed up in a statistical manner. The character of these can only be suggested by an enumeration like the one which has just been attempted, following in some degree the method of Galton. It is interesting to note, in passing, that Mr. Langley, though a Yankee of the Yankees, descended on all sides from families resident in New England from two hundred to two hundred and sixty years, has none of the traits, physical or mental, which are popularly, though erroneously, supposed to 1 Drake, Francis Samuel, " The Town of Roxbury," Boston, 1878, page 326. 2IO The Smithsonian Institution be characteristic of New England, but would in Great Britain pass anywhere as an excellent example of the very best Eng- lish type. He was, a-s a boy, a most diligent and omnivorous reader, interested alike in literature, art, and science, and utilized the excellent public libraries of Boston, especially that of the Athenaeum, and was often in attendance at the lectures of the Lowell Institute. At the beginning of his scientific career his intellectual capital appears to have been quite remarkable in extent and character. His mind was well stocked with the best thoughts of the great minds of the past. He possessed a cultivated literary taste, ripened by an acquaintance with the art of the Old World, the effect of which was at once evident when he began to write for publication. He had skill in the manipu- lation of tools, machinery, and instruments of precision, and was able to direct others in their use. He was a practical en- gineer, familiar with the computations and the applications of mechanics and physics ; so familiar, indeed, that they were mere pastime to him in their ordinary forms, and that his mind was free to rove, like that of Leonardo da Vinci, in search of abstruse and curious variants. He was a skilful mechanical draughtsman. He was a trained man of business, thrifty, alert, and progressive. Beyond all this his unjaded mind, while mindful of the most minute details, was quick to grasp the essence of the problems which he was studying. His thoughts were almost prophetic in regard to the probable result of experiments which he was about to begin, yet he was ready to seize upon new developments as they occurred, no matter how unexpected. His inquiries were forced to their results with vigorous insistence. His conclusions were de- veloped so clearly, definitely, and positively that it was im- possible to misunderstand his meaning. So clearly were The lliree Secretaries 211 these fixed in his thought that he was able to explain them even to those entirely unfamiliar with the subject. Notwith- standing this freedom from ambiguity so characteristic of all his statements, scarcely any of the conclusions of the past twenty-five years have been called in question, or given occa- sion for general criticism or debate. These characteristics, it may safely be said, he brought with him to his work, as a part of his equipment. His publications of 1874 exhibited these as fully as do those of 1896; yet at the age of sixty- two he retains them all. " His eye is not dim nor his natural force abated." IV. When Mr. Langley went to Pittsburg in 1867, he found there an observatory only in name. It consisted of a build- ing in which was mounted an equatorial telescope of thirteen inches aperture, bought by the university from a local club of amateur astronomers. Besides this, there was no apparatus whatever, not even a clock, and the equatorial itself was with- out the necessary accessories. There was neither library nor endowment, and the director of the observatory was at liberty to carry on original investigations only when this could be done without neglecting his duties as instructor in the college. Before beginning his work as an astronomer, it was imperatively necessari^ that he should find some means by which this work could be carried on, and to secure an income to provide for the instrumental expenses of the establishment, his object in going to Pittsburg having been, not primarily to teach, but to secure opportunity for original investigation. From the poverty of the Allegheny Observatory came 212 The Smithsonian Institution forth a result which was of great importance to the entire country; this was the inauguration of "time service" sys- tems. Although the transmission of time signals from the Greenwich Observatory to the city of London was suc- cessfully accomplished a few years after the introduction of the electro-magnetic telegraph in 1844, the service in Great Britain was confined to a limited area during the next twenty-five years. The British Astronomer Royal in 1869 stated: "The time signals pass, amongst other places, to the chief London of- fices of the Electric and International Telegraph Company, and thence this company sends signals automatically to about twenty of the chief towns of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The signals are also thus sent to the principal London rail- way stations."^ In America the Naval Observatory in Washington, the observatory of Harvard College, and Doctor Benjamin A. Gould, of Albany, had prior to 1869 sent out time signals for short distances, "but only in a tentative and discontinuous fashion." Late in that year Mr. Langley, as Director of the Allegheny Observatory, submitted a proposal " for regulating from this observatory the clocks of the Pennsylvania Central and other railroads associated with it." Upon the Pennsylvania Sys- tem, then comprising over 2500 miles of railroad east and west of Pittsburg, over 300 telegraph offices were located. In the year 1870 Mr. Langley inaugurated the system by which accurate time signals were communicated automatically twice daily to each of these offices, and " eventually some 8000 miles of railway were run by this single Allegheny 1 See letter to Mr. S. P. Langley, quoted in circular of December i, 1S69, issued by Allegheny Observatory. The Three Secretaries 213 Observatory clock " ; and to this was added the supply of the time to the adjacent cities by a system which made it accessible to every inhabitant. The Pennsylvania was the first great railway to establish and put into effect a systematic and permanent plan for the simultaneous transmission of time signals throughout its entire line, and to Mr. Langley is due the credit of first successfully solving the problem of transmitting time signals over this American line, many times greater in extent and much more complex in character than the com- paratively short English railways, where by the method then in vogue the accuracy of the clocks in the inter- mediate stations depended entirely upon a comparison with watches, which, after being set by the standard clocks in the terminal stations, were sent out along the line by trainmen charged with the duty of regulating the time- pieces and reporting inaccuracies. The present system by which the railroad service of the whole continent is regulated may be said to be an out- growth of that developed nearly thirty years ago at Alle- gheny by Mr. Langley. In a letter to Mr. Langley dated May 27, 1872, William Thaw, Vice-President and execu- tive officer of the Pennsylvania Company, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Allegheny Observatory, wrote : "I regard the time service as peculiarly your crea- tion and dependent solely on you." Mr. Thaw also stated that he had communicated the fact officially in writing in a report to the Board. The income thus derived from the regulation of the time service was applied exclusively to the uses of the Allegheny Observatory, which obtained from this source almost all its regular means for original research, amounting during the administration of Mr. Langley to more than sixty thousand 2 14 The Smithsonian Institution dollars. The utility of such service having been demon- strated at the Allegheny Observatory, the example was followed a year later at Harvard College Observatory, and afterward "time services " were for some years an important source of income for quite a number of the observatories of the United States. In the course of two or three years the affairs of the obser- vatory became somewhat stable, and there was time for orig- inal work in astronomy. Mr. Langley now began a period of laborious and minute study of the features of the disk of the sun. Indeed this was the one of the heavenly bodies which could be most advantageously studied in Pittsburg, where the heavens are usually obscured by clouds of smoke and dust. In 1869 he was chosen a member of the party sent out by the United States Coast Survey to observe the total eclipse of August 7, and was stationed at Oakland, Ken- tucky. His report, at this time submitted to Professor Joseph Winlock, was his first published contribution to science. In the winter of 1870 he accompanied another eclipse expedi- tion to Jerez de la Frontera, in Spain, where he made impor- tant observations upon the coronal rays, and found that the polarization of the corona is radial. From this period dates the beginning of that brilliant series of researches upon the solar atmosphere to which he has since devoted so much of his time, and which soon gave him high reputation at home and abroad. His telescope study of the sun's face, completed in 1873, re- vealed the true character of the "granules " upon its disk, from which, according to his estimate, much over three-quarters of its light are derived. It also resulted in a better under- standing of the structure and appearance of the sun-spots. His picture of "A Typical Sun-spot," first exhibited in 1873 at the Portland meeting of the American Association for the The Three Secretaries 215 Advancement of Science, was the result of three years' study. This was based directly upon micrometrical measurements, pictorial effect having been considered only so far as it was incidental to minute fidelity. Even now, twenty-three years after it was made, it is conceded that this drawing gives a better idea of the minute structure of the surface of the sun than is afforded by the best photographs. His paper on "The Minute Structure of the Solar Photo- sphere," published in February, 1874, may be taken as a type of his best work. " It possesses," writes Holden, " that hardly-definable qual- ity by which we become aware that it was written from a full mind. It is only fifteen pages long, yet we are not conscious of undue brevity. One has a sense in reading that every statement of fact, or every expression of opinion, is based upon a hundred single instances like the one which is chosen, or upon a hundred concurring judgments. It is not that you are overborne by weight, but convinced by character. This most important paper came at exactly the right time. It first summarizes the works of other recent observers which, though important, had left the subject in an entirely unsatisfying con- dition, and then proceeds straight to the subject in hand. " The minute details, both of the general solar surface and of the extraordinarily complex spots, are one by one satisfac- torily and lucidly described, with indications of the physical conditions to which they are due ; and, finally, the general bearings of all this on the received solar theories are briefly set forth. We may fairly say that this paper is fundamental. It treated of a subject of which little had been actually known, and it leaves this subject in a satisfactory and settled condition." His detailed study of the distribution of the heat of the solar surface was begun in 1870, with the thermopile. It re- sulted in the discovery of the previously unknown thermo- 2i6 The Smithsonian Institution chroic action in the solar atmosphere, by reason of which, owing to the difference in wave length, it transmits heat more readily than light. Two years later, in 1876, another discovery was announced as a result of his measures of the heat from various parts of the sun's disk; this was in regard to the direct effect of sun-spots on terrestrial climates. Fol- lowing up the observations made by Joseph Henry in 1845, Mr. Langley found that sun-spots exercise a direct influence on terrestrial climates by decreasing the mean temperature of the earth at their maximum. This decrease, however, he found to be so minute that it is doubtful whether it is directly observed or discriminated from other changes. Its whole effect is represented by the change in the mean temperature of our globe in eleven years, not exceeding three-tenths and not less than one-twentieth of one degree of the centigrade thermometer; but this refers merely to the direct action by the observation of the surface, and is not to be considered as the only one. His early work upon solar heat was done with the aid of the thermopile, an instrument which, though it had been effec- tively used for nearly fifty years in the study of radiant energy, was found by him not sufficiently sensitive and trust- worthy to be used for the more minute work which he found it desirable to undertake. It was equal to the task of meas- uring the radiation from different parts of the sun's disk. When, however, the heat from a given part had been spread out into a heat-spectrum, some new means of measuring the minute difference between the various parts was indispensa- ble ; and this was specially the case with the spectra formed by "gratings," now coming into general use, which, with the great advantage of distributing the energy in a " normal " spectrum, had the defect of giving extremely little heat for examination. The Three Secretaries 217 He, therefore, invented a new instrument, which he called the bolometer, — a thermometer of almost infinite tenuity and delicacy, which measured minute degrees of radiant heat with an accuracy unknown to the thermopile and greater than that of any photometric process, and which at the same time pos- sesses a sensitiveness to radiant energy only less than that of the eye, being able in its recent constructions to recognize variations of this energy corresponding to not over one- millionth part of a degree on an ordinary thermometer. This instrument was made in part at the cost of the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences, as administrators of the bequest of Count Rumford, and its completion was announced in the paper sent to the Society December 8, 1880, and read at its meeting of January 12, 1881. The years 1879 and 1880 were devoted to elaborating and perfecting it.^ The action of the bolometer is based upon variation of electrical resistance produced by changes of temperature in a metallic conductor, such as a minute strip of platinum. This strip forms one arm of an electric balance, and the change in the strength of the electric current passing through it, be- cause of this change of resistance, is registered by a delicate galvanometer. Its sensitiveness is greater than that of the most delicate thermopile possible, and its accuracy of meas- urement has a corresponding advantage. One of the earliest results of the bolometer work was the demonstration experi- mentally that the maximum of heat in the normal spec- trum is in the orange, and not, as was formerly supposed, in the infra-red portion ; but a larger field opened for it in the exploration of the infra-red portion, whose existence was first suspected by the elder Herschel. The bolometer showed that this region contained three-quarters of the solar energy. Before the invention of the bolometer the distribu- 1 "The Bolometer and Radiant Kncrgy." Proceedings of the American Academy of arts and sciences, 1880-81 ; Volume xvi, pages 342 to 358. 15 2i8 The Smithsonian Institution tion of heat in the spectrum was so almost utterly unknown that the remark by Sir John Herschel that its heat was dis- continuous contained almost all our knowledge of the subject up to that time. At the time of which we speak, comparatively recent as it is, only a few advanced thinkers held the now universal view that heat and light were not two different things, but differ- ent effects of the same thing, and the investigations now commenced with the bolometer did much to prove the cor- rectness of the latter opinion. By continuous studies involv- ing great labor, and the record of extremely numerous experiments (over one thousand galvanometer readings being taken on the average to a single line), there was in the course of three years' patient work established the material for a map of the principal lines in this hitherto unknown region, and the material for a new method of study of the inter-action of the solar heat and our atmosphere, which latter was shown to be a principal agent in causing them. The bolometer has been made much more effective and has been still more recently reinforced by the holograph, in- troduced in 1 89 1 and lately perfected — a device for register- ing by photography the fluctuations of the needle, which thus permanently records the bolometer's indications, while by a further step these tracings are automatically converted into a linear spectrum by the use of a cylindrical mirror, a method of translation by which the fluctuations caused by the infra- red tract are reduced to a form comparable to that of the upper portion of the spectrum, as ordinarily visible. In the infra-red spectrum many hundred lines have since been lo- cated in this manner. With these instruments Mr. Langley has opened up a new department of physics. He has not only shown the existence of, but has measured the energy in, rays having a wave- length nearly twenty times that of extreme luminous ones. The Three Secretaries 219 While the visible or photographic spectrum includes rays of only about an octave of vibration between the waves of violet and red, the full spectrum, from the ultra-violet rays to the longest of those measured by the bolometer, embraces between five and six octaves, and still more are indicated. In one sense these investigations have partly bridged over the gulf between the longest wave-length of heat and the shortest waves due to other causes. "This work," says Lockyer, " has done for the lower spectrum what that of Kirchhoff did for the upper rays." Father J. Van Geersdale, of Louvain, in an article on "The Infra-red Spectrum and the Bolometer," written in 1896, remarks : " Newton would be very greatly surprised if, coming back for a moment to this world, he should have placed before him a map of the spectrum as it is known to-day. Not only would he be astonished at the numberless rays which were unknown to him, but he would be still more taken aback if he saw the spectral image lengthened until it had assumed dimensions fifteen and twenty times as great as those which he gave to it. In his day, below the violet (X= 0,42), and above the red (X = 0,67), there was absolutely nothing. To- day the researches of Cornu, Mascart, Schumann, and others have expanded the limits of the ultra-violet to the neighbor- hood of A =0,1. In the other direction, the investigations undertaken by Mr. Langley in the infra-red region have resulted in an acquaintance with bands and rays the wave- length of which reaches to six microns and beyond. " Without depreciating the value of the researches which were made in the less refrangible portions of the spectrum previous to the discovery of the bolometer, it must be ad- mitted that they were of very slight moment if we now com- pare them with those which Mr. Langley has obtained by the aid of his marvelous little instrument." ^ l"Le Spectre Infra- Rouge et le Bolometre," Revue des Questions Scientifiques, Volume X, page 26, July, 1896, Louvain. 2 20 The Smithsonian Institution Another result of these experiments was the establishment of the fact of selective absorption of the solar rays by the earth's atmosphere. In regard to this Mr. Langley wrote at the time : " Our observations at Allegheny had appeared to show that the atmosphere had acted with selective absorption to an unanticipated degree, keeping back an immense proportion of the blue and green, so that what was originally the strong- est had, when it got down to us, become the weakest of all, and what was originally weak had become relatively strong, the action of the atmosphere having been just the converse of that of an ordinary sieve, or like that of a sieve which should keep back small particles analogous to the short wave- lengths (the blue and green), and allow freely to pass the large ones (the dark-heat rays). It seemed from the obser- vations that the atmosphere had not merely kept back a part of the solar radiation, but had totally changed its composition in doing so — not by anything it had put in, but by the selec- tive way in which it had taken out, as if by a capricious in- telligence. The residue that had actually come down to us thus changed in proportion was what we know familiarly as 'white' light, so that white is not 'the sum of all radiations,' as used to be taught, but resembles the pure original sun- light less than the electric beam which has come to us through reddish-colored glasses resembles the original brightness. With this visible heat was included the large amount of in- visible heat, and, if there was any law observable in this ' capricious ' action of the atmosphere, it was found to be this, that throughout the whole range of the then known heat- spectrum the large wave-lengths passed with greater facility than the shorter ones." Most of these observations were carried on in Allegheny. In 1878, however, he made observations of the solar eclipse from the summit of Pike's Peak, at an elevation of fourteen The Three Secretaries 221 thousand feet, and observed the extension of the corona to the hitherto unsuspected extent of nearly ten million miles. During the winter of 1878, in the course of a visit to Eu- rope, he spent some time upon Mount Etna, making obser- vations upon the character of astronomical vision, in order to enable comparisons to be made with observations taken under similar conditions in the territories of the United States. The station here was at Casa del Bosco, situated at the height of about 4,200 feet on the southeastern slope of the mountain. There he remained from Christmas until January 14. The conclusion reached was that though the ideal station where atmospheric tremor does not exist, and the observer pursues his studies in an ever transparent sky, is not to be found on any part of the earth's surface yet examined, there is in such stations as this and in the upper and elevated tablelands of Colorado and New Mexico every condition which experi- ence has shown to be favorable. In 1 88 1 Mr. Langley organized an expedition to the top of Mount Whitney, in California, for the purpose of applying his new methods and instruments under the most favorable conditions. Here he remained with his party from July 25 until September 10, making observations at stations nearly fourteen thousand feet above the sea. The expenses of this expedition were borne in part by the United States Signal Service and in part by William Thaw, of Pittsburg, who had for some years taken great interest in the work of the Alle- gheny Observatory and to whose liberality and appreciation of scientific work many of Mr. Langley's greatest opportuni- ties for investigation were due. A report on the results of this expedition was published in 1884, as one of the profes- sional papers of the United States Signal Service. The Mount Whitney observations resulted, first, in the discovery of an entirely unsuspected extension of the solar 15* 222 The Smithsonian histittttion spectrum ; second, in a calculation of the relative intensity of the different rays of the sun before they have entered the earth's atmosphere, which was illustrated by an extra atmo- spheric curve in the spectrum ; third, in the indication that scarcely sixty per cent, of the solar rays penetrate to the earth's surface, the atmosphere as a whole exerting a power- ful selective absorption ; and finally, in a new and important estimate of the "solar constant." The effect of such absorp- tion on the visible rays is to throw out the shorter wave- lengths much more effectively than the longer ones, so that to an eye outside the earth's atmosphere the sun would ap- pear far bluer than to one within, and the estimated amount of heat before absorption is correspondingly measured. The total absorption of the heat rays was found to be sur- prisingly great. These experiments then demonstrate that a much greater amount of solar heat reaches the earth than had previously been supposed, sufficient, in fact, to melt each year an ice shell encrusting the earth to the thickness of 1 79 feet, instead of 1 10 feet, as had before been believed. It was also found that the law of selective absorption modifies pro- foundly the terrestrial manifestations of the heat supplied by the sun, and that were there no such selective absorption, the temperature of the soil in the tropics under a vertical sun would probably not rise above freezing point. "The temperature of the earth's surface," he wrote, .... "and with it the existence not only of the human race, but of all organized life on the globe, appears in the light of the con- clusions reached by the Mount Whitney expedition to depend far less on the direct solar heat than on the hitherto little regarded quality of selective absorption in our atmosphere." The bearing of these observations on such questions as the temperature of the sun and the radiation from the sky is The Three Secretaries 223 manifestly very important. The extent of the solar spectrum previously known was but a fraction of that discovered by this expedition.^ Mr. Langley's determination of the power of the sun's light and heat, as made at Pittsburg in 1878, is one based upon definite standards of comparison. He then demonstrated that the sun's disk radiates fifty-three hundred times as much light, and eighty-seven times as much heat, as would an equal area of metal in the converter of a Bessemer furnace in full blast. Of Mr. Langley's numerous subsequent investigations with the bolometer, there can only be mentioned his researches on the temperature of the moon, which entirely changed the conclusions previously held from the statements of Sir John Herschel and the experiments of Lord Rosse, and his meas- ures of the amount of energy realized in the form of light by different natural and artificial methods of producing it. Extremely significant in this latter respect were his ob- servations made in Washington upon the spectrum of the firefly, PyropJiorus noctiluciis. He showed that its radiation consists wholly of visible radiations, or, in other words, that there exists in use a natural process by which all the heat generated is converted into light, a process probably imitable, and which if successfully imitated would be of immense indus- trial importance. In the gas flame only two per cent, of the heat is utilized in visible radiation and ninety-eight per cent, is wasted. Within comparatively few years Mr. Langley has taken up the study of the physics of the atmosphere and the conditions of artificial flight. This is a subject in which he has been in- terested from boyhood, though it was not until 1889 that he 1 In this connection reference should be Allegheny Observatory, upon the influence of made to the work of J. E. Keeler, one of his absorption of certain rays in the visible spec- students, and his successor as director of the trum by the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere. 2 24 The Smithsonian Institution began serious work. Many of these investigations have been carried on at the Smithsonian Institution, although some of the earHer elaborate experiments with the whirling table were carried on at the Allegheny Observatory. V. In 1 89 1 he published his now famous paper entitled "Experi- ments in Aerodynamics," in which he first made public the results of his studies upon this subject. This paper threw new light on the motion of certain forms of bodies through the atmosphere, and resulted in a practical revolution in the conclusions drawn from the study of aerodynamics. His paper on "The Internal Work of the Wind," presented to the International Conference on Aerial Navigation, held in Chi- cago, in 1893, made even a greater impression, especially upon the minds of those engaged practically upon the prob- lem of artificial flight. The importance of the views then for the first time advanced was universally admitted, as is evident from two recent authoritative general works on the subject of aerial navigation, those of Mr. Octave Chanute, of Chicago, and Doctor von Salverda, of Holland. In March, 1894, Lieutenant- Colonel Elsdale, of the Royal Engineers, in an article in the Cotitempora^y Revieiv, wrote : " Professor Langley may fairly be said to have laid down, for the first time, a really sound and reliable scientific basis for the study of aerial locomotion, by a series of careful ex- periments and well-reasoned deductions from them. What- ever its ultimate measure of success is, new experiments with it cannot fail to advance the cause of aerial navigation another stage." To a letter of inquiry in regard to the significance of these contributions to the science of aerodynamics, Mr. Octave The Three Secretaries 225 Chanute, of Chicago, responded to the writer, April 10, 1896, as follows : " In my judgment the principal contributions thus far made by Doctor Langley to the science of Aerodynamics consist in his having given to physicists and searchers firm ground to stand upon concerning the fundamental and much-disputed question of air resistances and reaction. "When I was in Europe in 1889, I inquired into the state of knowledge on this important question, and found utter dis- agreement and confusion. There were numerous formulae, promoted by various physicists, but these gave such discor- dant results that arrangements were being proposed in France to try an entire set of new experiments, with air currents to be procured by an enormous fan -blower. A fair idea of the state of knowledge can be had from Professor Marey's careful work on " Le vol des oiseaux," published in 1890. Oblique pressures were then still generally held to vary according to the Newtonian law, or as the square of the sine of incidence, although this gives but five to ten per cent, of the true reac- tions at acute angles of incidence. " Doctor Langley has shown us, by experiment, the general accuracy of which cannot be questioned, that the empirical (based on experiments) formula of Duchemin is sufficiently correct to calculate the radiations upon planes; so that the French, who had ignored this formula since 1836, now claim its inception and accept it (as they do some wines) retour (T Amerique. Doctor Langley has also shown us that the va- riation of the center of pressure on an inclined plane, observed by Sir George Cayley and by Avanzani as well as by Kummer, follows approximately the law formulated by Jossel, so that now, for the first time, searchers are enabled to calculate the sustaining power, the resistance, and the center of pressure of a plane, with confidence that they are not far wrong; and this, together with the further law, formulated first by Doctor Langley, that within certain limits ' the higher speeds are more economical of power than the lower ones,' has made it possible to assert that the problem of artificial flight is not in- 2 26 The Smithsonian Institution soluble as theretofore affirmed by many of the most eminent scientific men. "Whether Doctor Langley's scientific labors in this depart- ment of physics will soon result, like those of the preceding Secretaries, in the practical application of his discoveries to the use of mankind, it is perhaps too early to assert positively, I think, myself, that they will so result before many years, but there are so many intricate questions to be solved before com- mercial success can be achieved that another generation may pass before the problem of flight is fully solved. " Moreover, Doctor Langley's labors and discoveries are by no means over. He has thus far published only the result of his investigations on planes, while saying in the penultimate paragraph of his summary that it is not asserted that planes are the best forms to use. Lilienthal and Phillips have since shown that concave-convex surfaces are more efficient forms, and it is very much to be desired that Doctor Langley shall next publish some data concerning such forms. "The practical development of a scientific truth is some- what like the growth from a new seed. We recognize the existence of the plant, we ascertain some of its virtues, but we cannot tell its full uses, how soon it will mature, nor how large the tree will be. " It is significant, however, that, prior to the publication of Doctor Langley's work, it was the rare exception to find engineers and scientists of recognized ability who would fully admit the possibility of man being able to solve the twenty- century old problem of aviation. Professor Joseph Le Conte, in the Popular Science Monthly of November, 1888, has very recently taken the ground, flatly, ' that a pure flying machine is impossible.' This was probably based on the fact that the then accepted formula of Newton, and the calculation of Napier and other scientists, if correct, rendered the solution practically impossible. Since the publication of 'Experiments in Aerodynamics,' however, it is the exception to find an in- telligent engineer who disputes the probability of the eventual solution of the problem of man-flight. Such has been the The Three Secretaries 227 change in five years. Incredulity has given way, interest has been aroused in the scientific question, a sound basis has been furnished for experiment, and practical results are being evolved by many workers. Much remains to be discovered concerning curved surfaces, with which alone practical flight is likely to be achieved, but when this is accomplished it is probable, in my judgment, that the beginning of the solution will be acknowledged to date back to the publication of Doctor Langley's book, and that he will be distinguished as Secretary Henry is now with regard to the development of electrical appliances." In the brief interval between the date of the letter just quoted and the sending of this sketch to the printer, an aero- drome, constructed by Mr. Langley, has made two successful flights, each to a distance of rather more than half a mile, practically demonstrating the correctness of the principles which it has been seen were generally accepted, on theoretical grounds, as soon as they were made public.^ 1 A description of these flights, which took wheels ceased turning, and the machine, de- place on May 6, 1896, was communicated to prived of the aid of its propellers, to my sur- the Coviptes Rendus of the French Academy prise, did not fall, but settled down gently, of Sciences, by Professor Alexander Graham and without the least shock, and was imme- Bell, who was an eye witness, and an Eng- diately ready for another trial, lish translation of the same is contained in "In the second trial, which followed di- Natiire, Volume Liv, page 80. rectly, it repeated in nearly every respect the Professor Bell states that two ascensions actions of the first, except that the direction were made by the aerodrome which was built of its course was different. It ascended almostentirely of metal, and driven by a steam again in the face of the wind. I estimated engineofextraordinary lightness, the absolute that the actual length of flight on each occa- weight of the aerodrome, including the engine sion was slightly over three thousand feet, and all its appurtenances, being about twenty- It is at least safe to say that each exceeded five pounds, and the method of propulsion by half an English mile." aerial propellers, without any gas or other aid He continues : " I cannot but add that it for lifting it in the air, except its own internal seems to me that no one who was present on energy. this interesting occasion could have failed to "On the occasion referred to," says Pro- recognize that the practicability of mechanical fessor Bell, "the aerodrome, at a given sig- flight had been demonstrated." nal, started from a platform about twenty A third and still longer flight was made on feet above the water, and rose at first directly November 28, 1896, with another machine in the face of the wind, moving at all times built of steel like the first, and driven like with remarkable steadiness, and continually that by propellers actuated by a steam engine ascending until its steam was exhausted, of between one and two horse power, making when, at a height I judged to be between a horizontal flight of over three-quarters of a eighty and one hundred feet in the air, the mile, and descending in safety. 2 28 The Smithsonian Institution The significance of these experiments is summed up by a recent writer as follows : " In both its matter and manner, Professor Langley's in- vention, or discovery, is of unique interest. His machine is built upon exactly the opposite principle from that upon which other flying machines have been built, and his inven- tion represents a clear triumph for pure inductive science. "When Stephenson built his locomotive he proceeded in his work upon certain definitely known facts ; that is, he was perfectly sure that if he could find a way to push his wheels around by steam, his engine could run over the ground just as an ordinary wagon would. He was venturing into no un- known field of physics. With Professor Langley it was just the opposite. Although men of science for two centuries or more have been studying the dynamics of the air, have weighed it and determined its compressibility, its action un- der heat, etc., yet up to the time Professor Langley took hold of the matter there existed no definite data as to the plan or principle upon which a flying machine, if it is to successfully navigate the air, must be built. To find out these new data was his first work. " Put in a less technical way, Professor Langley's problem was this : He says, ' Did you ever think what a physical mir- acle it is for such a bird as one of our common turkey buz- zards to fly in the way it does ? You may see them any day along the Potomac, floating in the air, with hardly a move- ment of their feathers. These birds weigh from five to ten pounds ; they are far heavier than the air they displace ; they are absolutely heavier than so many flatirons. " ' I fancy if you saw cannon-balls floating through the air like soap-bubbles you would look upon it as a sufficiently sur- prising matter, if not as a miracle. The only reason that we are not surprised at the soaring bird is that we have seen it from childhood. Perhaps if we had seen cannon-balls float- ing in the air from our childhood we would not stop to inquire how they did it, any more than we now do how the turkey buzzard does it. I am speaking now, of course, not of birds The Three Secretaries 229 that fly by flapping their wings, but of those that fly without flapping their wings, and with almost no visible expenditure of force.' " It was from watching the soaring birds that Professor Langley came to conclude that it was possible to build solid models very much heavier than the air and drive and direct such a machine with such an ordinary force as steam. That is to say, he became convinced that there are certain shapes in which matter can be disposed so that the more rapidly it moves through the air, in a sense, the less power it takes to move it, and that a machine could be built to skim through the air very much as a skater skims along the surface of very thin ice — the faster you go the less danger. " Professor Langley believed that soaring birds have an in- tuitive knowledge of certain properties in the air by which they are able to skim along — rising and falling, soaring up and sailing down, and turning about in circles without any flapping of their wings or apparently any other effort. Just what these properties were he attempted to find out and de- velop by experiment. *' Well, the upshot of the matter was that from these experi- ments it was demonstrated that a machine, not a balloon, can be made which will produce enough mechanical power to support itself in the air and fly. 'Though,' Professor Lang- ley adds, ' this is not saying that we have got skill enough to manage this power so as to rise and fly about in the air and descend safely.' What is actually demonstrated, repeated hundreds of times in the laboratory, and, finally, with the suc- cessful machine which Professor Langley built, is that the fly- ing machine is possible. All that now remains is to perfect it and learn how to manaofe it. " The experiments which Professor Langley carried on re- sulted in showing that an expenditure of one horse-power, in horizontal flight, will support about 200 pounds, and at the same time carry this burden at a rate of fifty miles an hour through the air. Now, there have recently been built steam engines which, with fuel and water for a short flight, weigh a good deal less than twenty pounds. The relative weight of 230 The Smithsonian Institution an engine decreases with the number of its horse-power, so that there seems no reason to doubt that what Professor Langley has done on a small scale may be done on a large one, and very shortly at that. " Professor Langley's machine measures but fourteen feet from tip to tip ; weighs, complete, twenty-four pounds, is sol- idly built of steel, and, compared with the air which supports it, has a weight of a thousand to one. It has no balloon arrangements of any sort, and instead of trying to build a vessel lighter than the air and filling it with gases to make it rise. Professor Langley has practically built a machine as heavy as he likes and relied upon its shape and power for successful flight. "This is just the opposite of what almost every other ex- perimenter in this field has tried to do, although it was appar- ent to every one that a flying machine, to be of any commer- cial or practical value whatever, would have to be heavy enough and powerful enough to drive straight against or across and in and out of the stoutest gale that blows. Other- wise it would forever be at the mercy of the element. What was necessary was a ship that would ride a storm in the air as a great ocean liner rides a storm at sea. " Professor Langley has been very careful to say that he never expressed his opinion that man could fly of his own strength. But he has demonstrated that powerful machines thousands of times as heavy as the air itself can be built to navigate the air." VI. Concerning the administrative side of Secretary Langley's work during the past ten years, it seems scarcely necessary to speak at length in this place. The story told by this vol- ume, at the end of his first ten years of service, is ample evi- dence that the efficiency of the Smithsonian organization has not diminished while under his charge, and that the care of this, rather than of his scientific pursuits, has occupied the The Three Secretaries 231 greater portion of his time and thought during the period of his incumbency. No one can ever make so strong an impression upon the character of an institution as he to whom the task of organizing it is intrusted. It is manifestly impossible that his successors should be able to modify materially the policy of an institu- tion which has been organized for a definite purpose and by the hands of a person whose judgment and ability they hold in respect. Their work, however, is none the less important in that it is conservative rather than entirely constructive. Their task is to maintain the efficiency of the organization and to keep it abreast of the times. They must be alert to appreciate the demands which arise from changed conditions and secure the means for a growth which shall not only be constant but symmetrical. The history of the Institution bears evidence that it has been under the constant control of men of unusual ability, energy, and personal influence. No boards of trustees, or regents, no succession of officers serving out their terms in rotation, could possibly have developed from a chaos of con- flicting opinions a strongly individualized establishment like the Smithsonian Institution. The names of the first two Secretaries are so thoroughly identified with the history of the Institution, by reason of their constant connection with it during its first four decades, that their biographies together could form almost a complete his- tory of its operations. The period during which the third Secretary has served is of comparatively less length, yet of great importance from the fact that he has done so much to render permanent the work which his predecessors began. Each of the three, in addition to his general administrative work, has made some features of the general plan peculiarly his own. Secretary Henry gave especial attention to the 232 The Smithsonian Institution publications, the system of international exchanges, and the development of that great system of meteorological obser- vations, the storm predictions, which has since become the Weather Bureau. Secretary Baird continued the development of the Museum, which had been under his special charge during the twenty- seven years of his service as Assistant Secretary, secured the erection of the Museum building, gave much attention to zoological and ethnological exploration, and, in connection with his special work as Commissioner of Fisheries, secured the construction of the exploring ship Albatross, and car- ried on extensive investigations in American waters. In ad- dition to his Smithsonian work he will always be remembered as one of the greatest of naturalists, the founder of the United States Fish Commission and of " public fish-culture." Und.er the administration of Secretary Langley there has been renewed activity in the library and exchange work, and a new system has been introduced for the encouragement of original research in physical and biological science. During his administration important donations and bequests have been added to the permanent fund of the Institution. The limit of one million dollars which may by law be deposited in the United States Treasury, at six per cent., has nearly been reached, and Congress has recognized the authority of the Institution to receive and administer other funds beyond this limit, thus making it possible for it to undertake the adminis- tration of financial trusts for any purpose within the scope of its general plan. Secretary Langley will always be remembered as the founder of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and of the National Zoological Park, in which his assiduous per- sonal labor was largely instrumental in securing to the nation the most picturesque, and up to this time the largest, tract of The Three Secretaries 233 land in the world devoted to such uses. His contributions to science during his Secretaryship will also always be asso- ciated with his career at the Smithsonian, though they have been necessarily subordinated to administrative duties which are the principal occupation of the Secretary. VII. Mr. Langley's contributions to science have been numerous. They have been published in the transactions ot various learned societies and in the scientific journals, especially the Coinptes Rcndits of the French Academy of Sciences and the American Journal of Science. He published a series of articles in The Century Ma- gazine in 1884 and 1886 upon astrophysical research, based upon a series of lectures delivered by him at the Lowell In- stitute in Boston in 1883. These articles have since been re- published under the title of "The New Astronomy," which is one of the most successful of modern scientific books written in popular style. Mr. Langley is a correspondent of the French Institute (in the Academy of Sciences), a foreign member of the Royal So- ciety of London, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and of numerous other foreig"n and American scientific bodies. In 1878 he was made Vice-President of Section A of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1886 was elected President of that association, delivering the presidential address at the Cleveland meeting in 1888, en- titled the "History of a Doctrine." He has received numer- ous degrees from universities, among them that of LL. D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1882, the University of Michigan in 1883, from Harvard University in 1886, and 16 2 34 The Smithsonian Institution Princeton University in 1896; and in 1894 that of D. C. L. from the University of Oxford. He was the first to receive, in 1886, the Henry Draper medal of the National Academy of Sciences for work in astronomical physics. In 1887 he w^as awarded the Rumford medal by the Royal Society of London, and the Rumford gold and silver medals by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It seems especially fit that the American who has in this century been most eminent as a student of the laws of heat should thus come into posses- sion of the two memorials, American and English, of the great American who in the last century made such important contributions to the same branch of science. More than all these formal honors, by far, is the world- wide recognition of his achievements in the formulation of the principles of aerodynamics and the discovery of so much of the solar spectrum. THE BENEFACTORS By Samuel Pierpont Langley ^'HE original bequest of James Smithson, to- gether with the accrued interest and savings, constituted a fund of over seven hundred thou- sand dollars. The sum now placed to the credit of the Smithsonian deposit in the Treasury of the United States, together with some securities undeposited, lacks but little of a million, about one quarter of a million of dollars having been added to the original fund in the past five years. The addition has been made by several benefactors who have recognized, as years go on, the ever-increasing ability of the Institution to act as trustee for the funds whose grivers have aims in consonance with those of the founder. I shall briefly sketch the biography of these men who have given of their means to promote the usefulness of the Smith- sonian Institution, and who have expressed their confidence in the policy and permanency of the Institution by making it their trustee in carrying out their design for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. Before passing to these, however, the fact should be recalled that the earliest addition to the Smithson fund came from the first Secretary, Joseph 235 236 The SniitJisonian Institution Henry. In the year 1847 Professor Henry was invited to deliver a course of lectures in Princeton, the college of whose faculty he had been a member prior to his acceptance of the chief executive office of the newly-founded Institution. Prince- ton University, — or the College of New Jersey, as it was then known, — paid him for this course of lectures an honora- rium of $1000, which Professor Henry placed to the credit of the Board of Regents. 't> In 1874 a bequest of $1000 was received from the estate of James Hamilton, " the interest to be appropriated biennially by the Secretaries, either in money or a medal, for such con- tribution, paper, or lecture on any scientific or useful subject as said Secretaries may direct." Mr. Hamilton was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Octo- ber 16, 1793, and died there January 23, 1873. He was graduated from Dickinson College in 181 2, and was ad- mitted to the Bar in 18 16. For a few years he followed the practice of his profession, and then retired to devote himself to the more congenial pursuits of science and litera- ture. He was a close student of astronomy, botany, and mineralogy, and his interest also extended to education, for he was a trustee of Dickinson College in 1824-33, and was almost continuously a school director in Carlisle from the inception of the school system there in 1836, till his death. His philanthropy and public spirit showed itself in many ways. Not only was he one of the organizers and trustees of the Presbyterian Church, but he was also active in its work as well. His .charities were numerous and his will included more than a thousand items of benefaction. In 1879 a bequest of $402.59 was received from Doctor Simeon Habel. This sum was increased from the income THE HODGKINS MEDAL. [OBVERSE.] 236 77/. Institution ^ xofessor Henry was :ii Princeton, the c" e -: niber prior to his acceptance o . he newly-founded Institution. Prince- New Jersey, as it was tt i Ji a 1 "%_, ■ ■J, Wl. ofR quest , joo was received fr A jam '^"'^ *' Hie interest \.., ...^ appro^^.x^x,. / or a m^ ^ ' r i ^^j^_ r use O' 1 1 ^cto- January !i 10 1 or a tew years -^wed profession, and tiien retire vote nimself to the more congenial pursuits ence and li -^ -" close stud""^ of astronomy, buLci ana his interest aiso extender' ckinson Cc 1824-3;-' was \ director in C e >Lees In 1879 a beque- : • ■ ivca n-om '' )r , Hi -i a ^ ^ • " rhiladelphia, monument is the following inscription : . ^ . .o,, i .1 ^ ^ in Sept., I052, by the " This vase American Pomological Society, Was erected by his Friends of which Mr. Downing was one of the IN MEMORY OF Original founders." Andrew Jackson Downing, Who died July 28, 1852, aged 37 years." 264 The Smithsonimi Institution been erected by the United States as a token of gratitude for the labors of his useful life, and for his faithful administration of the important public trust so long in his keeping." Subsequent to the unveiling an oration was delivered by President Noah Porter, of Yale College.^ 1 A full report of the proceedings is given in the Smithsonian Report, 1883, page 17. THE SMITHSONIAN LIBRARY By Cyrus Adler ^)HE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION is a world institution ; its funds are held in trust by the government of the United States for the benefit of all men ; its influence, spread ''52£:2^^^^^5^ as it is throughout the world, cannot be readily seen, nor counted, nor measured. In spite of the evidences of its work in the promotion of science, through the publications, the Museum, the Bureau of Exchanges, the Bureau of Ethnology, the Astrophysical Observatory, and its other well-known agencies, no one acquainted with its in- ner working can doubt that all of these put together represent but a fractional part of its share in the intellectual activities of the world. Of no department is this statement so true as of the library. The idea of the formation of the library may be said to be contemporaneous with the first announcement of the Smith - son bequest, and to antedate the establishment of the Institu- tion itself In all the discussions in Conofress relatinsf to the utilization of the bequest, the idea of a library played a promi- nent part. In the Twenty-sixth Congress (1839-41) a bill was introduced " to provide for the disposal and manage- 18 ==^5 266 The Smithsonian Institution ment of the fund bequeathed by James Smithson to the United States." This bill would have appropriated the larger part of the sum for the establishment of an astronomical ob- servatory, but even with this as the main purpose, it included the following items : "For the library, one year, $30,000; $10,000 for the first supply; $20,000 for a fund for an income of $1,200 a year, for a constant supply of new works and periodical publications upon science in other parts of the world, or in America." Senator Choate, of Massachusetts, strongly advocated the use of a large part of the fund for library purposes. In a speech delivered on January 8, 1845, ^^ said: "We cannot do a safer, surer, more unexceptionable thing with the income, or with a portion of the income — perhaps twenty thousand dollars a year for a few years — than to expend it in accumulating a grand and noble public library — one which, for variety, extent, and wealth, shall be, and be confessed to be, equal to any now in the world." At the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Choate moved to amend the bill under consideration by the insertion of the following clause : "And whereas, an ample and well-selected public library constitutes one of the permanent, constant, and effectual means of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men ; therefore, be it further enacted that a sum not less than $20,000 be annually expended, of the interest of the fund aforesaid, in the purchase of books and manuscripts for the formation of a library of the institution aforesaid, which, for its extent, variety, and value, shall be worthy of the donor of the said fund, and of this nation, and of the age." On January 9, 1845, ^^ debate in the Senate was resumed. The Smithsonian Library 267 The first section of the bill contained the followino- clause : t> " Provided, That the books to be purchased for said institu- tion shall consist of works on science and the arts, especially- such as relate to the ordinary business of life, and to the various mechanical and other improvements and discoveries which may be made." Mr. Choate moved to strike out this proviso "to avoid a premature decision on the point at issue as to the plan of a general library, or a special one limited to works on physi- cal science." Senator Tappan, of Ohio, opposed the motion. " He argued that a library limited to the works on sciences and the arts, specified in the proviso, would be the only suitable and appropriate library for the institution." Senator Pearce, of Maryland, agreed with Mr. Choate and desired that the Institution should become a "complete na- tional library." Mr. Choate's resolution to strike out the provision finally prevailed. Mr. Choate next moved to strike out the eighth section, and to substitute the amendment given above. Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, moved to add a proviso limiting the classes of books which might be purchased. " Mr. Choate argfued that this limitation was not onlv un- necessary, but would most certainly prove injurious. It was unnecessary, because no national library, such as he contem- plated, and such as he hoped the Senate would authorize, could be made complete without every one of the works on science and the arts which the Senators for Ohio and Ken- tucky could possibly desire." Senator Rives, of Virginia, thought "if we were to have a library at all to carry out this great object, it really seemed 268 The Smithsonian Institution to him that the Hbrary ought to be coextensive with the Hmits of human knowledge." Senator Niles, of Connecticut, " did not think it came within the purpose of the donation to establish a great na- tional library. If the donor thought that the best way of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men, he would have enjoined the establishment of such a library." Mr. Tappan moved an amendment to add "$91,862 out of the interest due, to the original fund, so that the invest- ment should be $600,000." " Mr. Choate objected to this as, in effect, cutting off the means for establishing a national library." The amendment was rejected. The bill was recommitted to the Committee on Library, which on January 21, 1845, reported a new bill. It provided for a building "for the reception of an extensive library, equal to the first-class libraries in the world." "An annual expenditure of not less than $20,000 out of the interest of the fund is authorized to be made in the pur- chase of books and manuscripts for the library of the institu- tion, which library is to comprehend in due proportion, with- out preference or exclusion of any branch of knowledge, works pertaining to all the departments of human knowledge, as well as physical science, and the application of science to the arts of life, as all other sciences, philosophy, history, literature, and art ; and for its extent, variety, and value, said library shall be worthy of the donor of the fund, and of this nation and the age. The managers to employ a librarian and assistants, and to fix their salaries ; also to prescribe the regulations under which the library shall be kept, visited and used." Senator Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, said he "had arrived at the conclusion that the best mode of distributinof this fund was by the purchase of a great library." The Sinithsonian Library 269 It will thus be seen that Senator Choate, who believed most strongly in the establishment of a great library in the United States, was a determined advocate of employing the Smithson bequest in this manner. He actually succeeded in having adopted by the Senate of the United States, on Jan- uary 23, 1845, the bill concerning the provision of which the foregoing is a discussion, — in effect, to devote the greater part of the income arising from the bequest to the establishment of a library. This bill failed of passage in the House, and was referred to in later debates as "the library plan." The leading spirits in the Senate would have devoted the larger part of the fund to a library. The members of the House interested in the matter were opposed to this plan. Mr. Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, in a debate on April 22, 1846, after reviewing the discussion in the Senate, introduced a bill which allowed an expenditure of $10,000 a year for books. He argued against the attempt to make a general library. He asserted that Smithson's tastes were scientific, and not antiquarian, and that had he desired to found a great librar)- he would have said so. Mr. Ingersoll and some other mem- bers of the House agreed with Mr. Owen in his objection to the establishment of a great library, while Mr. Stanton, of Ohio, thought "that the annual appropriation of $10,000 for the gradual formation of a library might have been limited to a smaller amount." "The library plan," however, had friends as well as opponents in the House. Mr. George P. Marsh, of Vermont, on April 23, 1846, in speaking of the pro- vision for the annual expenditure of $10,000 a year for the library, said: "I consider this the most valuable feature of the plan, though I think the amount unwisely restricted." And he proceeded to argue at great length in favor of a general library. He also moved several amendments, all with a view, as he said, to direct the appropriations entirely 18* 270 The Smithsonian Institntion to the purposes of a library. Mr. Owen argued, in reply, that a library might diffuse knowledge, but would not increase it. One of the ideas which was broached during these discus- sions was that the library should be peripatetic. The Act which finally passed establishing the Smithsonian Institution was in effect a compromise between the views urged in the Senate and in the House ; for whereas a library was mentioned as but one of the objects of the Institution, yet Section 8 of this Act expressly provides for a library in the following terms : "The said Regents shall make, from the interest of the said fund, an appropriation, not exceeding an average of twenty-five thousand dollars annually, for the gradual forma- tion of a library, composed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge." At the second meeting of the Board of Regents, held on September 8, 1846, a committee of three, appointed to digest a plan, reported a scheme which was adopted by the Board on January 25, 1847. This report practically recommended that half of the income be set aside for a library and museum, and that the Smith- sonian Institution become a center of bibliographical informa- tion for the entire country. The report fully expresses the aim of the Institution with regard to its own library, and the other libraries of the country. It begins with a state- ment that the proposition that the building about to be erected should contain library room sufficient to receive one hundred thousand volumes was made rather in the spirit of the charter and against the deliberate conviction of the committee, and then proceeds as follows : " But, without a vast accumulation of books in this metrop- olis, your committee conceive that the Librarian of the The Smithsonian Library 271 Smithsonian Institution may, under a proper system, become a centre of literary and bibliographical reference for our en- tire country. Your committee recommend that the librarian be instructed to procure catalogues, written or printed, of all important public libraries in the United States, and also, in proportion as they can be obtained, printed catalogues of the principal libraries in Europe, and the more important works on bibliography. With these beside him, he may be consulted by the scholar, the student, the author, the historian, from every section of the Union, and will be prepared to inform them whether any works they may desire to examine are to be found in the United States, and, if so, in what library ; or, if in Europe only, in what country of Europe they must be sought. Informed by these catalogues, it will be easy, and your committee think desirable, for those who may be charged with the selection of books, to make the Smithsonian Library chiefly a supplemental one ; to purchase, for the most part, valuable works, which are not to be found elsewhere in the Union ; thus carrying out the principle to which your com- mittee has already alluded as influencing all their recommen- dations, that it is expedient, as far as may be, to occupy untenanted ground. "Exceptions to this rule must here, of course, be made; as in the case of standard works of reference required for the immediate purposes of the institution, and also of the very numerous works, many of current science, which, by a proper system of exchanges, we may procure without purchase. In this latter connection, the Transactions and Reports of the institution will obtain for us valuable returns." In all the early discussions of the Board of Regents the library received the fullest consideration. Indeed, one of the first definite acts of that body was a resolution passed at its third meeting, September 9, 1846: " That the Secretary be requested, without unnecessary de- lay, to collect, on behalf of the institution, all the documents. 272 The Smithsonian Instihition Congressional and others, connected with the history of the Smithsonian bequest, and of its legislation, and cause them to be substantially bound, as a commencement of its library." In a letter written by Professor Charles C. Jewett to Pro- fessor Henry, the former proposed that the library should consist of three classes of books ; first, those which may be immediately needed in the scientific department; second, the bibliographical works and descriptions, histories, and cata- logues of similar institutions; third, a general collection con- sisting of memoirs, transactions, and journals of the learned societies of Europe and America. " These three classes of books," he says, "will form a library quite unique, and one of great utility." There were other details of Professor Jewett's plan which will be referred to later. These various ideas were reduced to form in the program of organization presented to the Board of Regents by Profes- sor Henry on December 8, 1847, the following portions of which relate to the library. " To carry out the plan before described, a library will be required, consisting, ist, of a complete collection of the trans- actions and proceedings of all the learned societies in the world ; 2d, of the more important current periodical publica- tions, and other works necessary in preparing the periodical reports. " With reference to the collection of books, other than those mentioned above, catalogues of all the different libraries in the United States should be procured, in order that the valu- able books first purchased maybe such as are not to be found in the United States. "Also catalogues of memoirs, and of books in foreign libra- ries, and other materials, should be collected for rendering the institution a centre of bibliographical knowledge, whence the student may be directed to any work which he may require." 7 he Smithsonian Library 273 Professor Henry submitted this plan of organization in advance to a number of learned societies and individuals throughout the country for their criticism ; and among the re- plies the following, from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston, is of unusual interest. This reply was signed by Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, Benjamin Pierce, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Asa Gray. It stated: "A library is one of the objects contemplated in the act of Congress establishing the Board for the management of the trust. It is requisite for carrying out the plan above proposed. At the same time it will be observed that the distribution by exchange of the publications, which that scheme of operations will call into existence, will rapidly provide the Institution, without farther expense, with the class of works, often of a costly character, which are most directly important as the means of advancing and diffusing positive knowledge. It is accordingly in these that the Secretary proposes to lay the foundations of the library; forming, ist, a complete collection of the Transactions and Proceedings of all the learned socie- ties in the world; and, 2d, a similar collection of all the current periodical publications, and other works necessary in prepar- ing the contemplated periodical reports. . . . Such a library as the plan proposes may be fairly regarded as an impor- tant instrument for the increase and diffusion of knowledofe." It will thus be seen that, with very slight dissent, all the persons concerned in the early conduct of the Institution, — the members of Congress, the Regents, Professor Henry, and Professor Jewett, — concurred in the idea that the library should be, first, a library of science, and second, a collection of catalogues and bibliographical apparatus. While it may be said that portions of the original plan have, by force of circumstance, been somewhat modified, the most important has never been deviated from : 2 74 The Smithsonian Institittion "To procure a complete collection of the memoirs and transactions of learned societies throughout the world, and an entire series of the most important scientific and literary periodicals." This may be said, in brief, to have been the policy of the Institution, with regard to its library, from the beginning to the present day ; although while making this its primary object the Institution has acquired many valuable works other than serials and journals, in almost every department of human knowledge. The first librarian of the Smithsonian Institution was Charles C. Jewett, who was nominated Assistant Secretary acting as Librarian, by the Secretary, which nomination was approved at a meeting of the Board of Regents held on January 21, 1847. While it is beyond the purpose of this chapter to discuss the personnel of the library of the Institution, Mr. Jewett is so unique a figure in the history of library work in America, and so much of his activity in behalf of the libraries of the country is contemporaneous with his stay in the Institution, that a brief reference to him is essential.^ Charles Coffin Jewett was born in Lebanon, Maine, on August 12, 18 16. He studied in the Latin School in Salem, Massachusetts, and entered Dartmouth College in 1831, leaving it in his sophomore year for Brown University, and graduating in 1835. For two years (1835 to 1837) he was principal of the Academy in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. In 1 The first biographical sketch of Professor Jewett was a brief address by Doctor Reuben Guild, printed in the Providence Evening Press, Friday, February lo, 1868, two days after Mr. Jewett's death. This notice was reprinted in Providence, in octavo form, and also in the "Smithsonian Report" for 1867, page 128. The most extended notice was also by Doctor Guild, being a memorial sketch of Professor Jewett, published in The Library Journal, Volume XII, November, 1887, pages 507-511. See also "Historical Catalogue of Brown University," Providence, R. I. (1764-1894), Providence, 1895, page 116; N'e'iv England Historical a7id Genealogi- cal Register,'^ oXvane. XXII, 1868, page 365. The Smithsonian Library 275 1838 he received the degree of Master of Arts from Brown University, and in 1840 was graduated at the Andover Theo- logical Seminary. He had devoted himself more especially to philology, Oriental languages, and antiquities ; and had made a plan for extended travels through the East. "He was unexpectedly delayed in the accomplishment of this plan by the misdirection of a letter, and that apparently slight circumstance determined his subsequent course, and gave complexion to all his after life." ^ While pursuing his theological course in Andover he as- sisted in the arrangement of the library and the preparation of its catalogue. From 1840 to 1841 he was the principal of Day's Academy in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Brown University had been for some time making an effort to increase its library, and the Honorable Nicholas Brown had erected a special building for a library and chapel. It had been the custom for a member of the faculty, in addition to his teaching functions, to take charge of the library, but this plan was found unsatisfactory, and on October 7, 1841, the Board of Trustees passed a resolution that " Mr. Charles C. Jewett, of Salem, Massachusetts, be employed, under the direction of the library committee, to make out a new and approved catalogue of the University library." This catalogue was completed and published in the autumn of 1843. It consists of two parts, a descriptive catalogue of the works in the library and an index of subjects, and at once brought Mr. Jewett into favorable notice, being declared "so original and intrinsically valuable, that it at once placed him at the head of the bibliographers of this country."- In 1843 Mr. Jewett was appointed professor of modern languages and 1 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume XXII, 1868, page 365. 2 Ibidem. 276 The Smithsonian Instittition literature in Brown University, a place which he held, as well as that of librarian, until 1848. His appointment was made with the understanding that he should have the opportunity of traveling for the purpose of familiarizing himself with the modern languages, and of making the acquaintance of libra- rians and library methods abroad. During this time he also purchased for the Brown University Library a collection of 7,000 books, which still forms one of the most choice por- tions of that valuable library. As stated before. Professor Jewett was appointed assistant secretary and librarian by Professor Henry in 1847, but it was some little time before he actively began the work ol collecting books. Meanwhile, he formed various projects which were of high importance for the development of Ameri- can libraries. His ideas as to the proper functions of the Smithsonian Institution in library and bibliographical work entirely coincided with those of Professor Henry, and he early made an attempt to secure a complete catalogue of all the libraries in the United States. The method that he proposed was to secure two, or even three, copies of the printed catalogues of the various libraries, to supplement these by manuscript copies, and to make in this way a cat- alogue on slips, or cards, of all the libraries in the United States. It was this activity, and the correspondence which it occasioned, that brought about the publication of his "Notices of Public Libraries in the United States of America" by the Smithsonian Institution in 1851, which was "the pi- oneer attempt to give a description of all our libraries."^ 1 "Public Libraries in the United States States, and British Provinces of North Amer- of America." Special Report of the Bureau ica." Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., of Education. Washington, 1876, page xviii. 1859. The various reports of the Bureau A most useful elaboration of this work was of Education as to the libraries in this coun- published in 1859 by Mr. W. J. Rliees, un- try are its legitimate successors. See also der the title " Manual of Public Libraries, The Library Journal, Volume xi, 1886, Listitutions, and Societies in the United page 199. The Sinithsonian Library 277 Speaking of this publication Professor Henry said : "The Report on the statistics of Libraries of the United States, prepared by Professor Jewett, has been ordered to be printed by Congress, as an appendix to the Regents' Report. A sufficient number of extra copies will be presented to the Institution, for distribution to all the libraries from which statistical information was received. It forms a volume of about two hundred and twenty-five pages, and will, I am sure, be considered an important contribution to Bibliographical Statistics." ^ "This report is intended merely as a beginning, to be followed by others on the same subject. It has been sent to all the libraries of the United States, with the request that its deficiencies may be pointed out and additional materials fur- nished to render it more perfect. The great interest which is felt in this work is manifested by the amount of statistical information which has already been received and returned for the copies distributed."^ Professor Jewett had begun already in 1849, as a prelimin- ary to his plan of making a general catalogue of books in the United States, to prepare a catalogue of all the books in the libraries of Washington ; and much progress was made. Meanwhile, his plan for forming a general catalogue of the libraries of the United States was being carried on in con- junction with another plan, that of furnishing catalogues by a cheap and satisfactory process to individual libraries. Professor Jewett was of the opinion that the printing of cata- logues of American libraries, most of which were repetitions of titles already printed, was a great waste of money and effort. He, therefore, proposed the plan of printing these catalogues by preparing a set of stereotyped titles, which 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1850, page 14. 2 Professor Henry in " Smithsonian Report," 1851, page 14. 278 The Smithsonian Institutiori were to be under the control of the Smithsonian Institution, but at the disposal of any librarian upon application. This plan he had already worked out in 1847, and had communi- cated it to Mr. Henry Stevens before the latter went abroad. He first proposed it in public at the fourth meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in 1850; and later described it more at length in a pamphlet issued by the Institution, entitled " On the Construction of Catalogues of Libraries and a General Catalogue, and their Publication by Means of Separate Stereotyped Titles." A second and enlarged edition of this pamphlet, with quite a number of changes, was published in 1853. It will be seen by a study of the rules drawn up by Pro- fessor Jewett, as well as by an examination of the specimens which accompanied the reports, that he is entitled to the credit of having paved the way for the valuable work in scientific bibliography to which so many of our countrymen have since contributed, and which is now assuming so great an importance to the learned men of the world. His description of a book is most accurate ; a publication was to him as much an object of careful study as is a natural history specimen to a naturalist. His annotations were of great value and made with the most exact discrimination. He was, it is true, pre- paring catalogues and not bibliographies, and himself drew a careful distinction between these two classes of works. Yet he felt that the library catalogue should give some of the information which was in theory appropriate only to the bib- liographical dictionary. The scheme attracted at the time most favorable notice. In accordance with a rule of the Smithsonian Institution, it was referred to a commission, consisting of Edward Everett, Charles Folsom, librarian of the Boston Athenaeum; Joseph G. Cogswell, superintendent of the Astor Library; George The Smithsonian Library. 279 Livermore, of Boston ; Samuel F. Haven, librarian of the American Antiquarian Society, and Edward Everett Hale. This commission made a report favorable to the scheme, reserving-, however, an opinion as to the merits of a new system of electrotyping which had been proposed as the more economical. This plan of Professor Jewett has continued to meet with the commendation of librarians and bibliographers. Sabin ^ describes it as "a well written summary of all that has been done towards solving this difficult subject. Librarians and private collectors will find in it many valuable practical hints." Mr. Charles A. Cutter says : ^ "Mr. Jewett's plan for a general catalogue of all the libra- ries in the country is well known. Something might have been done by the aid of the Smithsonian Institution, of which he was then librarian ; but as the directors resolutely con- fined their efforts to the propagation of science, and as there was at that time no other national organization sufficiently strong to move in the matter, the plan came to nothing. It has been often mentioned since, in terms of regret and long- ing; but no one has had the courage or seen the way clear to make any definite proposal." Doctor William F. Poole, at the Milwaukee conference of the American Library Association in 1886, spoke of Professor Jewett's "rules" as a simplification and improvement on the plan then employed at the British Museum. He said further: " Another project he was much interested in at the time ; and it was highly creditable to his enterprise and ingenuity. It is an honest attempt to lessen the cost of printing elabo- rate catalogues, which were then, and are now, absorbing funds which ought to be expended in books." 1" Bibliotheca Americana," Volume ix, 1877, page 268. 2 The Library Journal, Volume I, 1877, page 220; see also Volume xiii, 18S8, page 107. 28o The Sniifhsonian Institution Mr. George Watson Cole ^ says : "We shall come back to Professor Jewett's ideas upon these points as being in all respects the most satisfactory. The recent revival of his method of printing by separate stereotyped titles, by the Publishers Weekly, attests the soundness of his judgment." The experiments with materials continued, the plan receiv- ing the heartiest support and approval, both on the part of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and the Board of Recrents. Inasmuch as the Institution had not then a suffi- ciently large library on which an experiment could be made, it was decided that it would be advisable to attempt to pub- lish a catalogue of the Library of Congress upon this plan, and the Secretary and the Regents called the attention of the Library Committee of Congress to the matter. Congress promptly appropriated $3,000 to begin the preparation of a catalogue of its library on the plan proposed by Professor Jewett. The work was immediately begun, and in 1853 Professor Jewett reported that upwards of 6,000 volumes had already been catalogued. It has frequently been asked what became of this plan. No better description has ever been given of the causes of its failure than that of Doctor Poole before the American Library Association in 1886. He said: "The material he [Jewett] used was a sort of clay from Indiana. Congress made an appropriation for executing the plan. I recollect that the librarians of the country generally favored it, and that I did not. I remember that I spoke of it at the time as ' Professor Jewett's mud catalogue.' My views concerning it were based on some practical knowledge of legitimate typography, and from specimens of the work which l"The Future of Cataloguing," The Library Journal, Volume xv, 1890, page 174. The Smithsonian Library 281 Professor Jewett exhibited.^ .... It failed .... from me- chanical defects in the process, — the shrinking and warping of the blocks in baking, and the intractable nature of the material when baked, which made the exact adjustment of the blocks on the press impossible. ... It is not necessary, to be a successful man, that one should be successful in every- thing he undertakes. Errors, mistakes, and blunders even, mark the path of all the great inventors, and the benefactors of the race. One who was so full of resources and expedi- ents in library economy as Professor Jewett could afford to make an erroneous judgment on the process of using baked clay in typography." The first conference of librarians which ever assembled in the world was held in the city of New York, in 1853. Of this convention Professor Jewett was, says Doctor Guild, "to my certain knowledge the prime mover." He was the president of the convention, and upon its adjournment was appointed the chairman of its executive committee, and its reassembling was made subject to his call. The convention met on September 15, 1853, and was in session for three days. In speaking of this conference Doctor Poole said: " Professor Jewett was the leading spirit in the call and management of the convention, and its President. Indeed, he may justly be ranked as the ablest and most zealous of the early American reformers in the methods of library manage- ment." "The convention of 1853 .... made a lasting im- pression on the minds of all the librarians who were present, and must be regarded as an era in American bibliography." Sir Anthony Panizzi, the distinguished librarian of the British Museum, was invited to be present by Professor Jewett, and we learn from his "Life and Correspondence," 1 See also " Some Notes on Co-operative or Labor-Saving Methods of Printing Library Catalogues," by A. Growoll, The Library Journal, V o\\kme. xill, l888, page 280. 19 282 The Smithsonian Institution by Louis Fagan, that though he earnestly desired to accept this invitation, he was unable to attend. He writes to Mr. Haywood, July 21, 1853 : "As to my going anywhere, I have to tell you of a dream which I should like to become a reality. There is going to be a congress of librarians in the United States, which is to open on the fifteenth of September next, and where all the great questions connected with the management of a great library are to be discussed, and uniform principles adopted .... They wish me to go, and I should like it amazingly ; but the expense is too heavy. I will try, if possible, to get enough from the trustees. Do you think it possible, in case of my going, that, if the packet is not full, I might have a cabin to myself? " As bearing on Professor Jewett's own plans, this conven- tion adopted the following resolutions : '^Resolved, That the thanks of this convention be presented to the Board of Regfents and officers of the Smithsonian In- stitution for their steady and effective efforts for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men ; and particularly for the measures which they have adopted for the encourage- ment and promotion of the public libraries of our country." ''Resolved, That we have considered attentively the plan for constructing catalogues of libraries, and a general cata- logue of the public libraries of the United States, by means of separate stereotype titles, originated and prepared by Pro- fessor C. C. Jewett, and developed by him while librarian of the Smithsonian Institution. That we regard it as an object of high importance to the interests of our public libraries, and to the promotion of learning, and worthy to share in the funds of the Institution and the zealous exertions of its offi- cers ; the more so as it is an enterprise which cannot be successfully prosecuted, except under the guidance, protec- tion, and pecuniary support of this central establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledpfe. The Smith so7tiaji Library 283 ^'Resolved, That we have learned with pleasure that Con- gress, on the recommendation of the library committee, made an appropriation for the practical testing of the plan in its application to the Library of Congress, and that the work is now in successful progress." In 1855 a difference of opinion between Professor Henry and Professor Jewett caused the latter's retirement from the Institution. Both Doctor Guild and Doctor Poole expressed the opinion that Professor Jewett's retirement represented the culmination of a struggle between science and literature, in which science prevailed. It is hardly necessary to say that a struoftrle between science and literature would in no wise involve the question of a library. Science has much greater need of books than has literature; under the conditions which prevail among scientific investigators of the present day, and even of the earlier day, collections of books were absolutely essential for the prosecution of their studies. It was not so much a question of policy as it was a question of administra- tion which occasioned the retirement of Professor Jewett. His name will always be held in grateful remembrance at the Smithsonian Institution, as it is among all the librarians of America. The Institution has more than carried out the idea of the establishment of a great library in Washington, by the very substantial aid that it has given to the Library of Congress, and by its policy of cooperation with that library, on every occasion, to make it a truly national library. While it has abandoned the idea of publishing catalogues of libraries, it has probably rendered a greater service to libra- ries by the publication of a large number of scientific bibli- ographies. Professor Jewett's retirement created a profound sensation in the Board of Regents and Congress. Senator Choate, who had been from the first an ardent supporter of the 284 TJie Smithsonimi Institutioii library, pure and simple, tendered his resignation as a Con- gressional Regent thereupon. An investigation of the policy of the Institution followed; but the investigating committee, both in the Senate and in the House, supported the policy which Professor Henry had pursued. Although offered the presidency of a college and a profes- sorship in another college, Professor Jewett preferred to accept the office of Superintendent of the Boston Public Library, whose new building had just then been completed. The next ten years of his life were devoted to the develop- ment of this great library. "It was a fortunate misfortune," said President D. C. Gil- man, of the Johns Hopkins University, "that removed Pro- fessor Charles C. Jewett from the Smithsonian Institution and placed him at the head of the Boston Library."^ " He was chosen," says Doctor Guild, "because he was, by common consent, the ablest bibliographer and most ac- complished librarian in the country. . . . For more than ten years Mr. Jewett has thus been identified with the best inter- ests of learning in the metropolis of New England. The catalogues which he has prepared, and the rules for the gov- ernment of the library which he has suggested, have served as models for similar libraries in all parts of the country." He had the largest share in the preparation of the index to the catalogue of the Boston Public Library (1861), and pub- lished in the same year a plan for the circulation and use of the books in the upper hall of the Public Library. He pro- posed a system of charging books, which, with minor excep- tions, is still in use there, and is the prevailing practice in most of the large libraries of this country. ^ 1 " Development of the Public Library in Oilman (formerly librarian of Yale College) America." An address delivered at the open- published by the University, 189 1, page 4. ing of the Cornell University Library, Octo- ^ The Library Journal, Volume xiv, 1889, ber 7, 1891, Ithaca, New York, by Daniel C. page 206. The Smithsonian Library 285 Of the catalogue of Bowdoin College library, 1863, which was compiled mostly in accordance with Professor Jewett's rules, Mr. Sabin says that it was a model catalogue. "Our profession," says Doctor Poole, "is a debtor to Professor Jewett for his early and scholarly services in bibliography and in library economy"; and Mr. W. I. Fletcher, the accomplished librarian of Amherst College, mentions him as one of the five librarians who " should be held in everlasting remembrance." ^ During the twenty years of the existence of the American Library Association hardly a conference has passed at which his name has not been mentioned with a full appreciation of his services. Professor Jewett was then, by common consent, one of the most active librarians of his time ; the originator of much of the system of methodical practice in library work which is now so generally adopted in the United States, and is begin- ning to be regarded with favor in the countries of Europe. Under his care the Smithsonian collection grew, in six years, to 32,000 volumes. He was one of the first imbued with the spirit of cooperation, out of which so much valuable library work has grown, and to which all the hope of future biblio- graphical work turns. The decided indorsement by Congress of the policy pur- sued by Professor Fienry marked, in a certain way, an epoch in the history of the Institution, releasing it from the obliga- tion of creating a great library, as one of its main objects. Indeed, its more active cooperation with the library of Con- gress was foreshadowed at this time. One of the sources of the increase of the library was the copyright system. At one time, the Institution was actually charged with the granting of copyrights, and it published, in good bibliograph- 1 " Public Libraries in America." Boston, 1894, page 80. 19* 286 The Srnithsoniajt Institution ical form, in the Report for 1850, a complete list of copyright articles (August 10, 1846, to December 31, 1849), the first of the kind, I believe, ever published, and one which has only been followed in recent years by the list issued by the Treas- ury Department. The care of the copyright articles, however, was more burdensome than advantageous to the Institution, and the Secretary and the Librarian repeatedly urged either the repeal or a modification of the law. The charge of the books and other articles, which came by virtue of the copyright act, and which added but little of any real value to the collec- tion, was a serious drain on the funds of the Institution. In 1864 Congress had appropriated a considerable sum of money for the enlargement of its own library ; and as the large collec- tion of books, which almost entirely filled the west half of the Institution, had become, both for its preservation and care, too great a charge upon the resources of the Institution, and as the Secretary of the Institution was at this time alarmed by the fire which had recently taken place and had threatened the entire building, Congress, at the request of the Board of Regents, passed an act to provide for the transfer of the custody of the library of the Smithsonian Institution to the Library of Congress. Professor Henry said on this point, in 1865 : *'The suggestion has been made in previous reports that considerable relief might be afforded to the Institution by the transfer of its library, under certain conditions, to the new and spacious halls which Congress is providing for its own library, and the importance of the proposition has been much enhanced by considerations connected with the recent disas- ter. The west wing of the building, in which the library is now contained, is not fire-proof, and is already filled to over- flowing. To provide another depository for it, which shall render it entirely secure from fire, and be sufficient for its continued increase, will far exceed the means of the Institu- The Smithsonian Library 287 tion, and, although some inconvenience would be experienced in regard to ready access to the books, yet, in consideration of the great value of the collection, by far the most perfect of its kind in the United States, it has been thought proper to ask Congress to allow the deposit of this library to be made in one of the new fire-proof rooms preparing for the exten- sion of its own collection of books. " I am informed by Mr. Spofford, the librarian of Congress, that these two new rooms will be sufficient to accommodate the Smithsonian library, and to furnish space for the growth of the Congressional library for the next fifteen or twenty years. The object of the transfer is, of course, not to sepa- rate this unique and highly-prized collection of books from its relations to the Smithsonian Institution, for it must still bear its name and be subject to its control, but merely to deposit it where its preservation will be more certain and its useful- ness more extended." This act made it incumbent upon the government to care for the collection, preserved to the Institution its customary use of its library, gave to it, through the Secretary, the use of the Library of Congress, and authorized the Institution to withdraw the library upon reimbursement to the Treasury for the expenses incurred in binding and care. The passage of this bill through Congress aroused consid- erable interest. Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, said, on March 22, 1866, "I am very much interested in that question. I have paid some little attention to the subject in advance." On March 27 the bill again came up. Senator Hendricks, of Indiana, inquired "whether this bill contemplates the permanent transfer of these books to the Congressional Library ? These books belong to the Smithsonian trust fund, which I think ought not to be diverted." 2 88 The Smithsonian Institution To which Senator Howe, of Maine, who was in charge of the bill, replied: "The Senator will see, if he looks over the bill, that it does not transfer the title of the books. It is the custody of the books that is transferred to the Congressional library for safe keeping, as well as for the better accommo- dation of the public." Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, enforced this statement: " I will state to the Senator from Indiana that this is a mutual arranorement entered into between the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution and the Committee on the Library, satisfactory to both parties. It is thought to be safer to have them deposited there. There is danger of them at present, as the building in which they are is not fire-proof." Professor Henry said, in speaking of the transfer of the books to the Library of Congress : "To those who have not fully considered the subject, it might, at first sight, appear that this transfer of a large number of rare and valuable books from the building of the Institution would be attended with serious inconveniences, and be a vir- tual relinquishment of the control of property procured at the expense of the Smithsonian fund. But it will be evident, on a statement of the facts, that the advantages accruing to the Institution and the public from the transfer far outweigh any inconvenience which may arise on account of it; and that it will tend to increase the efficiency of the funds, while it adds to the security and even facilitates the general use of the library." Mr. A. R. Spofford wrote in 1876 as follows: " In the year 1866, the Library of Congress received a most important accession in the transfer to its shelves of the whole collection of books gathered by the Smithsonian Institution, and representing twenty years' accumulation since its estab- The Smithsonian Library 289 lishment. This collection was a most valuable complement to the library already gathered at the Capitol. . . . With this large addition (numbering nearly 40,000 volumes) the Library of Congress became at once the most extensive and valu- able repository of material for the wants of scholars which was to be found in the United States. By the terms of trans- fer of the Smithsonian library, Congress became its custodian durine such time as the Rejjents of the Smithsonian Institu- tion should continue the deposit, it being stipulated that the expense of binding and cataloguing of all books should be de- frayed by Congress in return for this valuable and annually increasing addition to its stores. This arrangement, while it relieves the funds of the Smithsonian Institution from an an- nual charge in maintaining a library, secures to the National Library an invaluable scientific department without material cost ; and the deposit, supplying as it does a much larger library of use and reference to the scholars of the country than is to be found in any one body elsewhere, is likely to be a permanent one." ^ "The union of the library of the Institution with that of Congress still continues to be productive of important results. The Smithson fund is relieved by this arrangement from the maintenance of a separate library, while at the same time the Institution has not only the free use of its own books, but also those of the Library of Congress. On the other hand, the collection of books owned by Congress would not be worthy the name of a national library were it not for the Smithsonian deposit. The books which it receives from this source are eminently those which exhibit the progress of the world in civilization, and are emphatically those essential to the contemporaneous advance of our country in the higher science of the day." ^ The books were actually transferred in 1866, and Doctor Theodore Gill, who had been for some time the librarian of 1 " Public Libraries in the United States," Washington, 1876, page 256. 2 "Smithsonian Report," 1S73, page 27. 290 The Smithsonian Institutioit the Institution, was appointed an assistant librarian of the Library of Congress, and, as his especial duty, had under his care the publications of learned societies and scientific pe- riodicals, which constitute the bulk of the Smithsonian library. From this time on the Institution became, in a certain way, an office for receipt and record of publications. Exchanges were continued, but there was no other source of increase, while the entire care of the books was assumed by the Li- brary of Congress. With the great growth of the museum, consequent upon the accessions after the close of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and the very much enlarged scientific activity which grew up in the Institution through the work of the body of scientific men placed in charge of these collections, it was found absolutely essential to have a work- ing library of books at the Institution. The first consider- able impetus to this collection was the gift by Professor Baird of his library, to form the nucleus of a library for the National Museum. This important gift he announced in the following words : " In the increasing amount of routine work with which I am charged in the several capacities of Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Director of the National Museum, and Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, it has become en- tirely out of the question to continue those special researches in zoology to which I devoted so much time in the early years of my connection with the Smithsonian Institution, and for which I had accumulated, at my own expense, a large number of important works. These I have now formally pre- sented to the Library of the National Museum, feeling as- sured that they will do the most good in that connection." To which he added the statement : " The most important source of supply to the Library of the National Museum consists in the direct exchanges of publi- The Smithsonian Library 291 cations for those of foreign museums, and of scientific socie- ties, and of specialists in natural history. Little, if anything, however, comes in not obtained under similar circumstances by the exchanges of the Smithsonian Institution. " 1 In 1887 the present Secretary, Mr. S. P. Langley, when Assistant Secretary, in charge of the library and exchanges, inaugurated a new policy for the further increase of period- ical and serial literature in the library of the Institution. He obtained, by correspondence with a large number of scientific men as well as through the aid of institutions of learning, an extensive list of learned societies and scientific periodicals, embracing thirty-six hundred titles, a fair proportion of which have since been added to the library by the exchange of publications. He drew up, at the same time, a code of regulations for the conduct of the library, which, with one or two additions, is still in force. The library of the Smithsonian Institution, whose incep- tion and development have been sketched above, consists of a methodical collection of the transactions of learned socie- ties and scientific periodicals, and publications of acade- mies and universities, throughout the world, made by steady effort, on a systematic plan, for a half century, and reinforced by liberal purchases in the early years to secure the back sets of important publications of this kind. A collection of this sort was the ideal from the beginning. It was proposed in the first letter for the plan of the library sent by Professor Jewett to Professor Henry, before the for- mer came to the Institution. In his fifth Report, Professor Henry, speaking of the collections of transactions and pro- ceedings of learned societies, said : " In a few years it is believed as complete a collection of these will be gathered as it is possible to obtain." 1" Smithsonian Report," 1882, page 34. 292 The Smithsonian Institution In 1854, in the ninth Report, he stated : " The reading" room of the library receives the leading peri- odicals of this country and Great Britain, together with a number from France, Germany, etc. ; and, therefore, offers de- sirable facilities for the reading community of Washington, and for those who visit the seat of government, to keep up with the general progress of knowledge ; while by means of the more profound transactions of learned societies the student is afforded the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the advances made in special branches of literature and science." In the next Report it is emphasized "that the Smithsonian library is intended to be a special one, as complete as possible in Transactions and all works of science." In the Report for 1856 he stated : "The series of transactions and scientific periodicals is gradually becoming more and more complete ; and, in the course of a few years, this collection will be as extensive as any to be found in the Old World." In 1858^ Professor Henry said: " The fact has been repeatedly mentioned in preceding reports that the principal object aimed at in the collection of the library is to procure as perfect and extensive a series as possible of the transactions and proceedings of all the learned societies which now exist or have existed in different parts of the world. It is to works of this character that the student of science is obliged to refer for the minute history of the pro- gress of any special branch to which he may be devoted, and to ascertain accurately what has been published on his particular subject previous to commencing his own labors, or at least before he gives the results to the world, in order that 1 •' Smithsonian Report," page 36. MILLARD FILLMORE. SECON'D CHANCELLOR OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1849-1850. -\~ on un liis ■ iTTTTTTHvir ZAiM08HTiMa am oJjaOKAH) avTcnsH The Smithsonian Library 293 he may do justice to those who have preceded him in the same path, and have due regard to his own reputation in not pubHshing facts and principles as new discoveries which have long since been recorded in the annals of science." In 1864^ Professor Henry wrote: " It was therefore deemed preferable and more consonant with the purposes of the Institution to form a special library, which might constitute, as it were, a supplement to the Library of Congress, and consist, for the most part, of complete sets of the proceedings and transactions of all the learned societies in the world, and of other serials essential for reference by students specially engaged in original scien- tific research. The efforts of the Institution to carry out this plan, which has since been sanctioned by Congress, have been eminently successful. Principally through exchanges, and occasionally by purchase, a more complete collection of the works above mentioned has been procured than is to be found in any library of the United States, or is easily met with even in Europe. The Institution has been assisted in making this collection by the liberality of many of the older libraries abroad, which, on application, have furnished from their duplicates volumes, and even whole sets, to complete series of works long since out of print, and which in some cases could not have been obtained through any other means." Mr. Spofford^ wrote in 1876 of this collection that it consists "of the publications of more than two thousand societies and institutions without the limits of the United States, besides nearly all American societies whiTi print their transactions or proceedings," which, he says, affords "a rich repository of scientific results, continua. v increasing, for the reference and use of American scholars.' 1 "Smithsonian Report," 1S64, page 57. 2 " Public Libraries in the United Stales," Washington, 1876, page 684. 294 The Smithsonian Institution And, again/ he says that the collection is "quite unique in the multitude of publications of learned societies in all parts of the world and in nearly all of the modern languages." Between the years 1887 and 1894 new periodicals to the number of 1853 were added to the list, while 1042 defective series were either completed or filled out as far as the pub- lishers were able to supply missing numbers. In the year 1895 the Institution was currently receiving 3045 periodicals, magazines, and publications of learned so- cieties. This number did not include all such publications arriving at the Institution, as many societies whose publica- tions are issued irregularly had not been included in the periodical record. These publications were roughly divided into three classes, of which 1565 were devoted to pure sci- ence, 704 to applied science, and 776, called miscellaneous, included literary, artistic, and trade publications. All the well known modern languages were represented, and even some of the less known, among which might be mentioned Arabic, modern Greek, Finnish, and Japanese ; and two publi- cations in Volapiik. Nearly one hundred publications have been added since this report was prepared. Various catalogues have been printed, but none in recent years. The catalogue of these publications belonging to the library up to 1883 was at that time typewritten and bound together in thirteen large volumes, some of them consisting of more than one thousand pages ; while since that time they are cataloofued on a card record. But although the library is devoted mainly to these pub- lications, yet it is not wholly wanting in works of a differ- ent nature. Some of these have come through special gift. 1 Page 256. The Smithsonian Library 295 Thus, the Hbrary of the founder, James Smithson, which con- sists of 1 15 volumes and a collection of manuscripts, became the property of the Institution.^ The Duke of Northumberland presented, in 1859, a series of expensive illustrated works, privately printed, relating to the local history of the county which bears his name.'^ The library whicli belonged to the National Institute and contained a large number of valuable books, especially relat- ing to meteorology and ethnology, passed into the possession of the Smithsonian Institution.^ A large number of catalogues of libraries and of public institutions of the United States were collected; those of colleges were turned over to the Bureau of Education, form- ing the nucleus of its present collection. In 1852 the Institution received from Mr. J. O. Halliwell, of England, 54 volumes, mostly folios, of original documents, consisting of bills, accounts, inventories, legal instruments, and other business papers, extending from 1632 to 1729, and intended to illustrate the history of prices in England. The Prussian Government presented a copy of the great work on Egypt by Lepsius, and later that distinguished scholar himself presented a complete collection of his own works. The Ministry of Public Instruction at Paris sent the " Description de I'Egypte," published by order of Napoleon the First. The Royal Library of Dresden presented a series of 232 original discourses or theses and tracts written by Luther or his contemporaries. The Reverend Doctor Morris, then librarian of the Peabody Institute at Baltimore, said of this collection that it was interesting to the bibliographer because all the copies were first impressions, and not reprints. 1 See " Smithsonian Report," 1857, page 35. 2 Ibidem, 1859, page 103. 3 Ibidem, 1862, page 16. 296 The Smithsonian Institutioit He added : ^ "They present specimens of paper and printing which are very creditable to the artisans of that day, ranging as they do from 15 18, the year after the Reformation began, to 1546, the year of Luther's death. These writings have come to us in the same type and paper in which they were distributed by thousands over the land at the dawn of the Reformation. While the language in which they are written, both German and Latin, is not as refined as that employed by scholars of the present day, and while the pictorial illustrations are coarse, yet these productions show the extraordinary progress which the typographic art had already made in the early part of the sixteenth century. Many of them have the title-pages ornamented with a broad margin of wood-cut figures, most of them mythological and grotesque, and all curious. They are specimens of the engraving of that day, exceedingly in- teresting to the student of the history of art, for these are undoubted originals, which collectors of ancient prints prize so highly. A few of them are unskilfully illuminated, prob- ably executed by some incipient artist, who tried his hand on these coarse and cheap wood-cuts. The subjects of the pamphlets are diverse and curious, and the titles of many of those which are controversial, as was the general custom of that day, are expressed in language more forcible than re- fined." The University of Tubingen presented twenty-eight folio and quarto volumes of rare and curious incunabula. From the Honorable G. V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, there were received 179 volumes, illustrating the phys- ical geography, ethnology, and resources of the Russian Empire, which had been given to him by the Czar on the occasion of his visit to St. Petersburg to present a resolu- tion of Congress congratulating that monarch on his escape from assassination.^ 1 " Smithsonian Report," l866, page 30. '^ Ibidtni, 1867, page 60. The Smithsonian Library 297 From the Secretary of State for War of Great Britain there came, in 1868, a series of facsimiles of the national manuscripts of England, including documents belonging to each reign, from William the Conqueror to Queen Anne, arranged chronologically, so as to illustrate the changes in handwriting and the language of the different periods of English history.^ It sometimes happened that books were presented to the Institution by a special act of Congress, the report of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition and the works of Thomas Jefferson, Jolin Ouincy Adams, and Alexander Hamilton being notable instances. From Mariette Bey came facsimiles of the Egyptian papyri in the Boulak, now the Gizeh, Museum in Cairo. Another most interesting collection was received in 1874, being the gift of Major- General Lefroy, Governor of Ber- muda, through his relative, Mrs, Dundas, of Canon Hall, Larbert, New Brunswick. Concerning these Mr. Spofford made the following report : ^ "These original records form a collection of the highest interest and value as materials of personal and political his- tory at a period which must ever remain the most important era in the annals of the United States. One of the volumes contains twelve reports submitted to the lords of Her Majesty's treasury by John Wilmot, Colonel Dundas, and the other commissioners, upon the losses and services of the claimants who were loyal to the British crown during the revolutionary war, and who were afterward indemnified by act of Parliament. Six reports in addition, signed by Colonel Dundas and Mr. J. Pemberton, commissioners, and extend- ing from A. D. I 784 to I 789, are also embraced. Thirty-four of the manuscript volumes contain a large amount and variety of facts and testimony regarding the landed possessions and 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1868, page 43. "^Ibidem, 1874, page 25. 20 298 The Smithsonian Institution personal property of hundreds of British subjects in the New- England States, as well as in New York, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, etc. As most of these papers have never been published, they are the more valuable and original and unique repositories of information regarding the persons to whom they relate, the descendants of many of whom still survive among the people of the United States." Alexander Dallas Bache, so intimately connected with the Institution in many capacities, presented his collection of rare scientific pamphlets. The library of Henry R. Schoolcraft, containing many valuable ethnological works, has been permanently deposited with the Institution. Robert Stanton Avery, who left the greater part of his estate to the Institution, also bequeathed his library of pam- phlets and periodicals. Another special feature of the library is the large collection of pamphlets and of books relating to scientific matters, and of the theses of universities ; a great number of maps and works of a general literary nature, and books of reference. Among the sciences, meteorology was one which was espe- cially represented by a rich collection of manuscript and published material. In accordance with its general plan of cooperation, the Institution delivered to the Weather Bureau all its manuscript material relating to meteorology. In 1 85 1 a very valuable collection of etchings, engravings, and books which had been made abroad with great care by George P. Marsh was purchased for the Institution. In report- ing on this collection in 1850, Professor Jewett said : "This collection, though not the largest in the country, is believed to be the choicest." It contains the work of nearly every engraver of celebrity, among whom may be mentioned Diirer, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Claude Lorraine, as well as special The Smithsonian Library 299 folios of old Italian and German masters; also a collection of works relating to the history of art, very complete in its day. Another collection of engravings was presented to the Institution by Mr. C. B. King, in 1861.^ From time to time there have been additions to this collection, largely by gift and occasionally by purchase. The plan formulated by Secretary Langley, and executed under his direction, for the greater increase of the library of the Institution by exchange than had heretofore obtained, has been described above. This plan was so successful that the library has almost doubled in size within the past five years, the normal increase for a year now amounting to from thirty to thirty-five thousand entries of the record book. In fact, it may be fairly said that the library is now on a more favorable footing, so far as increase is concerned, than it was at the time when the Institution was first organized, and when almost half of its endowment was assigned for library purposes. In addition to the library of the Institution proper Secre- tary Langley began, in 1891, the collection of " a limited number of books, not forming part of the Smithson- ian deposit in the Library of Congress, obtained by purchase from the Smithsonian fund and retained at the Institution under the name of the ' Secretary's Library.' These books are mostly, but not exclusively, books of scientific reference, certain art serials being included among them."- Various other small collections are now beinQf made for the use of the Astrophysical Observatory, the Zoological Park, for the immediate use of the Institution, denominated " OfiEice Library," and files of popular literary magazines for the employees. 1 A catalogue of this collection is contained in the " Smithsonian Report," l86l, page 86. 2 " Smithsonian Report," 1 891, page 12. 300 The Smithsonian Institution To state the number of volumes which this collection rep- resents is now almost impossible, since they have not been counted for a number of years; but it will give some approxi- mate idea of the size of the library to say that, at present, that portion which is known as the " Smithsonian Deposit," in the Library of Congress, numbers 357,000 books, pamphlets, periodicals, and maps; and other collections, independent of the "Smithsonian Deposit," would considerably increase this number. Yet this vast collection is not assembled in any one place so as to be visible to the eye and to make an impression by its mass. The greater portion of it is deposited in the Library of Congress, and it is expected that with the com- pletion of the new building for that library a section of it, adequate for the purpose, will be assigned for the use of the Smithsonian Deposit, so that this great body of scientific literature will again become really available. The Institution at present maintains a reading-room con- taining 500 bins for periodicals, and a reading-room for the complete sets of transactions of the six or seven great acade- mies of the world. It is collecting such works of reference as are indispensable for the use of its staff, and maintains, in connection with the Museum, a working library, which had its origin in the gift of the library of Professor Baird. This collection now numbers some 25,000 works and about 10,000 pamphlets, which, while accessible to scientific men in Wash- ington and elsewhere, are primarily intended for the use of the scientific staff of the Institution. The Museum library is itself divided into twenty-three sections, placed in the work-rooms of the specialists, containing most valuable books and series. These special collections range in number from 200 to 3000 titles. They are all received, accessioned, and catalogued in the central library. Each book or pam- The Smithsonian Library 301 phlet delivered to a sectional library is receipted for, the receipt cards being so arranged as themselves to form a catalogue of the sectional library. The curator or officer in charge of each department is responsible for each book de- livered to him, and his receipt therefor is held by the libra- rian. All general books of reference, all works relating to explorations, and all serials devoted to more than one subject are kept in the central library. The librarian may at any time recall any book from a sectional library, and a person coming to the central library to use a book which is in a sectional library can get it almost as readily as though it were actually on the shelves ; so that the sectional libraries are, in fact, little else than alcoves distributed around the building, each one in charge of a specialist whose interest in his own department aids materially in the growth of the whole library, while the control of these sections is absolute, and no general interest suffers because of this specialization. Realizing that in the near future it may be desirable that many important works belonging to the Institution (which it has been found more convenient, in view of the crowded condition of the Library of Congress, to care for at the Museum and the Institution) may be sent to the new library building, the Museum has made a steady effort to develop an independent library for the use of its scientific staff; but no clashing has ever taken place, and the entire work proceeds on a uniform plan, under entire cooperation. It is thus manifest that the Smithsonian Institution, while not unmindful of the demands of general literature, and even art, has been steadily collecting the periodical literature of the world. It aims to gather from all quarters the memoirs of learned societies, the publications of museums, institutions, academies, and of scientific departments of government. Other libraries in America devote themselves to special sub- 20* 302 The Smithsonian Institution jects ; no one has found the means, or has had the desire, to make a great collection of this nature.^ Professor Henry fre- quently said that cooperation, not monopoly, is the watch- word of the Smithsonian Institution. Its policy has always been to devote itself to such useful fields of labor as no other institution could be found ready to take up. The growth of its own library has been specially favored by the magnitude and value of the publications which it has had to offer in exchange, both those issued by Congress and those printed from its private fund. By means of its publica- tions, and by means of its exchange service, the Smithsonian Institution has incidentally secured a library more valuable in actual amount and more unique in character than it could possibly have obtained had the plan of a library, pure and simple, so ardently advocated by Senator Choate, been car- ried out. Doctor G. Brown Goode, the Assistant Secretary of the Institution, estimated in 1895 that "the value of the books distributed since the Institution was opened has been nearly $1,000,000, or nearly twice the original bequest of Smithson." ^ I have little doubt that the Institution has received in ex- change more than the entire value of all the money expended for publications, and that its collection of scientific transac- tions and periodicals is one of the two most important, and possibly the most important, in the world. 1 In accordance with the plan adopted for 2 « An Account of the Smitlisonian In- the federation of the libraries in Chicago, the stitution, Its Origin, History, Objects, and John Crerar Library will devote itself in part Achievements." City of Washington. For to scientific and literary periodicals. distribution at the Atlanta Exposition, 1895. THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM^ By Frederick William True ^MONG the powers conferred on Congress by the Constitution is authority "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by secur- ing for Hmited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." " A result of this provision was the estab- lishment of the Patent Office and the assembling in connec- tion therewith of numerous models of inventions. A building for the Patent Office was erected in 1812, but it was destroyed by fire in 1836, and with it the models and records it contained. " In the Patent Office building, and with it destroyed," writes Doctor Goode,^ "there was gathered a collection of models which was sometimes by courtesy called the ' Ameri- can Museum of Arts,' and which afforded a precedent for the 1 Nothing could have been more desirable, or in every way more fitting, than that this chapter on the National Museum should have been from the pen of the late Doctor Goode, who alone possessed the ability to present the subject adequately. I have quoted from his printed papers as extensively as circum- stances would permit, and the first part of the chapter is little more than a paraphrase of portions of his writings. — F. W. T. 2 Article i, section 8. 3 Goode, G. Brown. " The Origin of the National Scieniific and Educational Institu- tions of the United States.'' "Annual Re- port of the American Historical Association for the year lS89,"page 7. 303 304 The SmitJiso7tian Institution larger collection of models and natural products, which re- mained under the custody of the Commissioner of Patents until 1858, when it was transferred to the Smithsonian Insti- tution and became a part of the present National Museum." Though an assemblage of objects of more or less scientific interest was thus early formed as an indirect result of the policy pursued by the government, the establishment of a national museum was earlier in the minds of many American statesmen, especially in connection with the educational in- stitutes which it was thought the government should found for the intellectual advancement of the people. In the plan for a federal university published in the Penn- sylva7iia Gazette in 1788, and commonly credited to Madi- son,^ section 8 relates to natural history, and in connection therewith the remark is made : "To render instruction in these branches of science easy, it will be necessary to establish a museum, and also a garden, in which not only all the shrubs, etc., but all the forest trees of the United States should be cultivated." The plan for a " National Institution " put forth by Joel Barlow in 1806 includes mention of the natural history and art museums of France in the preamble, and in the plan itself (though ambiguously worded) are provisions for collec- tions of minerals and philosophical instruments. While these and other similar plans show that the forma- tion of national collections of art and science was thought desirable by the fathers, they did not result directly in the establishment of museums under the government. The first really scientific collection that came into the possession of the government was probably, as Doctor Goode has remarked,^ 1 See Goode, ibidem, pages 66, 126, who 2 Goode. "Genesis of the National Mu- believed Benjamin Rush, of Pennsylvania, to seum." Report United States National Mu- have been the author of the plan. seum, 1891, page 273. The United States National Mnseiim 305 Smithson's cabinet of minerals, which was deHvered, with the remainder of the Smithson estate, into the hands of Richard Rush, the agent of the United States, in 1838. The collection is described by a committee of the Na- tional Institute as follows : "Amoncr the effects of the late Mr. Smithson is a cabinet which, so far as it has been examined, proves to consist of a choice and beautiful collection of minerals, comprising prob- ably eight or ten thousand specimens. The specimens, though generally small, are extremely perfect, and consti- tute a very complete geological and mineralogical series, em- bracing the finest varieties of crystallization, rendered more valuable by accompanying figures and descriptions by Mr. Smithson, and in his own writing. The cabinet also contains a valuable suite of meteoric stones, which appear to be suites of most of the important meteorites which have fallen in Europe during several centuries." Three years later, in 1841, there was formed in Washing- ton, chiefly through the exertions of Honorable Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, a scientific organization under the name of the National Institute, with the avowed pur- pose of assembling scientific collections. Article 14 of the bill of incorporation reads thus : "The resident and corresponding members shall exert themselves to procure specimens of natural history, and so forth ; and the said specimens shall be placed in the cabinet, under the superintendence of a board of curators, to be ap- pointed by the directors. All such specimens, and so forth, unless deposited specially, shall remain in the cabinet ; and, in case of the dissolution of the institution, shall become the property of the United States."^ The Institute was dissolved in 1861 and its collections deposited in the Smithsonian Institution, "By this so- 1 Rhees, W. J. " The Smithsonian Institution : Documents Relative to its Origin," page 240. 3o6 The Smithsonian Institution clety," remarks Doctor Goode, "the nucleus for a National Museum was gathered in the Patent Office building in Wash- ington, and public opinion was educated to consider the es- tablishment of such an institution worthy of the attention of the government of tHe United States." ^ The first collections of any magnitude which the National Institute took under its care were those of the United States Exploring Expedition which was sent out by the Navy Department, under Lieutenant Wilkes, in 1838. Ear- lier expeditions under the auspices of the government had been organized, but they either made no collections or de- posited such as they did make in private museums outside of Washington. The first collections of the exploring expedition were re- ceived in Philadelphia in 1840 and were temporarily stored in a room belonging to the Philadelphia Museum. Poinsett induced the Secretary of the Navy, James K. Paulding, to forward these collections to Washington, and interested himself to secure from Congress an appropriation of $5000 to defray the cost of their transportation and subsequent arrangement. In April, 1841, the collections were deposited in a portion of a room in the new Patent Office, designated for the purpose by the Secretary of State. Doctor Henry King, a geologist and mining expert and curator of the National Institute, was in direct charge. The compensation of the curator was paid from the appropriation of Congress already referred to. With what rapidity collections accumulated under the charge of the National Institute may be learned from the 1 Report of the United States National to the Smithsonian Institution, by Doctor Museum, 1893, page 3. For a full account Goode, the reader is directed to pages 38-48 of the National Institute and its relation of the present work. The United States National Museum 307 report of the committee of the Institute dated January i, 1842. This report recites that "the entire collection is de- posited in the upper rooms of the Patent Office; it con- sists of:^ "Donations from foreign governments. " Donations from other institutions, foreign and domestic. "Donations from ministers and consuls abroad, and from officers of our Army and Navy. " Donations from individuals and from members of the Institution. The Iowa collection of mineralogical and geo- logical specimens, made by R, D. Owen, Esquire, under the direction of the Treasury Department. "The collection of mineralogical and geological specimens which had been on deposit in the bureau of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. "The collection of portraits of distinguished Indians, and the collection of Indian curiosities which had been on deposit in the War Department. "The minerals, books, papers, and personal effects of the Smithsonian bequest. "The two shipments which have been received from the exploring squadron, consisting of minerals, specimens of nat- ural history, works of art, implements of war, and curiosities. "The books, minerals, and works of art belonging to the late Columbian Institute. "The books, papers, and proceedings of the late American Historical Society. " Cabinets and specimens, deposited by members in trust, for public use." These collections, according to the same report, comprised about 1000 books and pamphlets, 50 maps and charts, 500 castings in plaster (medals and seals), 186 paintings, about 1600 bird-skins, 160 skins of quadrupeds, 50 skins of fishes; 200 jars, 2 barrels, and 10 kegs of fishes, reptiles, etc., in 1 Goode. " Genesis of the United States National Museum," page 347. 3o8 The Smithsonian Institution spirits ; 50,000 botanical specimens, 3000 insects, several hundred thousand shells, 500 corallines, more than 2000 crus- taceans, 300 starfishes, etc., 100 sponges, 7000 separate speci- mens of minerals, and 50 boxes of the minerals and geological specimens. Those engaged in caring for the collections at this time were the curator of the Institute, Doctor King, a taxidermist, a botanical assistant and two other assistants, a mechanic, and a laborer. Thus was established what in reality was a National Mu- seum, containing collections belonging to the government, sustained by an appropriation from Congress, and employing a curator and assistants. For a time prosperity seemed assured, but complications soon arose which proved disas- trous in the highest degree not only to the museum but to the National Institute itself. The room in the Patent Office set apart for the collections by direction of the Secretary of State was needed for the display of models of inventions, and the Commissioner of Patents made strong protests against its occupancy by the Institute. In August, 1842, Congress authorized the occupancy, "until other provisions be made by law," and also appro- priated $20,000 for the care and arrangement of the collec- tions, but in addition ordered that the persons having the work in charge should be appointed by the Joint Committee of the Library. Only a month earlier a charter had been granted to the Institute, in which all trusts previously held were confirmed. "The supporters of the Institute," writes Doctor Goode,^ "were disposed to urge that this was applicable to the col- lections of the * exploring squadron ' at that time in the cus- tody of the Institute. The question did not come up in a . 1 Goode. " Genesis of the United States National Museum," page 311. The United States National Mitseimi 309 troublesome way at this time, for the Library Committee, at that time [not] unfriendly, simply confirmed the choice of cura- tor made by the National Institute, and appointed Doctor Pickering" to the position, Doctor Pickering being thenceforth subject to the Congressional Committee, and only by courtesy acting for the National Institute." A little later, in 1843, ^^ Library Committee having no longer any consideration for the Institute, without consult- ing its officers, appointed the Commissioner of Patents to have general charge of the government collections, and Captain Wilkes, the head of the exploring expedition, to arrange and display them. Captain Wilkes proceeded with the work, pushing aside the collections of the Institute to make place for those of the government, yet professing an interest in the welfare of the Institute and the security of its prop- erty. The drift of matters came to the attention of the officers of the Institute only by rumor, but Colonel J. J. Abert initiated a correspondence with Captain Wilkes, in- quiring whether he or his assistants would devote any time to the care of the collections of the Institute, and stating that if such was not the case the attention of the Institute would be immediately called to the necessity of otherwise protecting its property. The replies were not satisfactory. Captain W^ilkes held that as he and his assistants were paid by the government they could not spend any time in working upon collections belonging to a private organiza- tion. Nevertheless, he expressed an intention not to dis- turb the collections of the Institute more than should be really necessary in working out those of the government, and to watch over them as far as possible. A few months later, in a correspondence relative to the "Ontonagon" copper boulder now in the National ^luseum, the Commissioner of Patents took the same ground, and held 3IO The Smithsonian Institution also that he had entire control over the room in which the property of the Institute was deposited. At the end of 1843, therefore, the National Institute found itself bereft of the control of the government collec- tions, without funds, except the membership dues, which were much in arrears, and without quarters for its large and rapidly accumulating collections. "The real cause of the decline of the National Institute," writes Doctor Goode,^ " was simple enough. Failing to secure grants of money from Congress, the society was over- whelmed by the deluge of museum materials, which in re- sponse to its enthusiastic and widely-circulated appeals came to it from all quarters of the world. The annual receipts from the assessment of members were insufficient to pay for the care of the collections, and although by virtue of the long term of its charter the collections were kept together until 1 86 1, there was little science and little energy manifested in this administration." While the events we have mentioned were taking place extended discussions were going on in Congress, and in the country generally, regarding the proper disposition to be made of the bequest of James Smithson. It is unnecessary in the present connection to consider the various views put forth further than to remark that several schemes included provisions for museums of natural history and the arts. The act of incorporation of the Smithsonian Institution passed August 10, 1846, provided that the Regents, having selected a proper site, " shall cause to be erected a suitable building of plain and durable materials and structure, without unnecessary ornament, and of sufficient size, and with suitable rooms or halls for the reception and arrangement, upon a liberal scale, of objects of natural history, including a geologi- 1 Goode. " Genesis of the United States National Museum," page 328. TJie United States National Museum 3 1 1 cal and mineralogical cabinet; also, a chemical laboratory, a library, a gallery of art, and the necessary lecture rooms." It is further provided that the Regents "may so locate said building, if they shall deem it proper, as in appearance to form a wing to the Patent Office building, and may so con- nect the same with the present hall of said Patent Office building, containing the National Cabinet of Curiosities,^ as to constitute the said hall, in whole or in part, the deposit for the cabinet of the said Institution, if they deem it expedient to do so." This plan was not adopted. Section 6 of the same act provides that "in proportion as suitable arrangements can be made for their reception, all objects of art and of foreign and curious research, and all objects of natural history, plants, and geological and minera- logical specimens belonging, or hereafter to belong, to the United States, which may be in the city of Washington, in whosesoever custody the same may be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of Regents to receive them, and shall be arranged in such order and so classed as best to facilitate the examination and study of them, in the building so as aforesaid to be erected for the Institution." Considering the section relating to buildings mandatory, and under the belief that the collections beloncrino- to the government must be accepted and housed, the Board of Regents of the newly-established Institution proceeded at once with the erection of a lar^je brown-stone structure. For various reasons the building was many years in con- struction, and during this period the first Secretary, Joseph Henry, became more and more pronounced in his opinion that the government collections should not be cared for at the expense of the Smithsonian fund. Indeed, he was in doubt 1 See Goode, op. cit., page 301, 312 The Sifiithsonian Institution whether the Institution ought to form extensive miscellaneous collections to be maintained permanently at the expense of its funds, although he fully appreciated the value of collec- tions, and, as will presently appear, labored to carry out the program adopted for the Institution by acquiring and caring for such special collections as could be made the direct means of increasing and diffusing knowledge. In the Report for 1850 he remarked: " It would not be in accordance with the spirit of the or- ganization to expend the income in the reproduction of col- lections of objects which are to be found in every museum of the country. Natural history can be much more effectively promoted by special collections of new objects, by appropri- ations for original explorations and researches, and, above all, by assistance in the preparation of the necessary drawings, and by presenting to the world, in a proper form, the labors of naturalists. In conformity with these views, it has been resolved to confine the collections, principally, to objects of a special character, or to such as may lead to the discovery of new truths, or which may serve to verify or disprove existing or proposed scientific generalizations."^ Again, in the Report for 185 1, perhaps thinking that his position regarding museums might be misunderstood, he wrote : " I would distinctly disavow the intention of underrating the importance of collections in themselves. On the con- trary, it ought to be the duty of the Smithsonian Institu- tion to point out the means by which they may be made, and to aid in the work, to the extent of its ability, by embracing all opportunities which may offer for procuring specimens for distribution, and by facilitating exchange and assisting explorations." ^ 1 " Smilhsonian Report," 1850, page 21 (reprinted in Report for 1853, page 202). 2" Smithsonian Report," 1851, page 24 (reprinted in Report for 1853, page 227). The United States National Mttsetim 313 In the same connection he expressed his views regard- ing the importance of a National Museum, in the following words : "Though the formation of a general collection is neither within the means nor the province of the Institution, it is an object which ought to engage the attention of Congress. A general museum appears to be a necessary establishment at the seat of government of every civilized nation. . . . An establishment of this kind can only be supported by govern- ment ; and the proposition ought never to be encouraged of putting this duty on the limited, though liberal bequest of a foreigner. The Smithsonian Institution will readily take the supervision of an establishment of this kind, and give plans for its organization and arrangement, provided it be requested to do so, and the means for effecting the object be liberally supplied." ^ In 1850 Professor Spencer F. Baird was appointed Assist- ant Secretary of the Institution in charge of publications and museum. He brought with him from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, not only a considerable zoological collection assembled by his own activity, but, what was vastly more important, a system of recording, assorting, and distributing collections which was sufficiently comprehensive and elastic to meet the needs of a great museum. In December, 1850, he placed in the hands of Secretary Henry a full outline of operations which he after- ward carried into practice with the most signal success. He perceived that the numerous surveying parties which the government was sending out from year to year into the Western territories would be powerful agencies in increas- ing the knowledge of the natural history of the country if they could be induced to make collections of natural objects along the various routes they traversed. To this end the 1 "Smithsonian Report," 1851, page 25 (reprinted in Report for 1854, page 227). 21 SH The Smithsonian Institution influence of the Institution was brought to bear on those officials of the government who had the several surveys in charge. The extent and form of participation by the Institution in the explorations of the government surveys varied in different cases. In some instances the Secretary of War was induced to grant an officer of the Army leave of absence for the pur- pose of making scientific explorations in some little known part of the country. Again, the Institution furnished outfits and directions for collecting to such surgeons and other offi- cers of the surveying and exploring parties as manifested an interest in natural history explorations. In some cases the personnel of an exploring party included a naturalist of known abilities and experience, and the Institution furnished every facility for collecting. On this point Professor Baird, referring to the Mexican Boundary and Pacific Railroad surveys, reported in 1853 as follows : "Without a single exception, all these parties have been fitted out at the Smithsonian Institution with all necessary instruments and apparatus for natural history research, much of it contrived with special reference to the exigencies of the particular service involved. Full instructions were also supplied, by which persons without previous practice were enabled to master all the general principles required for mak- ing observations and collections of every kind."^ The participation of the Institution also took the form of aid in the publication of results. Every year one or more publications based on the collections of the government parties were issued. Fostered by the Institution, to whose interest Professor 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1853, page 52. The United States National Museum 315 Baird lent enthusiasm and untiring energy, the work of col- lecting yielded abundant fruits. In 1853, three years after his arrival at the Institution, Professor Baird, having worked along the lines laid down by Henry, in procuring such series of specimens as were calculated to open up new fields of study and to increase knowledge, was able to report on the wonder- ful development of the natural history collections in the fol- lowing words: " It may be well to call attention to the fact that it has been the work of but three years to raise this collection from nothing to the front rank among American cabinets, exceeding all perhaps in the number of new species first brought to light within its limits. Nor has effort been con- fined merely to the acquisition of specimens, but to their con- centration in mass, so as to supply all working naturalists with the materials of research. As already stated, applica- tions for such assistance are constantly being received, and always met with all possible promptness ; so that scarcely any natural history monograph or memoir of any extent has been published in this country within a year or two which has not been indebted in this way to the Institution. From the care, too, taken to keep separate all the localities, however near together, of any species, the collection affords information in reference to the geographical distribution of species of the very highest value." ^ At the end of a decade, in i860. Professor Henry was able to say : "The scientific material thus collected is very valuable, and, in number and variety of specimens and duplicates to illustrate the natural productions of the North American Continent, far excels any other collection ever made."" 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1853, page 54. 2 " Smithsonian Report," i860, page 44. 3i6 The S^nithsonian Institution While the Institution was thus exerting itself to obtain special collections to serve as the basis of research, the Com- missioner of Patents was growing each year more desirous of having the use of the space occupied in the Patent Office by the national collections, and appealed frequently to Con- gress and to the Regents of the Institution to relieve him of their care. In 1857, when Professor Henry brought the matter before them anew, they finally agreed that the transfer of the collec- tions to the Smithsonian building should take place, but stipulated that an appropriation should be made to cover the expense of the transfer and the construction of cases in the Smithsonian building, and that the Secretary of the Interior should undertake to obtain from Congress, as before, an annual appropriation for the care of the collections. In his report for 1856 Secretary Henry said: " For the present, it may be well to adopt the plan suggested in a late report of the Commissioner of Patents, namely, to remove the museum of the Exploring Expedition, which now fills a large and valuable room in the Patent Office, wanted for the exhibition of models, to the spacious hall of the Insti- tution, at present unoccupied, and to continue, under the direc- tion of the Regents, the appropriation now annually made for the preservation and display of the collections. " Although the Regents, a few years ago, declined to accept this museum as a gift, yet, since experience has shown that the building will ultimately be filled with objects of natural history belonging to the general government, which, for the good of science, it will be necessary to preserve, it may be a question whether, in consideration of this fact, it would not be well to offer the use of the large room immediately for a national museum, of which the Smithsonian Institution would be the mere curator, and the expense of maintaining which should be paid by the general government."^ 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1856, page 22. The United States National Musetim 317 "I can find no record in the minutes of the Regents," writes Doctor Goode, " but have been informed by Mr. W. J. Rhees, of the Smithsonian Institution, that an urgent re- quest for the use of the hall was made by the Commissioner of Patents and the Secretary of the Interior, and that the Board decided to grant this request on the condition that Congress should appropriate money for the construction of the cases and the transfer of the collections, and that the Secretary of the Interior should provide for the expenses of the care of the collections after their transfer in the same manner as before."^ The collections were transferred to the Institution in 1858. Professor Baird reported that year ^ that twelve separate col- lections were received from the Patent Office, of which the most considerable was the collection of the exploring expe- dition under Captain Wilkes. He estimated that the Patent Office collections together constituted about one-fifth of the objects in the Smithsonian museum. He pointed out also that there were then in the museum twenty-three other govern- ment collections which had never been in the Patent Office. These were chiefly assembled by the different field parties of the Pacific Railroad Survey, the Mexican Boundary Survey, and other government expeditions engaged in exploring the national domain. The policy relating to the treatment of the collections adopted by the Institution was fully explained in the report of the Secretary for 1861, though in most of its essential features it was in operation as early as 1857. Secretary Henry remarks: ^ "The specimens may be divided into two classes — first, those which have been described in the reports of govern- 1 Goode. " Genesis of the United States National Museum," page 342. 2 " Smithsonian Report," 1858, page 52. '^ " Smithsonian Report," 1861, page 41. 21* 3i8 The Smithsonian Institution ment expeditions or the transactions of the Smithsonian and other institutions ; and second, those which have not been de- scribed, and which consequently are considered of much value by the naturalists who are interested in extending the several branches of natural history. Of both classes the Institution possesses a large number of duplicates, in the disposition of which some general principles should be kept constantly in view. After due consultation with naturalists, the following rules, which were presented in the last report, have been adopted relative to the described specimens : "First. To advance original science, the duplicate type specimens are to be distributed as widely as possible to scien- tific institutions in this country and abroad, in order that they may be used in identifying the species and genera which have been described. " Second. To promote education, as full sets as possible of general duplicates, properly labeled, are to be presented to colleges and other institutions of learning that profess to teach the principal branches of natural history. " Third. It must be distinctly understood that due credit is to be given to the Institution in the labeling of the speci- mens, and in all accounts which may be published of them, since such credit is not only due to the name of Smithson, but also to the directors of the Establishment, as vouchers to the world that they are faithfully carrying out the intention of the bequest. "Fourth. It may be proper, in the distribution to institu- tions abroad, as a general rule, to require, in case type speci- mens to illustrate species which have been described by foreign authors may be wanted for comparison or other uses in this country, that they be furnished at any time they may be required. "Fifth. In return for specimens which may be presented to collecres and other educational establishments, collections from localities in their vicinity which may be desirable shall be furnished when required. " In the disposition of the undescribed specimens of the collection, it is impossible to be governed by rules quite as The United States National Mtiseiini 319 definite as those which relate to the previous class, but the following considerations have been adopted as governing- principles: " I. The original specimens ought not to be intrusted to inexperienced persons, or to those who have not given evi- dence of their ability properly to accomplish the task they have undertaken. " 2. Preference should be given to those who are engaged in the laborious and difficult task of preparing complete monographs. "3. As it would be illiberal to restrict the use of the speci- mens, and confine the study of them to persons who can visit Washington, the investigator should be allowed to take them to his place of residence, and to retain them for a reasonable time. "4. The investigator must give assurance that he will pre- pare a set of type specimens for the Smithsonian museum, and will return all the duplicates, if required. " 5. In any publication which may be made of the results of the investigation, full credit must be accorded to the In- stitution for the facilities which have been afforded." All these provisions on the part of the Institution were car- ried out as far as the circumstances would permit. The money available was insufficient for employing paid assist- ants to any considerable extent, and the Institution had the benefit of the voluntary assistance both of many recognized authorities in the several branches of science and of young students. The extent and importance of this aid cannot be overestimated. Collections which would have remained use- less for years were rapidly classified by competent naturalists and separated into series, some to be reserved by the In- stitution, and others to be distributed to kindred scientific establishments and to colleofes and schools. The list of collaborators includes almost every name prom- inent in American natural history in the last half century. Nor 320 The Smithsonian Institution is this a matter for wonderment. The collections made by the exploring parties of the government in the twenty-five or thirty years following the founding of the Institution contained a great number of highly interesting forms of animals and plants previously unknown to science, and the naturalists in whose hands the various series were placed constantly en- joyed the delight of discovering these and making them known to the world. The boundaries of American natural history were widened in every direction. As regards verte- brates, Professor Baird remarked as early as 1856: "Messrs. Audubon and Bachman describe about 150 North American species of mammals. This Institution possesses about 130 of these; and about 50 additional species have already been detected, although the examination of the entire collection has not yet been completed. "Of North American birds, the Institution possesses nearly all described by Audubon, and at least 150 additional species. "Of reptiles, the North American species in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution amount to between 350 and 400. Of the 150 species described in Holbrook's ' North American Herpetology,' the latest authority on the subject, it possesses every genuine species, with one or two exceptions, and at least 200 additional ones. It has about 130 species of North American serpents for the 49 described by Holbrook. " Of the number of species of North American fishes it is impossible to form even an approximate estimate, the increase having been so great. It will not, however, be too much to say that the Institution has between four and five hundred species either entirely new or else described first from its shelves." ^ The scientific elaboration of the collections resulted in the publication of a great number of monographs and preliminary papers in the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge" and 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1856, page 60. The United States National Museum 321 "Miscellaneous Collections," in the reports of the government surveys, and in the journals of learned societies at home and abroad. Many of the more comprehensive of these works remained as standards for a quarter of a century, and some have not been supplanted at the present day. In this work no one labored with more enthusiasm or more success than Professor Baird, who, while carrying the burden of caring for the collections and planning for the exploration of new fields, prepared and published a series of works on North American vertebrates which commanded the admira- tion of naturalists throughout the world. Side by side with the activities resulting in the increase of knowledge, the work of diffusing knowledge by the distribu- tion of named natural history specimens was carried forward on an extensive scale. In the first twenty years of its history the Institution, according to the estimate of Professor Baird, ^ dis- tributed more than one hundred thousand specimens, of which the larger part were identified and labeled. In 1861 the charter of the National Institute expired and the various objects belonging to that organization became the property of the government and were transferred to the care of the Smithsonian Institution. At this date, therefore, all the scientific and art collections belonging to the government and the collections made by the Institution itself were assembled in the Smithsonian building. They comprised many thousands of objects, and were administered by Professor Baird as Assistant Secretary of the Institution. From the time the government came into possession, in 1 84 1, of the collection made by the Wilkes Exploring Expe- dition Congress appropriated each year a small sum for the preservation of the objects accumulated in the Patent Office, 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1865, page 85. 322 The Smithsonian Institution which money was disbursed at first by the National In- stitute, afterward by the Commissioner of Patents or the Joint Library Committee of Congress. After these collections were transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1858, the appropriations for maintenance con- tinued year by year, though small in amount. In 1858 the appropriation was $3,650; in 1859, and for eight years fol- lowing, $4,000. The Institution never received any compen- sation for the occupancy of its building. As early as 1856,^ Professor Henry expressed the opinion at an early day that the government might with propriety and advantage purchase the Smithsonian building from the Institution for housing the government collections "of natural history and the fine arts," but no action in that direction was ever taken. When these collections were transferred from the Patent Office a series of new cases designed by Thomas U. Walter were erected in the main hall of the Smithsonian building for their display. Great progress has been made in museum methods in the last two decades, but the cases, arrangement, labeling, and taxidermy in the Smithsonian museum thirty- five years ago were probably as good as could be found in any scientific museum in the world at that time. The exhibi- tion of many examples of a single species of animal or min- eral, or of a single kind of ethnological or geological object, was not considered objectionable, and it was a common prac- tice to mount and exhibit type specimens of animals. To such matters as the size of glass in cases, the color of wood- work and labels, the effect of different groupings of speci- mens, little attention was devoted. Indeed, the amount of money spent upon scientific museums was not sufficient for great refinement in display. Collections were exhibited for the satisfaction of the mature man of science, rather than the 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1856, page 22. The United States National Museum 323 youthful student and the layman. Yet these latter classes were neither purposely neglected nor did they complain of the methods in vogue. It is with interest that we read the following comment by Professor Henry on the Smithsonian museum in 1861 : " During the past year Washington has been visited by a greater number of strangers than ever before since the com- mencement of its history. The museum has consequently been continually thronged with visitors, and has been a never- failing source of pleasure and instruction to the soldiers of the Army of the United States quartered in this city or its vicinity. Encouragement has been given them to visit it as often as their duties would permit them to devote the time for the purpose. " 1 In 1865 an event of much importance occurred. A fire broke out in the second floor of the Smithsonian building and destroyed the upper portions of the edifice. Many collections were entirely destroyed or injured beyond repair, among which the most important were Smithson's personal effects and cabinet of minerals, a large series of portraits of Indians painted and owned by J. M. Stanley, and the collection of physical instruments, including Hare's experimental apparatus and "the lens used by Priestley for the evolution of oxygen from the oxide of mercury, and by means of which the first dis- tinct recognition of this elementary substance was effected."^ This event produced results affecting the museum in many ways. It called attention to the fact that the library of the Institution was kept in rooms not fireproof, and the transfer of the books to the Library of Congress was hastened, the space being subsequently occupied by the less valuable por- tions of the natural history collections. By the destruction of the Stanley portraits of Indians, which, though really an 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1861, page 44. 2 <« Smithsonian Report," 1865, page 18. 324 The Smithsonian Institution ethnological collection and only on deposit in the Institution, formed an important part of what (with frequent apologies) was called "the gallery of art," the attempts to form an art collection of merit received discouragement. The reconstruc- tion of the building, made necessary by the fire, led to a new assignment of rooms for the ethnological collections. Pre- vious to the fire the upper story had been used principally as a lecture-room, but the interest in lectures flagging for a time, it was determined after the reconstruction to place the ethnological collections in that portion of the building, but the transfer was not effected until several years later. Though the formation of an art gallery was provided for in the organization of the Institution and a few art objects came into the possession of the government from time to time. Professor Henry took the position at an early day that with the funds available the establishment of an art collection worthy of the name was impossible. When Mr. W. W. Cor- coran first took active steps toward the formation of the "Corcoran Art Gallery" in 1869, Henry recommended that art objects belonging to the Institution should be deposited therein. In 1873 the Board of Regents approved the plan, and in the following year a few paintings, sculptures, and engravings were transferred. In the early days of the Institution the valuable collection of engravings made by Honorable George P. Marsh was pur- chased (the only large purchase by the Institution in the direction of art), and soon after the fire in the Smithsonian building it was transferred to the Library of Congress. By 1874, therefore, the Institution had definitely aban- doned all efforts toward the establishment of an art gallery, and though some few objects connected with the fine arts have come under its care in later years, they have never been assembled so as to form a proper "gallery." The United States National Museum 325 In 1 87 1 Congress established the United States Fish Com- mission and Professor Baird was placed at its head. The organization of the Commission on this basis had a most im- portant effect upon the development of the National Museum in certain directions. The work of the Commission had to do largely with the natural history of fish and other aquatic animals, and in the course of a few years very large collec- tions of marine life were deposited in the Museum. Later the work of the Commission turned toward the investigation of the phenomena of the deep sea, and in 1882 a sea-going steamer, the Albatross, was built, and extensive sounding and dredging operations in great depths were carried on. The collections made during the progress of this work, and deposited in the Museum, were of the highest scientific interest, and the results already published by Goode, Verrill, Bean, Rathbun, Smith, and other naturalists have attracted worldwide attention. In many other ways, which cannot be detailed in the present connection, the work of the Com- mission was of direct and indirect benefit to the Museum, and the cooperation of these two governmental organizations has continued until the present. Not many years after the organization of the Commission the question of the desirability of holding a great World's Fair to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Declara- tion of Independence began to be agitated in the country. The movement culminated in the organization of the Cen- tennial Exhibition of 1876, held in Philadelphia. This event was destined to have a more important effect upon the Na- tional Museum than any which had occurred since the founding of the Smithsonian Institution. The government determined that the various departments and bureaus should make extensive exhibits indicating their several functions, and on January 23, 1874, the President 326 The Smithsonian histitution appointed a government board to have general charge. The Smithsonian Institution was represented by Professor Baird. In the first plans of the board the National Museum exhibit was included under that of the Institution, and the Fish Com- mission apparently under the Interior Department. They included also an item of $200,000 for an exhibition building which should be "capable of removal to Washington after the close of the Exhibition, to be used as a National Museum at the capital of the nation."^ Congress, however, saw fit to modify these plans and provided for the erection of a general government building, to be paid for pro rata from the ap- propriations of the several departments and bureaus, and to be sold at the close of the Exhibition. An appropriation of $67,000 was made for the Smithsonian Institution, and of $5000 for the Fish Commission, the provision for the National Museum being included in the former. When the several officers of the Board began to examine the situation in detail it became apparent that different bureaus would duplicate one another's exhibits unless some compromise were made. Accordingly the exhibits of the Institution, the Na- tional Museum, and the Fish Commission were merged into one comprehensive exhibit; while, on the other hand, the National Museum cooperated with the Indian Bureau of the Interior Department in an exhibit representing North Amer- ican anthropology. The combined exhibit was divided into five sections — Smithsonian Activities, "Animal Resources," Fisheries, Mineral Resources, Anthropology. In the preparation of the exhibits of "animal resources" and fisheries Professor Baird (then " Curator of the National Museum ") had the assistance of G. Brown Goode ("who held the position of Assistant Curator of the National Museum "), Tarleton H. Bean, and H. C. Chester; in ethnology, Charles 1 "Smithsonian Report," 1875, page 59. The United States National Mtisenni 327 Rau, Edward Foreman, and F. H. Gushing; in mineral re- sources, William P. Blake and Thomas Donaldson. When the idea of holding a great exhibition under the government was first put forth, both Secretary Henry and Professor Baird foresaw that the effect on the National Museum must be of the greatest moment. The objects purchased and exhibited by the government of the United States would find their final resting-place in the Museum, and many foreign governments and private exhibitors would doubtless present their exhibits to the United States, with the result that they also would find their way into the Museum. ''The results of the operations of the Institution in con- nection with the Centennial Exhibition," wrote Professor Henry in 1875, "will probably have a much greater effect on the future of the establishment than is at first sight ap- parent. The large number of specimens which have been collected by the several Departments of Government and by the Institution itself in view of this Exhibition will greatly increase the contents of the National Museum, and if we add to these the specimens which will be presented by foreign powers, of which we have already had intimations, the num- ber will be swelled to an extent far beyond the capacity of the present building to contain them, and an additional edifice will be required for their accommodation, "In the consideration of this matter, the questions will arise whether the building required shall consist of an extension of the present Smithsonian edifice, or an entirely separate building; and these questions will involve another, viz., whether it is advisable to continue, at least without some modification, the connection which now exists between the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum. "The Museum is destined to an extension far beyond its present magnitude. It is an object of much interest to all who visit the National Gapital, and is of great value as ex- 328 The Smithsonian Institution hibiting the natural resources of the country, as well as a means of public education." Professor Baird, as Exhibition representative of the Institu- tion, wrote in the Report of the same year as follows: " It will, however, be readily understood that the Smith- sonian Building will be entirely inadequate to accommodate this collection on its return from Philadelphia, especially as even now it is overcrowded and packed from top to bottom with thousands of boxes, for the proper exhibition of the con- tents of which there is no space or opportunity at the present time. It is to be hoped that action at an early day will be taken by Congress looking toward a proper provision for this emergency, especially when it is realized that the materials are thus available for a National Museum that shall be equal, in its extent and completeness and in its educational advan- tages, to that of any nation in the world. "The collections made directly through the Government appropriations will also be very largely supplemented by the donation of series of American and foreign exhibitors, a very large proportion of which will be placed at the disposal of the United States Government." The anticipations of Henry and Baird were fully met. In the Report for the Centennial year Professor Baird wrote : " At no period in the history of the National Museum, from the time when it was organized to the present, has the in- crease been so great as during the year 1876."^ After referring to the accessions from the government ex- hibits, he remarks : " In addition, however, to the sources of increase to the Museum during the years 1875 and 1876, mentioned above, still another presented itself of perhaps even greater pro- 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1876, page 38. ROGER BROOKE TANEY. THIRD CHANCELLOR OF THE S.MITHSOXIAX IXSTITFTIOX 1850-1864:. 328 iiai! cue t- .>rp .i.;;i. vcporc of the same year itU- :iig wiii be eti I on its return from Phi .nd packed from witii thousands of boxes, for the prope te: 'i; of whicl It is to be ho: 'onoress looking d a proper pr '\ Nntional 'nrnt' nodate nnter Ivan- ^^•lent '-mentf the • » ■ . -1, »-• » • aced at the !■.- !•, ons c nniai year t no wilt vso ereac as dur • al Museum, from .j-ftei-osHj: . ve, greater pro- T/CAHn QHIHT The United States National Miisetim 329 ductiveness, viz., acquisitions from foreign exhibits. With scarcely an exception, the best and most important of these were presented to the United States at the close of the exhi- bition, embracing, as they did, many complete series of objects, illustrating the geology, metallurgy, the ethnology, and the general resources of all nations. Of about forty governments and colonies, the choicest of the exhibits of thirty-four were presented to the Smithsonian Institution for the National Museum, the remainder either having nothing to give or being restricted in the disposal of their articles. ** It was, however, not from foreign commissions alone that collections were received by the Institution. Several entire State exhibits and many belonging to private parties were also added to the general increase. Nevada, Montana, and Utah presented the whole of their mineral exhibits, while par- tial collections were received from several other States and Territories." The Reofcnts of the Institution submitted a memorial to Congress the same year (1876) asking an appropriation of $250,000 for a building for the National Museum. A bill was introduced, but failed of passage that year, and it was not until 1879 that the amount asked for was provided. As soon as the law was enacted a building commission ap- pointed by the Regents of the Institution was organized, con- sistino- of the resident members of the executive committee of the Institution (Honorable Peter Parker and General William T. Sherman) and Secretary Baird. General Sher- man was chosen as chairman and General M. C. Meisfs was invited to act as consulting engineer. The commission selected the firm of Cluss & Schulze, whose design for the building had been approved by Con- gress, as superintending architects, and received the benefit of the advice of Mr. Edward Clarke, architect of the Capitol. The erection of the building was begun April 17, 1879, and 22 33^ The SmithsoiiiaJi Institution completed in 1881. In design the structure is of the type commonly employed for exhibition buildings, being entirely open above the ground floor. It covers a space of two and a third acres. On account of the relatively small amount ap- propriated for the building and the enormous growth of the national collections, it was necessary to use building materials of low cost and to cover in as much space as possible. The building is regarded as one of the cheapest of its size ever erected. While admirably adapted in most respects for the purpose for which it was built, it does not, of course, present, either externally or internally, an appearance as pleasing or diofnified as would have resulted from the use of a more ex- pensive system of construction and more costly materials. While the building was under construction. Congress de- cided that the United States Government should be repre- sented at the Berlin Fisheries Exhibition of 1880 by the Fish Commission. Professor Baird, then both Secretary of the In- stitution and Fish Commissioner, appointed G. Brown Goode, the Curator of the National Museum, as his deputy at the exhibition. By this fortunate combination of circumstances. Doctor Goode, the working head of the National Museum, was afforded an opportunity to study the museums of Ger- many and other parts of Europe, and brought home with him a knowledge of the most approved methods of installation of collections, labeling, and storage which was invaluable. Far more fortunate was it that the Museum at this critical time in its history had as its curator a man of such surpassing merit as the lamented editor of this volume. Gifted with a philo- sophical mind, a profound love of nature, a marvelously re- tentive memory, and untiring energy, he acquired a range of knowledge and a grasp of affairs which astonished his asso- ciates, while his modesty, gentleness, and love of fair play attracted to him and bound to his service men of the most The United States National Mnseiun 331 diverse capacities and opinions. His genius was known to Secretary Baird, but hitherto he had not found a sufficiently wide field for the exercise of his powers. The reorganization of the Museum afforded an opportunity, and Baird gave him free scope for the development of his plans, aiding him as no one else could have done, from the stores of a lifetime of ex- perience along the same lines. Out of the heterogeneous materials accumulated by the government, especially as a result of the Centennial Exhibi- tion, Doctor Goode organized, under the approving guidance of Secretary Baird, a public museum of wide scope, attractive, instructive, orderly, and full of the elements of life. He elabo- rated with the greatest pains a philosophical and compre- hensive classification for the collections of the Museum, and planned a complete reorganization of the staff of curators and assistants. He devised an entirely new series of cases and other fixtures, for the installation of both the collections exhibited to the public and those reserved for the use of in- vestigators, adopting the best features then developed in European museums, and adding many of his own invention. This regeneration of the National Museum soon made itself felt in similar ororanizations throuQfhout the United States and in other parts of the world, and the methods of installation and labeling employed in Washington have been widely copied. The influence of the National Museum has not, however, stopped here. Already at the Berlin Fisheries Exhibition of 1880, with the experience gained during the Centennial Exhi- bition, Doctor Goode was able to secure for the United States Fish Commission and the National Museum the Emperor's prize for the highest excellence of display. Not satisfied with this recognition, and always aiming to advance, he endeavored to install the exhibits of the Institution and Mu- 33^ The Smithsonian Institution seum at later foreign and domestic exhibitions, in accordance with the best museum methods. As a result the exhibits of the Institution always won high praise, and it is not too much to say that the work of the National Museum in this direction has had a powerful influence in revolutionizing exhibition methods in America. Since the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, few years have passed in which the Museum has not been engaged in pre- paring for a public exposition of greater or less magnitude. It made displays at London in 1883, at Louisville in 1884, at Minneapolis in 1887, at Cincinnati and Marietta in 1888, at Madrid in 1892, at Chicago in 1893, and at Atlanta in 1895. The necessity of carrying on exhibition work outside of Washington has affected the National Museum in many ways. Probably no other great permanent museum in the world has had constantly before it the problem of guarding its treasures from deterioration, and at the same time transport- ing no inconsiderable portion of them thousands of miles and displaying them under the ordinarily unfavorable surround- ings of temporary exhibitions. The advantages lie in the direction of making the work of the Museum known to the people of the Republic and the world at large, and securing new objects with which to fill out the deficiencies in its vari- ous collections. The disadvantages are found in damage done to objects in the collections by breakage or otherwise, the interruption of the regular Museum work, and the dissi- pation of the energies of the scientific officers ; for a mu- seum, like any other permanent institution, requires abundant time and uninterrupted activity for its best development, and does not flourish in the midst of commotion and excitement. Thus far I have considered the National Museum in its historical aspects. It remains to explain briefly its function The United States National Miiseitm zzz and aims, and to mention the most notable objects in its collections. It will be perceived, from the statements already made, that the Museum is essentially a natural development springing from the activities of the government, growing with their growth, and expanding with their expansion. It had its ori- gin in the great naval exploring expedition which the gov- ernment organized in the early part of the century, and found an important expansion in the long series of topographical surveys of the public domain, and geological surveys of later years. The scientific investigation of the primary indus- tries — agriculture, fisheries, and mining — by the govern- ment has also resulted in large additions to the Museum. Finally, the desire on the part of the government that the people should gain a better understanding of its practical workings, through representative displays of processes and objects in the great public exhibitions, has broadened the activities and increased the wealth of the Museum, both directly and indirectly; — directly, because the Museum has need to bestir itself to bring together and arrange exhibits which will be acceptable to the public ; indirectly, because the participation of the government of the United States often leads other governments to participate, and the exhibits of these, in greater or less proportion, are ultimately presented to the United States for its National Museum. The field of activities of the government has had a strong influence on the character of the collections of its National Museum. While European governments have been engaged in exploring new regions and founding colonies in distant sections of the globe, that of the United States has confined its attention almost exclusively to North America. The col- lections of the National Museum, therefore, are predomin- antly North American. Leaving out of consideration the 22* 334 The Sjiiithsoriimi Institution important foreigri collections of a few early expeditions, and those resulting from the deep-sea investigations of the United States Fish Commission, the additions in this direction have chiefly come from the activities of private explorers, by gift of foreign governments at expositions, by exchange of speci- mens, and only in a few instances by purchase. In the organic law of the Smithsonian Institution already cited it is provided that " In proportion as suitable arrangements can be made for their reception, all objects of art and of foreign and curious research, and all objects of natural history, plants, and geo- logical and mineralogical specimens belonging, or hereafter to belong to the United States, which may be in the city of Washington, in whosesoever custody the same may be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of Regents to receive them, and shall be arranged in such order and so classed as best to facilitate the examina- tion and study of them." In the act of June 30, 1880, making appropriations for the sundry civil expenses of the government, it is enacted that ''all collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, archaeology, and ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological Survey, or by any other parties for the government of the United States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National Museum."^ In the same year, as we have said. Congress appropriated money " for a fire-proof building, y^r tJie use of the National Micsetcm." As may be seen from the statutes cited, the National Mu- seum is the recognized depository for all objects of scientific and artistic interest and value which come into the possession 1 Statutes United States Forty-fifth Congress, third session, chapter 182, page 394. The United States National Miiseiun 335 of the government. Its function is to preserve these treasures perpetually and to administer the collections in such a man- ner as to render them of the highest service to research and education. In pursuance of these ends it exhibits a portion of the collections for public inspection and instruction; an- other portion it assembles in laboratories for the use of investigators. Out of the surplus accumulations it selects series of specimens for distribution to educational institutions, and it encourages publications which will make its treasures known to the world. Of these latter activities it will be necessary to speak somewhat more in detail before closing, and I will return to them presently. It is desirable to point out here the fact, which will become evident to any one upon reflection, that an institution such as the National Museum, with its facilities for investigation and its corps of trained specialists, soon becomes a center of intellectual activity, attracting to itself students and sava7its, and being called upon to impart technical information and advice. In these lines lies no inconsiderable part of its labor and usefulness. It is to be said further that the Museum of to-day, owing in part to a natural development, and in part to the labors of a few advanced leaders, among whom none have rendered more important service than the late Doctor Goode, is no longer con- tent with a passive existence, but strives, by the arrangement of its collections, by its labels, its hand-books and other publications, and its lectures, to impart instruction of a def- inite character and in definite lines. It assembles great col- lections of natural objects and treasures of art not merely to satisfy idle curiosity, but to diffuse knowledge among men. Thus it allies itself to the university and the library, and must be counted among the chief agencies for the spread of culture. 33^ The Smithsonian Institution To describe in detail all the more important objects in the National Museum would require more space than can be de- voted to such an enumeration in this volume, but it will be of interest to point out the chief excellences of the collections and to mention some of the treasures. The collections are at present divided among the following Departments and Sections : Zoological Departments : Mammals, Birds (with a Section of Birds' Eggs), Reptiles and Batrachians, Fishes, Mollusks, Insects, Marine Invertebrates (with a Section of Parasitic Worms), Comparative Anatomy. A Botanical Department. Geological Departments : Geology, Mineralogy, and Pale- ontology. Anthropological Departments: Prehistoric Anthropology, Ethnology (with a section of American Pueblo Collections), Oriental Antiquities. A Department of "Arts and Industries," with the following sections at present: Historical Relics, Transportation and Engineering, Naval Architecture, Physical Apparatus, Elec- trical Collections, Technological Collections, Materia Medica, Forestry, and Graphic Arts. The Department of Mammals comprises the collection of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition and of the numerous geo- graphical and geological surveys of the public domain, in- cluding the type-specimens of species described by Baird in his great work on North American mammals, and numerous types of J. A. Allen, Elliott Coues, Harrison Allen, and other American naturalists. The collections from the Mexican boundary recently made by Doctor E. A. Mearns, U. S. A., are large and of high scientific value.^ 1 The very extensive series of North Amer- Hart Merriam, the finest ever assembled, is ican mammals made by the United States deposited in the Museum building and cata- Department of Agriculture under Doctor C. logued in its registers. The United States National Museum zzi A series of casts of porpoises and other cetaceans, includ- ing a young humpback whale, forms a unique feature of the Department. The representation of foreign mammals, though deficient in many directions, includes a considerable number of type-spe- cimens, and some important local collections, chief among which are those from German East Africa and from Kash- mir and Eastern Turkestan, made and presented by Doctor William L. Abbott. The collection of skulls of North American mammals is probably unrivaled elsewhere in extent, and the Department also contains a large alcoholic series. Of the Department of Birds, the Curator, Mr. Robert Ridg- way, writes : "Among the most important collections and single objects contained in the Department of Birds are the following : " (i) The collections made by the Wilkes Exploring Expe- dition, the various Pacific Railroad Surveys, the Mexican Boundary Survey, the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, the Geological Survey of the Territories, Geo- graphical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian, the United States Astronomical Expedition (Gilliss), and various other government expeditions.-^ " (2) The collection made by Colonel A. J. Grayson in Western Mexico, including the Tres Marias and Revilla- Gigedo Islands ; collections made by Professor F. Sumichrast on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and by Professor C. Sartorius in the State of Vera Cruz, Mexico ; collections made by F. A. Ober in the various islands of the Lesser Antilles. " (3) The collections made by the United States Fish Com- mission during a cruise of the steamer Albatross around Cape Horn and in the Bahamas. IThe valuable collections of birds made Merriam in the United States and Mexico by the United States Department of Agiicul- are deposited in the Museum building, as in ture under the direction of Doctor C. Hart the case of the mammals. 338 The Smithsonian Institution " (4) Specimens from Audubon's collection, among them a considerable number of types of his new species, that is, spe- cimens from which the descriptions and colored plates in his great work were taken. These formed part of Professor Baird's private collection, to whom they were given by Mr. Audubon. " (5) The private collection of Professor Baird, numbering nearly 4000 specimens, which formed the nucleus, or begin- ning, of the present national collection. " (6) Other private collections donated to the National Museum. " (7) The collections made by Doctor William L. Abbott in Eastern Africa, Madagascar, etc., generously presented to the National Museum and embracing a very large number of species entirely new to the Museum collection, many of them being new to science. These collections of Doctor Abbott, moreover, represent practically all that the Museum possesses from the countries named. " (8) The collection of several thousand specimens from various parts of the world, presented by Mr. A. Boucard, of Spring Vale, Isle of Wight, England. " (9) Extinct Birds : Great Auk (one specimen), Labrador Duck (several), Guadelupe Caracara (good series, old and young), and Philip Island Parrot, the latter purchased for the Museum by Doctor William L. Ralph, of Utica, New York. "(10) Very rare species, or those nearly extinct, as the Carolina Paroquet, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Black-capped and Jamaican Petrels, Hawaiian Coot, Cuban Macaw, Peale's Sandpiper (several specimens, the only ones known to exist in collections), and numerous other species. "(11) Unique types, such as Fisher's Petrel, Townsend's Bunting, Cooper's Sandpiper, Cooper's Hen- Hawk, Riker's Woodhewer. "The National Museum collection of North American birds is by far the most complete in existence, and is the basis of every important work on North American birds since Audu- bon's time. That of the birds of the West Indies is also the most important, although exceeded greatly in number by that The United States National Mttseum 339 of Mr. C. B. Cory, now the property of the Field Columbian Museum, in Chicago, Illinois. That of Central American and South American birds is exceeded in extent and value only by the British Museum's series of birds from the same region, and has been freely used by Messrs. Sclater, Salvin, God- man, Count von Bcrlepsch, and others in their various pub- lications on neotropical birds, and is also largely the basis of Professor Baird's 'Review of American Birds.' " Museums throughout the world have been supplied with American birds by the United States National Museum, and the existing specimens of several species, such as the Roseate Gull, Greenland Redpoll, and several Alaskan species, have mainly, — in some cases exclusively, — been distributed by the National Museum. " It can safely be said that no collection of birds in the world compares with that of the United States National Museum in value or importance as a basis for scientific inves- tigation already accomplished or yet to be done, since as many species as possible, with the facilities at command, are represented by large series of specimens from all parts of their geographical range, and of all known variations de- pendent on climate, sex, age, or other circumstances. "The unparalleled collection of North American birds' eggs in the United States National Museum is the result of many years' growth. In the early years of the Institution Professor Baird interested the naturalists of the various government surveys and members of the Hudson Bay Fur Company in the subject, and from them (and especially the latter) thousands of eggs were received. Mr. R. Mc- Farlane^ was particularly active, and with him were associ- ated B. R. Ross, James Lockhart, John Reid, M. INIcLeod, A. McKenzie, and others, who sent not only eggs, but large collections of other kinds. The Institution sent Robert Ken- nicott to Arctic America in 1859, where he remained three years, collecting the natural productions of the region, and with them many eggs of Arctic birds. 1 See his report in "Proceedings of the United States National Museum," Volume XIV, pages 413-446. 340 The Smithsonian Institution "Naturalists visiting Alaska and Labrador also made large contributions to the oological collections. The eggs of the rare Northern water-birds and waders so difficult to obtain for private collections were thus sent (often in large series) to the Institution. "In 1884 Major Bendire added to the already large collec- tion his unrivaled series of eggs of Western birds, obtained during twenty-five years of duty in the Territories, This collection numbered eight thousand or more beautifully pre- pared specimens. From that time till his death Major Ben- dire was untiring in his efforts to obtain the desiderata of the collection. More recently Doctor William L. Ralph, of Utica, New York, has presented his magnificent collection of eggs to the Institution, and is now actively engaged in filling gaps in the series, "To mention specifically all the rarities in the North American series of the oological department would be an almost endless task; a few of the more important ones are the following : "Great Auk, i Qgg\ Heermann's Gull, 2 eggs; Craveri's Murrelet, 2 eggs; Jabiru, i &gg\ Purple, Aleutian, Coues's, Baird's, Pectoral, White-rumped, and Curlew Sandpipers; Sanderling, 2 specimens (McFarlane); Heath Hen, one speci- men ; Passenger Pigeon, about thirty eggs ; California Vul- ture, I ≫ Harlan's, Krider's, and Short-tailed Hawks; Peale's, Richardson's, and Aplomado falcons ; Elf, Flammu- lated, and Californian Pigmy Owls; Carolina Paroquet; Ivory-billed Woodpecker; White-throated and Vaux's Switts; Clarke's Nutcracker, several eggs; Western Evening-Gros- beak; American and Mexican Crossbills; Pribilof Snowflake, several eggs. Among the rare warblers may be mentioned : Brewster's, Virginia's, Lucy's, Cape May, Olive, Sennett's, Grace's, Townsend's, Hermit, Golden-cheeked, Gray, and Connecticut Warblers ; Rio Grande and Belding's Yellow. throats; Red-faced Warblers, "Of foreign eggs may be mentioned those of the Kamts- chatkan Sea Eagle and the Ouesal ; also various series of eggs, like those collected by Doctor Jerome H. Kidder on Kerguelen The United States National Museum 341 Island, Doctor William L. Abbott in Africa, Seychelles Isl ands, Asia, etc. On some of these reports have been made " 1 Of the Department of Reptiles and Batrachians, the Cura- tor, Doctor Leonhard Stejneger, remarks : " The distinctive characteristic of the reptile collection in the Museum is in the completeness with which it illustrates the geographical distribution and morphology of the species in- habiting North America. In this respect it stands unrivaled. As the depository of the types of the species described by Baird, Girard, Kennicott, Cope, and other distinguished American herpetologists it also takes first rank. " The importance of the individual collections must there- fore be judged with reference to their richness in such types and the advance in our knowledge of the reptiles and batra- chians of this continent that has ensued. The collections which have undoubtedly contributed most in these respects are those of the Pacific Railroad Surveys, the first Mexican United States Boundary Survey, and the Wilkes Exploring Expedition." The collections of fishes are almost exclusively North Amer- ican, with one notable exception in the case of the deep-sea fishes dredged by the United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. The latter collection is of equal importance with that of the Challenger expedition, if it does not surpass the same, and formed the basis of the recent work of Doctor Goode and Doctor Bean on " Oceanic Ichthyology." The Department contains the most extensive collections of fresh-water and littoral fishes of the United States anywhere 1 " Contributions to the Natural History of of Nests and Eggs of Some New Birds, col- Kerguelen Island, made in connection with lected on the Island of Aldabra, Northwest the American Transit of Venus Expedition, of Madagascar, by Doctor W. L. Abbott." lS74-'75," lacing Bulletin No. 3, United Proceedings of the United States National States National Museum. Also" Description Museum, Volume xvii, 1894, pages 39-41. 342 The Smithsonian Institution assembled, consisting chiefly of the great series formed by the United States Fish Commission, supplemented by the collec- tions of many American naturalists. The collection of Alas- kan fishes is very large, and is not extensively duplicated elsewhere. The series of fishes collected in connection with the Pacific Railroad Surveys and the first Mexican Boundary Survey are of special importance as containing the types of a large proportion of the species of the middle and western United States. They have been supplemented in recent years by important series collected under the auspices of the Fish Commission and by private collectors. The Department contains also many single specimens of great value, which have been made the basis of new families and genera. Regarding the Department of Mollusks, Mr. William H. Dall, the Honorary Curator, writes as follows : " The collection of mollusks was founded primarily upon the specimens gathered by the United States Exploring Ex- pedition under Wilkes during 1838-42, which formed the types of the folio volume on the mollusks and shells by Doc- tor A. A. Gould, included in the series of United States Exploring Expedition reports published by Congress. To these were added the types of the mollusks of the North Pacific Exploring Expedition under Ringgold and Rodgers, collected by Doctor William Stimpson, and described by Gould. The collections were very rich and valuable, for the time, but underwent serious vicissitudes before and after be- ing received by the Smithsonian Institution previous to the organization of the museum, so that the series as it now exists is by no means complete. Nevertheless these shells form an interesting and important portion of the collection. " Next in point of number and value comes the collection, The United States National Mtisettm 343 especially of Unionidae, given by Doctor Isaac Lea, and subsequently enriched by his son-in-law and daughter, the Reverend and Mrs. L. T. Chamberlain. This collection is, in its specialties, the freshwater mussels of the world, unri- valed for extent and value, comprising an enormous number of types and having full data in relation to the habitat, etc., in nearly every case. "Almost as important for the mollusks of Great Britain, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and especially for the various deep-sea dredging expeditions sent out under British auspices before the Challenger expedition, is the Jeffreys collection, purchased from Doctor J. Gwyn Jeffreys, and comprising the results of nearly half a century of active collecting, exchanging, and purchase — in all some 25,000 lots of specimens, by far the most important and complete series of British shells in existence, and forming the basis of some hundred publications. " The fauna of West America, both littoral and deep- sea mollusks, is represented by the combined collections of Robert E. C. Stearns, William H. Dall, the United States steamer Albatross of the Fish Commission, the Arctic cruis- ers of the United States Revenue Marine, and many private donations, in all representing the most complete existing rep- resentation of the fauna, with full data in nearly every case. " The fauna of the east coast of North America is repre- sented by the unrivaled collections of the United States Fish Commission, augmented by a series of those of the Blake and many private collectors in the West Indies and on our southern coast. "The land and freshwater shells of North America, apart from the freshwater mussels, are represented by the best existing collection derived from many sources, including types of Binney and Bland, Lea, Lewis, Dall, Stimpson, and many others. "To sum up, the collection of mollusks has the best series in the world, supplied with the fullest data, in the modern sense, of the land, freshwater, shore, and deep-sea mollusks of North America, the Arctic regions, the North Atlantic and 344 The Smithsonian Institution Pacific and the British Islands. In the total number of spe- cimens, the collection is the largest in the world, including over six hundred thousand specimens of dry shells and five thousand jars of alcoholic molluscan material. The collection of Cenozoic fossil shells comprises the largest existing series of the tertiary fauna of the United States ; and probably the largest series of Antillean tertiary shells in any museum, though much remains to be done in naming and classifying the fossil material. " It may be said without fear of contradiction, that for the regions mentioned, the Department of Mollusks is unrivaled, not only in the amount and variety of material it contains, but especially in the full and correct data recorded in respect to the specimens, and which gives to them a really scientific value, which is wanting in most of the great collections of the world, which were mostly made at a period when the impor- tance of such data was not fully recognized. No other col- lection contains nearly as many American and British type specimens ; and only the British Museum rivals ours in the number of species represented from the whole world. No other collection has so large a representation of deep-sea mollusks and brachiopods, for the study of which the National collection is indispensable." Of the Department of Insects, Doctor L. O. Howard, the Honorary Curator, writes : "Taking the collection as a whole, and aside from the con- sideration of the individual collections of which it is composed, I should say that its most important features are, first, the rapidly accumulating number of types in all orders, amounting already to more than thirty-five hundred species; and second, the biologic features of the collection, due largely to the fact that the original deposit by Doctor Riley was mainly biologic in its character, and to the further fact that the biologic accumu- lations of the United States Department of Agriculture for seventeen years, which have been very great, are now in the possession of the Museum. The United States National Museum 345 "The subjoined statement refers to the source of the different collections now brought together. Looking at the collection as a whole, however, the departments which stand out conspicuously are {a) the collection of North American Noctuidae (probably the most complete in existence), {b) the collection of Parasitic Hymenoptera (undoubtedly the largest collection of bred specimens in the world), {c) the Orthop- terous family, Acrididre, {d) the Homopterous families Coc- cidae, AphididcX, and Psyllidre (without doubt the largest accumulation of North American species), (e) the Dipterous families Syrphidse and Empidae, {/) the collection of Myri- opoda. "The Department is at present in excellent working con- dition. It contains a very great amount of material in all orders, and in many unusual directions surpasses any collec- tion in the country. Among others the following are of special interest : " I. The large collection, in all orders, of Doctor C. V. Riley. " 2. All of the material gathered during the past eighteen years by correspondents, field agents, and the office staff of the Division of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture. " 3. The greater part of the collection of Asa Fitch. "4. The large collection, in all orders, of G. W. Belfrage. " 5. The collections in Lepidoptera and Coleoptera made by Doctor John B, Smith down to 1889, together with the types of the Noctuidae since described by Doctor Smith. "6. The collection of Lepidoptera of O. Meske. " 7. The collection of Lepidoptera of G. Beyer. "8. The collection of Coleoptera of M. L. Linell. " 9. The bulk of the collection, in all orders, of H. K. Mor- rison. " 10. The collection of Diptera of Edward Burgess. " II. The type collection of Syrphidae made by Doctor S. W. Willision. " 12. The collection of Lxodidae of Doctor George Marx. 23 346 The SniitJisoiiian Institution " 13. The collection of Myriopoda of C. H. Bollman. " 14. Sects of the neotropical collections of Herbert H. Smith. " 15. The collection of Hymenoptera of William J, Fox. " 16. The collection of Tineina of William Beutenmiiller. " 17. The large Japanese collection, in all orders, of Doctor K. Mitsukuri. " 18. The African collections, in all orders, of Doctor W. L. Abbott, William Astor Chanler, J. F. Brady, the Eclipse expedition of 1889-90 to West Africa, and of several mis- sionaries. " 19. The large collection from South California of D. W. Coquillett, in Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Orthoptera. " 20. The Townend Glover manuscripts and plates. " In addition to this material, there are minor collections which have been the result of the work of government ex- peditions, or are gifts from United States Consuls and many private individuals." The most beautiful, and in many respects the most im- portant, of the numerous series in the Department of Marine Invertebrates is the collection of corals made by the United States Exploring Expedition, and described by Dana. It includes many types of new forms. The great deep-sea col- lections from the North Atlantic and North Pacific made by the United States Fish Commission deserves notice; as do also the exhaustive collections from the New England coast and the Fishing Banks, and from the west coast of Alaska, re- ceived from the same source. All the collections are very rich in the types of new species and higher groups. Among the notable specimens in the Department of Com- parative Anatomy should be mentioned the skulls and partial The United States National Mtisenm 347 skeletons of the great extinct Arctic Seacow (Rytina) ; several skeletons of huge Galapagos Tortoises ; and an unrivaled series of bones of the Great Auk. The collection is rich in skulls and skeletons of the various species of porpoises. In the Department of Geology the following series and separate objects are pointed out by Doctor George P. Merrill as deserving special mention : " I. The Leadville (Colorado) collections of rocks and ores, comprising some three hundred and eighty specimens, illus- trating the work of S. F. Emmons and Whitman Cross. ^ " 2. The Washoe collections, comprising one hundred and ninety-eight specimens as selected and studied by George F. Becker. ^ " 3. The collections of the Fortieth Parallel Survey. These comprise some three thousand specimens of eruptive and sedi- mentary rocks collected by members of the Fortieth Parallel Survey, under the direction of Clarence King, in 1867-73. The eruptive rocks of the series were described by Professor Ferdinand Zirkel. ^ "4. The Hawes collections. These comprise some three hundred and fifty specimens of eruptive altered rocks, repre- senting in part the work done by Doctor Hawes in connection with the New Hampshire surveys.* It also includes the small fragments described in his paper^ on the Albany granites and their contact phenomena. " 5. The Pacific Slope Quicksilver collections. These comprise several hundred small specimens (mostly 4x6 cm.), rocks and ores from the quicksilver regions of the locality above noted, as collected and described by G. F, Becker^ 1 Emmons, Samuel Franklin. "Geology States Geological Explorations of the For- and Mining Industry of Leadville, Colorado, tieth Parallel, Volume vi, 1876. with Atlas." Monograph xii of the United 4 "The Geology of New Hampshire." States Geological Survey, 1886. Concord, 1878, Volume III, Part iv. '^" Geology of the Comstock Lode and the 5 American Journal of Science, 1881, Vol- Washoe District, with Atlas." Monograph ume XXI, pages 21-32. Ill of the U. S. Geological Survey, 1S82. 6 Monograph XIII of the United States 3 " Microscopic Petrography." United Geological Survey, 1 886. 348 The Smithsonian Institution and colleagues in ' Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of the Pacific Slope.' ** 6, Pigeon Point collections. These comprise four hun- dred specimens illustrating various contact phenomena as occurring at Pigeon Point, on the north shore of Lake Superior, and as described by Professor W. S. Bailey in a bulletin ^ of the United States Geological Survey. " 7. Menominee Valley and Marquette River collections. These comprise two hundred and fifty-four specimens illus- trative of the dynamic metamorphism of eruptive rocks as described by Professor George H. Williams. ^ " 8. The Eureka (Nevada) collection, comprising some five hundred and six specimens, rocks and ores, as studied and described by Arnold, Hague, ^ Whitman Cross, and J. S. Curtis."* "9. The Cripple Creek (Colorado) collections. These comprise some eight hundred specimens of rocks and ores. The material studied by Whitman Cross and R. A. F. Pen- rose and described in their report on the ' Geology and Mining Industry of the Cripple Creek District.'^ " 10. The Silver Cliff collections, comprising three hundred specimens of rocks and ores. The collection upon which is based the report by Whitman Cross and R. A. F. Penrose. " II. The Tenth Census collection of Building and Orna- mental Stone comprises some three thousand specimens, mainly in the form of four-inch cubes, and two thousand thin sections.^ These formed the basis of the results criven in ' The Collection of Building and Ornamental Stones; a Handbook and Catalogue.' '^ 1" The Empire and Sedimentary Rocks on Pigeon Point, Minnesota, and their Contact Phenomena." 1S93. Bulletin, No. 109. 2 " The Greenstone Schist Areas of the Me- nominee and Marquette Regions of Michi- gan." 1890. Bulletin No. 62 of the United States Geological Survey. 3 Hague, Arnold. " Geology of the Eureka District, Nevada, with Atlas." 1892. Mono- graph XX of the United States Geological Survey. 4 Curtis, Joseph Story. " Silver-lead De- posits of Eureka, Nevada, 1SS4." Monograph VII of the United States Geological Survey. 6 Sixteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, Part II, 1894-95. 6 Merrill, George P. Special Reports on Petroleum, Coke, and Building Stones, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, Vol- ume X. 7 Report United States National Museum, 1886, page 277. The United States National Mttsenm 349 "12. The Tenth Census collection of Iron Ores, compris- ing" some two thousand two hundred hand specimens and five hundred and six thin sections. This formed the basis of Pro- fessor Raphael Pumpelly's report.^ " 13. The collection illustrating Kirkaldy's experimental inquiry into the mechanical properties of Fagersta steel. " 14. Collections from the Archaean Division of the United States Geological Survey made in Vermont and Massachu- setts, and forming the basis of the petrographic work to be published in a forthcoming monograph.^ "Among the materials of greatest historical importance may be mentioned : " (^.) A mass of iron smelted by members of the Frobisher expedition during their stay at Frobisher Bay in 1578. ** ibi) A piece of metallic tin smelted by Doctor T. C. Jack- son in 1840 from ore found at Jackson, Carroll County, New Hampshire, and believed to have been the first tin smelted in America. " (^.) The first steel car axle made in America and bent cold. " id.) Copper medal. Struck from the first copper pro- duced in Colorado in 1866. " (^.) Placer gold. First gold discovered in California, from tail-race two hundred yards below the mill, panned by J. W. Marshall on the evening of the 19th and 20th of January, 1848. Marshall's Claim, Sutter's Mill, Coloma, El Dorado County, California. " (yi) Sample of petroleum from the first flowing well in the United States. Drilled in 1829 near Burkesville, Ken- tucky. "Amons: the more strikino^ collections of the exhibition series may be mentioned the one illustrating limestone cav- erns and associated phenomena. This includes not only a large and variegated series of stalagmitic and stalactitic min- 1 Report on the Mining Industries of the United States, with special investigations into the iron resources of the Republic, and into the cretaceous coals of the Northwest. Volume xv., Washington, 1886. 2 See also Thirteenth and Fourteenth Annual Reports of the United States Geological Survey. -J 350 TJie Smithsonian Institution erals, but also representative forms of animal life such as inhabit caverns. The collection as a whole is doubtless the most complete and systematic of its kind in any museum in the world. " In the economic section are very full and systematic collections illustrating the mineral resources of the United States, arranged geographically, and also a systematic series in which minerals of the same nature and from world-wide sources are arranged by kinds. This collection comprises probably not fewer than ten thousand specimens." Mr. F. V. Coville, Honorary Curator of the Department of Botany, furnishes the following brief account of the collec- tion of plants : " With reference to the collections in the Department of Botany, it may be said that they constitute what is commonly known as the National Herbarium. The nucleus of the herbarium consisted of the plants collected by the Wilkes Ex- ploring Expedition during the years 1838 to 1842. To these were added later the material from the North Pacific Explor- ing Expedition of Ringgold and Rodgers, followed by those of Fremont, the Mexican Boundary Commission, the Pacific Railroad Surveys, and all the later explorations and expedi- tions of the government, "In recent years the largest amount of material received has come from the Division of Botany in the Department of Agri- culture, material brought together in the pursuit of the investi- gations of that establishment. Especially noteworthy among these is the collection of grasses which Doctor George Vasey gathered during his studies of the forage plants of the United States during a period of about twenty years. " To the collections of the exploring expeditions and those of the Department of Agriculture has been added a large amount of material donated by American botanists or pur- chased from collectors, besides large consignments of plants received from various foreign institutions or individuals prin- cipally as gifts or in exchange. The United States National Museum 351 "The collections of the exploring expeditions and the col- lection of grasses are especially rich in type-specimens. " Mention should be made of the collections of George Joad, comprising about ten thousand species of representa- tive plants of the globe, more especially those of Europe ; and the collection of Professor Lester F. Ward, comprising the specimens on which his " Flora of Washington and Vicinity " is based, in addition to important collections made by Profes- sor Ward and his correspondents in other parts of the United States. Both the Ward and the Joad collections were ac- quired by the museum in 1885." The important collections of the Department of Minerals are summarized by Mr. Wirt Tassin, Assistant Curator, as follows : " At the request of Professor F. W. Clarke, the Honorary Curator, I have prepared, and transmit herewith, a list of some of the most important collections and single objects in the Min- eral Department. They are: " The Isaac Lea collections, including a collection of min- erals, a collection of micas and quartzes, and a collection of gems and ornamental stones, among which may be noted as of especial interest a fine green tourmaline of fifty-seven car- ats, a red specimen of eighteen carats and a hair-brown one of sixteen carats, from Mount Mica, Paris, Maine. A doubly terminated emerald crystal from Stony Point, Alexander County, North Carolina, one of the largest ever found, meas- uring three and one-tenth by two inches and weighing eight ounces and three pennyweights. A crystal ball cut from North Carolina quartz. A silver nugget weighing four hun- dred and forty-eight ounces, from near Globe, Arizona. One of the largest known cut Ceylon essonites. Four large Cey- lon asteria. A fine suite of opals in argillaceous limonite, Baracoo river, Queensland. " The Leidy collection of minerals, received from the United States Geological Survey. " A series illustratingf the occurrence and associations of 352 TJie Smithsoniaii Ijistitiition the zinc and lead minerals of Southwest Missouri, collected by W. P. Jenney. " A series illustrating the mineralogy of the Pikes Peak region collected by Whitman Cross, of the United States Geological Survey. "A series of original and type zeolites from Table Moun- tain, Gunnison County, Colorado, collected by Whitman Cross, of the United States Geological Survey. " A series of uranium minerals used in the work leading to the discovery of nitrogen in uraninite and later of argon, given by Doctor W. F. Hillebrand. "A series of copper carbonates from Copper Queen Mine, Arizona, a gift of the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company, through James Douglas, President. " A series of azurite crystals and associated minerals from the copper regions of Arizona, together with a series of van- adium minerals from New Mexico, collected by Doctor W. F. Hillebrand. ** A series illustrating the occurrence and association of the zinc minerals of New Jersey, collected by Wirt Tassin. "The type-specimens of warrenite. " A slab of sodalite, size two by two inches ; a polished slab of labradorite, two by two inches ; a slab of calcite crystals four by four inches ; two large sections of agatized wood from Arizona, deposited by the Drake Company ; the ' Ontona- gon ' copper boulder; a series of Sicilian sulphur crystals; the Shepard collections of meteorites ; the Ring or Irwin meteorite; a suite of meteoric irons from Caiion Diablo, Ari- zona, varying in weight from 964 pounds to a few ounces. " To the list may be added the Stroud collection, the Hawes collection, the Abert collection, the various accessions received at different times from the United States Geological Survey, and other smaller collections containing valuable material of scientific and other importance." Of the Department of Paleontology, Mr. Charles Schuchert, Assistant Curator, writes : The United States National Museum 353 " The feature of greatest importance is that much of our material has served in government reports, and is the basis for the geological and paleontological work treating of the western part of our country. This fact is well exemplified in the great number of species which have served in description and illustration, many of which are the original type-speci- mens. There are of such species five thousand seven hun- dred and forty-one. These are distributed in the sections of this department as follows : Paleozoic Invertebrate species 1^55 Mesozoic " *' 1024 Cenozoic Invertebrate species 1304 Vertebrate species 161 Paleozoic plant species (Lacoe collection) 504 Mesozoic and Cenozoic plant species 1531 Insect species 62 "The most complete series is the 'Lacoe collection of American Paleozoic plants,' the labeled specimens of which alone number upwards of eighteen thousand, and of these more than five hundred species have been described or illus- trated by Lesquereux and White. This magnificent collec- tion is the result of many years' accumulation, and cost upwards of $50,000. It was donated to this museum in 1 89 1, by Mr. R. D. Lacoe, of Pittston, Pennsylvania. "The collection of Cambrian fossils is very large, and when Mr. Walcott shall have completed his studies upon this material, it will be the most complete and valuable series of fossils of this system extant. " The Cretaceous collection is also quite extensive and represents much work by F. B. Meek, C. A. White, and T. W. Stanton. "The Tertiary collection of Mollusca is one of the conspic- uous features of this department. This collection was accu- mulated chiefly by William H. Dall. "Among single objects the following deserve mention: "A composite slab of Lower Carboniferous fossils measur- ing four by six feet, and showing in high relief one hundred and six crinoids (sixteen species) and other tossils. 354 The Smithsonian Institution "A Lepidodendron trunk three feet wide and thirty feet long (Lacoe collection). " A series of six cycad trunks from the Lower Cretaceous of South Dakota. " Bones representing a nearly complete Zeuglodon cetoides from the Eocene of Alabama, and of which a life-sized restora- tion is exhibited. " Skulls and limb bones of the huge Cretaceous Dinosaur, Triceraiops, from Wyoming. "An excellent skeleton of the Irish Elk, Megaceros hiber- nicus, Owen." The collections of the Department of Prehistoric Anthro- pology are thus described by the Curator, Doctor Thomas Wilson : ''There are three great stages of culture, or civilization, represented in this Department, which are separated and installed according to locality. "The first, and probably the earliest, is that of Western Europe, of which the museum possesses an extensive col- lection, the largest in the United States, showing the culture of prehistoric man, from the earliest times down to the Bronze Age and the Etruscans, where it joins history. "The second great division represents the territory of the United States and British Columbia. This constitutes the bulk of the collection, and comprises the hatchets, axes, im- plements, and other objects of stone. The mounds of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys have yielded large represen- tations of pottery. "The third stao-e of culture is that belonorinor to Mexico and Central America, variously called Aztec and similar local names. While it comprises many stone implements, it extends further and wider than either of the foregoing, hav- ing jade, obsidian, and gold objects and ornaments. Its pottery is fine and beautifully made and decorated; while some of the ruder pieces, representing gods, especially from The United States National Museum 355 Mexico, are made with a wealth of detail that has increased the difficulty of manufacture almost beyond the belief of pos- sibility in savage life. " The display from South America is important, resem- bling the culture of Central America more than that of North America. " The Department has one of the richest displays of pre- historic objects in the United States. It contains more than two hundred and fifty thousand objects, which it is impossible to name. They, however, are divided both technologically and geographically, and by comparison in these two regards the endeavor is made to determine the stage of culture and obtain some insight into the history of prehistoric man," Regarding the Department of Ethnology, the Curator, Professor Otis T. Mason, writes: "The ethnological collection of the museum relates chiefly to the North American Indians, but it includes also valuable series of objects from Polynesia, obtained by the United States Exploring Expedition, such as the old Tapa cloths and weapons, which are no longer obtainable at present. "The Eskimo collection is unrivaled. The collections of the Bureau of Ethnology and other government surveys on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean in North America, and in the Pueblo region of the southwestern United States, are the most extensive and valuable ever assembled. Amone sinele objects of high value and rarity may be mentioned a large jade knife from Alaska, obtained by E. W. Nelson ; a fine series of boats and totem posts from the west Pacific coast of America, by J. G. Swan. In the Powell collection there are rare old pieces of pottery from the ruined Pueblos. A Hawaiian feather cloak, of large size and well preserved, also deserves mention. " I present the following list of the most conspicuous and useful collections in alphabetical order, by collectors: " A collection of great value from Eastern Africa, Kashmir, 35^ The Smithsonian Institution and southeastern Asia, by Doctor William L. Abbott, of Philadelphia ; a collection illustrative of the ethnography of Korea, by Lieutenant J. B. Bernadou, U. S. N. ; a collection from the Department of Education in Japan to illustrate the practical industries of this country, in comparison with the tools and appliances brought home by Commodore Perry; the collection of Doctor Franz Boas, illustrative of the cere- monial usages of British Columbia and the Northwest coast ; of Captain John G. Bourke, U. S. A., gathered from Indian tribes in the United States during his long engagements on the frontier ; of Doctor J. F. Bransford, U. S. N., pottery and other materials from the graves of Nicaragua ; enormous col- lections from the great Interior Basin and Pueblo region to illustrate the costume and arts of the Shoshonean and Pueblo tribes, also materials gathered by James Mooney and others of the Bureau of Ethnology from the tribes in the Indian Territory; collection of Heli Chatelain, from Angola; large collection from the Chinese Imperial Commission of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia ; a rare old collection from Liberia and vicinity, made by the Colonization Society of Washington ; collection illustrative of the games of the world, by Stewart Culin, of Philadelphia ; collections espe- cially from South America made by the government agents for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago ; collec- tions of William H. Dall, associated with Doctor Tarleton H. Bean and Marcus Baker, in various parts of Alaska; col- lections, well labeled, from the Tlingit Indians, by Lieuten- ant George T. Emmons, U. S. N, ; a small but extremely valuable collection from west Greenland, by Governor Fenck- ner ; a precious collection of pottery and other objects from old ruined pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona, by Doctor J, Walter Fewkes ; collection of William J. Fisher from the Eskimo and Aleuts on the Alaskan Peninsula, the Island of Kadiak and vicinity ; collection of William M. Gabb from Central America ; old and precious collections from Oregon and British Columbia, by George Gibbs ; a small and rare collection from the west coast of South America, by Lieu- tenant J. M. Gilliss, U. S. N.; a small and extremely rare The United States National Museum 357 collection from Fury and Hecla Straits, by Captain Charles F. Hall ; collections of the Geographical and Geological Sur- vey of the Territories, by Doctor F. V. Hayden ; small col- lection from North Greenland and Grinnell Land, by Doctor I. I. Hayes; collection from the Amazon River, by Lieu- tenant Herndon, U. S. N.; collection from the Ainos and northern Japanese, by Romyn Hitchcock; collections from the Indians of the western Great Lakes, by Doctor W, J. Hoffman ; collections from the Swiss Lake dwellings, by Pro- fessor Joseph Jillson ; collections from southeastern Japan, by P. L. Jouy ; collections from the Mackenzie River district, by Mr. Robert Kennicott ; royal gift from the King of Siam, through General J. A. Halderman; collection from Cumber- land Gulf, by Ludwig Kumlien ; a priceless collection of an- tiquities from Porto Rico, by George Latimer ; collection from Bristol Bay, by Charles L. McKay; extremely valu- able collection from Mackenzie River district, by Robert MacFarlane, of the Hudson Bay Company ; collection from the Congo region, by Dorsey Mohun ; collection from the Sioux tribes of Dakota, by Doctor Washington Matthews, U. S. A. ; an immense collection, covering many thousand numbers, from Alaska, by E. W. Nelson ; collections from the Southwest and Mexico, by Doctor Edward Palmer; col- lections from Japan, by Commodore Perry, U. S. N. ; collec- tions from the tribes of Utah, by Major J. \-'!'v 'A-\r^ -^'^^perati'"" -^T c ^ y, :ii .~)L 1 ■'-■-- a-ve , T^-- -'-•- . iij|^ Liic de- ■„ ^ .. - --, tiie leel by K.umsey, igine, used y to natical kind extant, tion of ifllv any mi. K/:iMr)8HTIMS aHT '50 HOJJ.^OVrAnt) //lOITTJTITHTlI .8Y8r- -1^081 (id ex- The United States National Museum 363 and is especially rich in specimens of cinchona. Of the latter series Doctor J. M. Flint, U. S. N., the Honorary Curator, writes : " I regard the collection of cinchona products as the most important in the Materia Medica Section. This collection embraces specimens of nearly all the natural cinchona barks of South America, every variety of the cultivated product from the government plantations in India, together with most of the cultivated sorts from Java, Ceylon, Jamaica, and Mexico. The India and Jamaica collections comprise also herbarium specimens of the leaf and flower, and in many cases the fruit of each variety of cinchona tree from which the bark is taken." Of the Section of Graphic Arts, Mr. S. R. Koehler writes : "This Section was definitely organized in January, 1887, although its beginning goes back to at least the year 1884. From a very few specimens then on hand the collectors in this section have increased to the number of five thousand six hundred and twenty specimens at the present writing, but as many of the entries on the catalogue cover more than one specimen, it will be safe to say that the total number is about six thousand. "The aim of the Section is to illustrate the various pro- cesses of making pictures by lines and masses, either black or in colors, by hand, or with the aid of machinery, and the application of these processes in the industrial arts. To reach this aim, all the methods of making pictures that have ever been essayed are eventually to be illustrated. — and many of them are already illustrated, — by the tools and materials used, by the product in the various stages of progress, and by historical examples showing the development of each pro- cess, from the invention to the present time." In addition to the collections already noticed, the museum possesses a good series of musical instruments, assembled 3^4 The Smithsonian Institution under the immediate direction of Doctor Goode ; a collection of porcelains, bronzes, and ivory carvings ; a large and va- ried collection illustrating fisheries, which was brought to- gether chiefly in connection with the Fisheries Exhibition of Berlin and London ; a small forestry collection ; a collection of foods ; a collection representing the utilization of industrial products derived from animals ; a collection of fibers and tex- tiles ; and a series of objects illustrating the chemical com- position of the human body. I have already alluded to the work done by the Museum in the direction of supplying from its surplus the needs of other scientific and educational establishments. This undertaking was inaugurated at an early date, as I have stated on a preceding page (page 323), and already in 1866, at the end of the second decade of the Institution, 110,000 specimens from the collections had been distributed. At the close of the fifth decade, in 1896, the number had risen to 521,000 specimens. These included animals of every class and many geological and mineralogical specimens and plants. Every State and Territory in the Union has received a share of these collections, and numerous institutions outside the United States have also been beneficiaries in the distribution. The majority of these specimens were distributed without demand for, or expectation of, a return ; but the National Museum has received from other institutions in exchange for the collections sent out a body of specimens amounting in all to perhaps one-third the number distributed. Important ad- ditions have been made to the Museum in this way, and, indeed, its surplus collections, owing to the comparatively small amounts available for purchases, have constituted its chief capital. The system of exchanges, however, has its The United States National Musenm 365 limitations, which are soon felt. Few institutions carry large quantities of surplus material, and none, of course, dispose of their most precious possessions. Exchange, therefore, takes the place of purchase only to a limited extent. The Smithsonian Institution has carried on the distribution of surplus specimens from its own collections as a part of its regular activities, having for their object the diffusion of knowledge. The government has shown its acquiescence in this policy, so far as the national collections are concerned, by several enactments making appropriations for the work, and in other ways. In 1878 the Museum began the publication of a scientific journal, which has become well known to the world of science under the name of " Proceedings of the United States National Museum." The object of this journal, as indicated in the "advertisement" inserted in the volumes, is "the prompt publication of freshly acquired facts relating to biology, anthropology, and geology ; descriptions of re- stricted groups of animals and plants; the settlement of par- ticular questions relative to the synonymy of species, and the diaries of minor expeditions." Eighteen volumes had been published to the close of 1895, containing in all no fewer than 1 100 papers, comprising 12,056 printed pages. All the papers relate directly or indirectly to the collections of the Museum and serve to make them known to specialists. The volumes include ^ a large share of the scientific publications of the curators of the Museum, whose investigations have very naturally been based for the most part on the collections under their care. The "Proceedings" is a great store- house of facts relating to natural histor)-, and especially in 1 With the " Bulletins " to be mentioned presently. 24* 366 The SrnitJisonian Institution the field of systematic zoology, but the work of every depart- ment of the Museum is reflected in its pages. A few years before the establishment of the " Proceedings," in 1875, the Museum began the publication of a series of monographic works, under the general title of the " Bulletin of the United States National Museum," which in 1895 had reached 49 numbers. This series does not differ essentially in character from the " Proceedings," but comprises for the most part works too large to be conveniently included in the latter journal, and generally of a more comprehensive scope. The regular series of both "Proceedings " and "Bulletin" are in octavo, but the Museum has also published three numbers of the latter series as " Special Bulletins" in quarto. Two of these contain " Life Histories of North American Birds, with special reference to their breeding habits and eggs," by Major Bendire, and the third a treatise on "Oceanic Ichthy- ology," by Doctor Goode and Doctor Tarleton H. Bean. The Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution until 1884 consisted each year of a single volume in which was included a statement of the operations of the National Museum. The Report of 1884, however, and those of subsequent years have been published in two volumes, of which one is devoted exclusively to a statement of the work of the Museum. In connection with the administrative reports contained in these volumes have been published a series of illustrated papers of a non-technical character de- scriptive of various collections in the Museum. These papers have the same interest for non-professional readers that the technical papers in the " Proceedings" have for investigators, and the demand for them reveals a widespread interest in zoology, botany, anthropology, and those other subjects with which the work of the Museum has been most closely con- nected. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY By W J McGee I^HE germ of the ethnological bureau was an exploration of the canons of the Colorado fostered by Joseph Henry, organizer of the Smithsonian Institution. Begrun in amateur ■^S^ fashion among the Rocky Mountains during the summer of 1867, by Major John W. Powell and a few associates, the exploration was gradually pushed down the tributaries to Grand River, then to the Green, and later to the mud-tinted Colorado; and in 1869 the rugged gorge of Green River and the fitly named "Grand" canon of the Colorado were traversed by Powell and his intrepid com- panions. This exploration was the boldest in design and the most perilous in execution among the scientific expedi- tions recorded in the annals of the nation. Before, during, and after the passage of the canons, ob- servations were extended over the country drained by the rivers, and gradually the exploration became a survey, first geographical, then geological, and finally anthropological. At first the plan was simple and the work was prosecuted at the cost of the surveyors ; as the difficulties increased the plan was elaborated that they might be overcome, and a 367 368 The Smithsonian Institution number of persons who had become interested in the work contributed toward the means required for carrying it on ; finally, in 1871, the Congress made an appropriation, to be expended under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, for continuing the explorations and surveys. Both before and after this enactment, Professor Henry warmly encour- aged the work and guided it by wise counsel. His aid is commemorated, and will be so long as our language lives, in a noble monument — the Henry mountains. When the survey was organized under Congressional pro- vision it was designated "The United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region." The work was placed in Major Powell's charge. In pursuing the researches, much attention was given to the aboriginal in- habitants, and extensive collections representing their arts, languages, institutions, and beliefs were made, and the ob- jects collected were preserved in the Smithsonian Institution. On July I, 1874, the survey was transferred to the Depart- ment of the Interior, while its plan was extended, though not materially modified save that the anthropological researches were made more prominent; and in 1876 a series of reports on the Indians, entitled " Contributions to North American Ethnology," was projected, with the concurrence of the Sec- retary of the Smithsonian Institution, and during the ensu- ing year two volumes of the series were published. At this stage the work seemed to be definitely established under federal auspices, and, in accordance with a wise and liberal custom, the head of the Smithsonian Institution withdrew from active investigation of the Indians and freely transferred to the survey the rich collection of linguistic manuscripts accumulated during the preceding thirty years. At the opening of 1879 there were four organizations en- gaged in surveys and researches in the Western Territories, Buremt of American Ethnology 369 including the " Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region ; " by an act of Congress approved in March of that year the work was reorganized, and the four bureaus were united in the United States Geological Survey, while provision was made for continuing the an- thropological researches under the direction of the Smithso- nian Institution ; and Professor Spencer F. Baird, then Secretary of the Institution, confided the direction of the work to Major Powell. This was the beginning of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Appropriations for continuing the researches concerning the American Indians at the cost of the federal government and under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution have since been made annually by Congressional action. The new bureau at once began and has since continued the publi- cation of annual reports, and also carried on the "Contribu- tions to North American Ethnology " until the series was brought to an end by the printing law of 1895 ! i" addition a series of bulletins and certain special publications have been issued. On April I, 1880, Major Powell was made Director of the United States Geological Survey, but continued in charge of the bureau of ethnology, and devoted a part of his energies to researches concerning the Indians. In 1893 his health was precarious, and on July i of that year the writer was ap- pointed Ethnologist in Charge. A year later Major Powell resigned the control of the Geological Survey, but retained that of the bureau, and has since devoted himself wholly to the completion of the researches begun on the headwaters of Rio Colorado in 1867. In the original exploration, in the official survey of the Rocky Mountain region, and later in the present bureau, Powell pursued a liberal policy, with great enthusiasm, under Z7^ The Smithsojiian Institution which expert collaborators were enlisted, and the aid of men of genius was sought ; and he, more than all others, realizes that whatever of value may be found in the results of the work is to be credited in great part to devoted collaborators, some of whom gained international repute through researches in the bureau, A few of the workers, like the Mindeleff brothers, Jeremiah Curtin, and Doctor Walter J. Hoffman, have turned into other paths, while Professor William H. Holmes has gone to a position of honor for which his bureau training was a preparation. Doctor Albert S. Gatschet and Professor Cyrus Thomas have grown old in constant duty, but retain their vigor and wealth of experience ; Frederick Webb Hodge and J. N. B. Hewitt, James Mooney, and Mrs. Matilda Coxe Stevenson have grown up with the bureau, and Frank Hamilton Gushing has spent half his career in its service ; while Doctor J. Walter Fewkes has recently been added to the corps. Henry W. Henshaw broke in his prime, and his complete restoration is still in the future ; Stevenson, Reynolds, Mallery, Dorsey, and Pilling fell in harness, and live only in their works — their names are enrolled in the fane of science. When the bureau was instituted, the experience and the tangible results of the preceding years of research were util- ized by Director Powell in shaping its plan. It was recog- nized that anthropology is a young and imperfectly organized science ; it was also recognized that the subject matter of an- thropology is more complex than that of any other science. Accordingly it was deemed important to design and conduct the researches in such manner as both to organize and diffuse anthropological knowledge. Moreover, the American natives were regarded as offering a field for research more extensive, more clearly defined, more completely virgin, and more easily Bureau of Afnerican Ethnology 3 7 1 wrought than any other within reach of students working under governmental auspices; and from the beginning it was the aim to cuhivate appreciatively this vast and fertile field, and to join the anthropologists of the world in harvesting improved and extended knowledge. Such was the primary plan of the Bureau of American Ethnology — to found as well as to extend the science of man. When the researches began, certain general methods were adopted. In accordance with the best scientific usage, re- search began with actual observation on the ground ; recog- nizing the complexity and elusiveness of human phenomena and the fallibility of human perception, observations were repeated and usually verified by others before acceptance ; nothing was taken for granted, and even the most widely accepted theories were held in abeyance until tested by trained observers. As observations multiplied, they were compared in order that relations might be discovered, and ultimately the facts were grouped by relation. In this work the several collaborators cooperated with the original stu- dent, in order that the chance of erroneous grouping might be reduced. When the detailed observations were of wide- spread interest, they were published in part or in full ; when they were of technical character, or for other reasons of in- terest to few persons only (as in linguistics), only typical col- lections were published, the mass being held for comparative study. As research progressed the relations themselves were compared and grouped, for the purpose of educing laws of relation, or principles. This work was performed largely by Director Powell, who not only originated, but constantly co- ordinated the various lines of research ; though collaborators were always encouraged to seek relations and educe princi- ples, and to publish under their own names such results of their work as were not inconsistent with those of other in- 372 The Smithsonian Institution vestigators ; for it was recognized that research is best pro- moted by encouraging the investigator. Such have been the general methods in the bureau ; they are in no way pecuhar, and are worthy of statement only as the basis on which the researches of the bureau have always rested. As the researches progressed the plan matured in special methods growing out of special conditions. It was found that the native Americans are grouped in tribes bearing dis- tinct names, possessing more or less distinctive attributes, and occupying more or less definite areas, so that in current thought and in history the tribe had come to be regarded as a primary ethnic unit ; and the work became accordingly an investigation of American tribes. The questions asked by anthropologists concerning the native tribes commonly run in a certain order. The first demand is for definition or more extended description ; the second is for the geographic posi- tion or distribution of the tribe ; while the third is frequently connected with the social and other relations of the tribes- men ; somewhat less frequently questions arise concerning the history and prospects of individual tribes, and ethical questions of such character as to fall within the legitimate domain of official inquiry occasionally arise. To all such intellieent and definite demands for information it seemed desirable to make answer, and thereby the special methods of the bureau were shaped ; and, so far as conditions per- mitted, the tribes have been classified, their distribution has been determined, their organization and institutions have been ascertained, and their history has been deciphered and recorded. Yet it was recognized throughout that each tribe is but a minute part of a great assemblage — the American people ; and it has ever been sought to so shape the re- searches as to contribute toward answering all legitimate in- quiries concerning the relations of this important branch of Bureau of American Ethnology zil mankind among each other as individuals and tribes, as well as to the other peoples of the world. The operations have varied from time to time with condi- tions, including official requirements, administrative necessi- ties, and the demands of growing science. The most potent of these conditions in shaping the operations of the bureau was an official demand to which the institution of the bureau was a partial response. Statesmen and administrative offi- cers concerned with placing the Indians on reservations felt the need of a practical classification of the Indian tribes under which they might be arranged in amicable groups; this need was urged on Major Powell while Director of the Rocky Mountain Survey, and the anthropological researches of the survey were bent to meet it ; and when provision was made for continuing the work it was understood that the primary duty of the new bureau should be the classification of the Indian tribes for practical as well as for scientific purposes. One of the effects of this requirement was to give a name to the office, which thus came to be designated a bureau of eth- nology ; another effect was to confine the early operations of the bureau to the United States, though it was planned by statesmen to extend operations over North America at the outset and finally over the hemisphere, and the terms of the law were fixed in accordance with this purpose. The most profound and far-reaching effect of the plan was the rapid development and early application of a mode of classi- fication, which has guided the subsequent operations of the bureau. In the infancy of anthropology the races of men were classed by color of skin, character of hair, form of cranium, attitude of eyes, and other corporeal or physical features; even before the creation of the bureau certain an- thropologists, notably Gallatin in the second quarter of the century, realized that, while the American aborigines may 374 The Smithsonian Institution perhaps be discriminated collectively on the physical basis, the tribes, the confederacies into which they are sometimes united, and the clans and gentes of which they are composed, are defined by purely human attributes growing out of the preeminently intellectual character of mankind. The studies of the Rocky Mountain Survey had shown that the human attributes are essentially collective, at once the product and parent of cooperation among individuals ; and hence that the classific unit among mankind is not the individual, as among lower animals, but the cooperative group. When the force of the official demand for a practical classification of the Indians was felt, and it was recognized that a physical classi- fication was incompetent, the collective or demotic characters were carefully considered; and it was soon perceived that the tribes of identical belief are commonly harmonious, and might safely be grouped on reservations; it was also found that similarity in institutions usually accompanies similarity in belief and conduces to harmonious relation; and it was found too that similarity in arts prepares the way for pacific association. Further study showed that tribes having related arts commonly spoke related tongues, that tribes of related institutions almost invariably spoke cognate dialects, and that similarity in belief was always accompanied by close similarity or identity in speech. Thus it was ascertained that the tribes might be classified roughly by arts, more definitely by insti- tutions, and with sufficient refinement for all practical pur- poses by beliefs ; and at the same time that language is equally useful with belief as a basis for classification, while its data are more easily obtained. Accordingly the linguistic classification was adopted ; and through the aid of collabo- rators and correspondents material pertaining to the native languages was rapidly collected. Through administrative necessities each collaborator has Buremi of American Ethnology 375 been compelled to distribute his energies among" different tribes, often among different stocks; for it has never been deemed wise by statesmen interested in the work to maintain a force sufficiently large to permit the assignment of a col- laborator to each tribe, confederacy, or stock. In consequence the collaborators became specialists in departments of re- search concerning matters common to many or all tribes, some in linguistics, others in arts, still others in institutions and beliefs. It was soon noted that this differentiation in labor on the part of the anthropologists reflected a differen- tiation in activity among the aborigines; and it was found convenient to recognize formally this original differentiation and classify the work of the bureau thereby. Foremost among these, not only as the basis of all the others but in immediate importance, is language, including speech and the germ of writing; second in order of development and importance come the arts, esthetic and industrial; next in order are insti- tutions; and perhaps youngest in origin and most interesting to thoughtful investigators are beliefs. These categories of activities are characteristic of all mankind, and have been called the humanities by Major Powell and some other stu- dents; they correspond with the chief lines of research in the bureau of ethnology. At the outset it was the intention to devote energy largely or exclusively to researches among living tribes and tribal remnants in order that rapidly passing facts might be seized, and little attention was given to the more permanent relics of prehistoric art. In 1881 the Congress was petitioned to so enlarge the scope of the bureau as to include a study of the archaeology of the United States ; and without the know- ledge of the Secretary of the Institution, or the Director of the Bureau, an item making the requisite provision was added to the law. Under this specific official requirement. Z1^ The Smithsonian Institution researches concerning the prehistoric works of the country were undertaken. Much efifort has been devoted to investigation of the rela- tions of the Indians among each other and to different peo- ples, partly with the view of facilitating collateral researches. Various methods and criteria of classification have been tested in the different departments of ethnology, and new methods and new criteria have been devised. These com- parisons and studies have resulted in the adoption of a gen- eral classific method in which the phenomena are grouped first by origin or genetic relation, and second by conditions of development. Always at the beginning and sometimes at the end of an investigation important relations are unknown, when it is necessary to adopt arbitrary classific systems based on any convenient criteria; but it is the aim to replace the arbitrary systems by natural arrangements whenever the state of knowledge permits. On this basis the object-matter (the Indians) and the subject-matter (the knowledge) of the bureau's researches are classified. The first demand for a practical classification of the Indian tribes was met by grouping the Indians north of Mexico and a part of those occupying the territory of that republic in fifty-nine linguistic stocks (or families), each usually compris- ing a number of tribes. These stocks, with the approximate number of tribes in each, are shown in the accompany- ing table. This classification of the American Indians was originally published in the seventh annual report of the bu- reau, and has been generally adopted in encyclopedias, text- books, and other standard works relating to the American aborio^ines in this and other countries. Bureau of Americmt Ethnology Z11 INDIAN STOCKS OF NORTH AMERICA, NORTH OF CENTRAL MEXICO. Algonquian 36 Athapascan 53 Attacapan 2 Beothukan i Caddoan 9 Chimakuan ........ 2 Chimarikan 2 Chimmesyan 8 Chinookan 11 Chitimachan i Chumashan 6 Coahuiltecan 22 Copehan 22 Costanoan 5 Eskimauan 70 Esselenian i Iroquoian 13 Kalapooian 8 Karankawan i Keresan 17 Kiovvan i Kitunahan 4 Koluschan 12 Kulanapan 30 Kusan 4 Lutuamian 4 Mariposan 24 Moquelumnan 35 Muskhogean 9 Nahuatlan ? Natchesan 2 Palaihnihan 8 Piman 7 Pujunan 26 Quoratcan 3 Salinan 2 Salishan 64 Sastean i Serian 3 Shahaptian 7 Shoshonean 12 Sioiian 68 Skittagetan 17 Takilman i Tanoan 14 Timuquanan 60 Tonikan 3 Tonkawan i Uchean i Waiilatpuan 2 Wakashan 37 Washoan i Weitspekan 6 Wishoskan 3 Yakonan 4 Yanan i Yukian 5 Yuman 9 Zunian i While this classification of the tribes is immediately and ostensibly based on linguistic characters, it has a much deeper significance than might appear at first glance. In the first place, the linguistic characters have been found to be interrelated with other characters, including those ex- pressed in arts, industries, institutions, and beliefs, and were used in the classification only because, of the essentially collective or demotic features of the Indians, they were most easily ascertained. In the second place, the several cate- 25 37^ The Smithsoitian Institution gories of characters represented by language have been found, through study of traditions and direct survivals, to express the actual phylogenic development of the tribes and stocks. Accordingly each linguistic character is treated not merely as an external adventive feature, but as a product of evolution, a record of the past, and a precursor of the future. The classification of American Indians devised and applied by the bureau is accordingly a condensed expres- sion of the sum of present knowledge concerning the origin and development of the native American people. It has been ascertained that certain words in American languages are related in meaning to words of similar sound in transoceanic tongues ; that the arrow of America is like that of the Orient and other parts of the world, not only in general form and function, but even in symbolic markings; that certain hieroglyphics of the Occident are similar to those of Egypt and the East in form and significance ; that the calendar of Mexico duplicates in essential features the cal- endars of India and Arabia ; that some social customs of America resemble those of Africa and Australia; and that the beliefs and ceremonials of the American aborigines simulate and sometimes exactly repeat those of India, China, and other countries. These parallelisms in the intellectual products of mankind have carefully been considered and weighed in the effort to trace general ethnic relation, and it has been found that in the vast majority of cases they cannot be regarded as indicating connection among peoples, and seem rather to in- dicate a law of mental action — the law that different minds of equal capacity respond similarly to like stimuli. This con- clusion is expressed in different publications, notably a chap- ter by Powell entitled "On Activital Similarities" in the third annual report, and appears to be generally accepted among American anthropologists. Bureau of Americaji Ethnology 379 The linguistic researches and the classification of the native tribes by the bureau may be considered the continuation of the admirable work of Gallatin, who in 1836 published a " Synopsis of the Indian Tribes ... in North America," ^ in which eighty-one tribes belonging to twenty-eight families were enumerated. Even more closely were the researches connected with the plan communicated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1851 by Professor William W. Turner; for it was in accordance with this plan that the earlier linguistic collections were made under the auspices of the Institution, while these collections formed the nucleus of the material conveyed to the Rocky Mountain Survey and inherited by the bureau. Time has shown the wisdom of Professor Tur- ner's plan, a part of which is worthy of repetition : " Let the writer . . . describe the particular language un- der consideration ; let all fanciful comparisons with Hebrew, Greek, etc., be excluded. Each grammar should note the dialectical peculiarities of the language of which it treats, and also the changes that may be taking place in it — that is to say, such as have been observed by the whites since they have been familiar with it, and especially such as are indicated by differences in the speech of old and young persons. To each grammar should be appended one or more specimens of com- position in the language, with an interlinear English transla- tion. For the purpose of comparison, the parable of the Prodigal Son is superior on many accounts to the Lord's Prayer, although it would be well to give both. But it is very desirable that to these should be added some origi- nal production of the native mind, — some speech, fable, legend, or song, — that it may afford samples of aboriginal modes of thought as well as of expression. It seems strange that so apparently obvious and easy a means of obtaining an insight into the workings of the mind of rude nations, which 1 " Archajologia Americana," Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, 1836, Volume 11, pages 1-422. 380 The Smithsonian Institution would prove of the highest interest to the philosophical inquirer, should have been hitherto almost entirely over- looked." ^ So far as native speech is concerned, the methods and pur- poses thus set forth have been pursued, and the linguistic material has been collected not only for linguistic purposes, but as a means for the interpretation of the primitive mind ; indeed the plan has been modified only by extending it to sign-language, pictography, hieroglyphics, decoration, paint- ing, and tattooing. The material in possession of the bureau representing the speech of the American aborigines is vast. During the seventeen years of its existence a considerable part of its energies has been devoted to the collection of such material; five quarto volumes of " Contributions " and two octavo volumes of" Bulletins" relating exclusively to Indian vocabu- laries, grammars, and texts have been published, besides nine volumes of a "Bibliography of the Indian Languages," and various special papers and chapters have been devoted to the same subject; yet the greater part of the linguistic collections remain unpublished, though in constant use. The catalogue of linguistic manuscripts, some of which are extensive, reaches 1533 titles, including 332 transferred by the Smithsonian Institution in 1876. The greater part of the material used in classifying the fifty-nine stocks and over eight hundred tribes above enumerated was collected by collaborators of the bureau. No other linguistic collection of comparable extent and variety is known to exist ; and since the ma- terial was recorded in large part by trained linguists, and since all the languages and stocks represent a widely dis- tributed people in the simpler stages of intellectual develop- 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1852, Appendix, page 100. Btireait of American Ethnology 381 ment, the bureau collection is invaluable to students of the origin and growth of language. The special treatises by J. Owen Dorsey, Doctor Gatschet, and other collaborators are well known to the students of all countries ; the more comprehensive results are set forth in preliminary form only in Powell's "Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages" and in the earlier reports; yet these studies indicate many of the laws and conditions of linguistic development from early savagery well into barbarism. The subject of sign-language was taken up soon after the institution of the bureau, and was vigorously pursued for some years, especially by Colonel Garrick Mallery. It was ascertained that this is a veritable art of expression, logically coordinate with lingual utterance, and perhaps of equal im- portance in the formative stage of language. The signs were originally demonstrative or mimetic, though many of them were developed into partially denotive symbols. By the use of these symbols the Indians were able not only to exchange intelligence at distances, but also to communicate with each other despite differences in dialects, and indeed, since the signs were less completely differentiated than the phonetic symbols, even when the speakers belonged to distinct stocks. As the Indian spanned space by signals, so also he sought to bridge time by means of symbols painted or carved or embossed on the faces of cliffs or other suitable surfaces ; and thus, long before the advent of white men, the aborigines entered the stage of graphic expression. This subject also was studied by Director Powell, Colonel Mallery, Doctor Hoffman, and others. Some indications were found that pictographic and decorative art sprang from the same ill- defined stem, but early became differentiated ; and many in- dications were found that, while originally demonstrative and mimetic, the rude symbols of pictography soon began to 25* 3^2 The Smithsonian Instihition acquire a denotive meaning, and some of them became almost arbitrary. Colonel Mallery's memoir on this subject, forming the body of the tenth annual report, has been favor- ably received in this and other countries. The researches in pictography illustrate the mode of origin of graphic art, both linguistic and decorative ; and the laws and stages of development exemplified by both signals and pictographs are in harmony with those illustrated in the development of speech. The development of decorative art, which has been investi- gated by Professor Holmes and others, has been found mea- surably coincident with that of pictography on the one hand and that of hieroglyphics on the other, though the designs, always more or less definitely symbolic at the outset, were modified to fit the conditions residing in the medium or sur- face by which they were displayed. For this reason symbols carved on arrow-shafts became elongated, and symbols repre- sented by patterns in woven fabrics became angular, while one of the consequences of the use of symbols in decoration was the development of arbitrary forms and the strengthen- ing of the denotive tendency. Of the score of reports re- lating to this subject, that prepared by Professor Holmes in 1885 is, perhaps, the most noteworthy.^ The influence of decorative art on the development of writing cannot be neg- lected, and the results of the researches concerning decoration are in accord with those flowing from the study of phonetic symbolism. In certain groups, notably the Nahuatlan and Mayan, pic- tography was so well advanced at the time of the discovery that the symbols were conventionalized, sometimes into ideo- grams and phonograms, though some retained the original 1 "A Study of the Textile Art in its Relation to the Development of Form and Orna- ment," in Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1888, pages 189-252. Bureau of American Ethnology 383 pictorial character, so that an inchoate hieroglyphic system existed among the Indians. As the investigation of speech, sign-language, and pictography progressed, it was found de- sirable to extend observation to the more highly developed native autographic records in the form of codices and carvings and paintings. The studies were conducted chiefly by Doctor Thomas ; and several memoirs, relating in large part to the native calendar system, have been published. In three of these a system of interpreting hieroglyphics was set forth and applied ; ^ another showed conclusively, for the first time, that the Maya year includes a bissextile ; ^ while a memoir now in press elucidates the calendar more fully, and indicates the derivation and significance of the day symbols. The Ameri- can hieroglyphics are especially important as marking the beginning of a definite art of graphic expression, thus throw- ing light on the critical stage in the development of writing. The laws of linguistic development discovered in the hiero- glyphics are in accord with those educed from the study of speech, sign-language, pictography, and decoration. The researches concerning the development of speech and the beginning of graphic art have served to define an im- portant transitional stage in the growth of culture. Among enlightened peoples thought is crystallized and perpetuated by means of arbitrary characters which are combined in words, sentences, sums, and formulas, in such manner as to express ideas clearly and simply ; while among primitive peoples thought is crystallized and perpetuated largely by means of arbitrary and often incongruous associations. The researches have shown that the prescriptorial mode of 1 " Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican of the Manuscript Troano," in Contribu- Manuscripts," in Third Annual Report of the lions to North American Ethnolog)^ Volume Bureau of Ethnology, 1884, pages 3-65; v, part 3, 1882. " Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices," in 2 Thomas, Cyrus. " The Maya Year," in Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Bulletin No. 18 of the Bureau of Ethnology Ethnology, 1888, pages 253-371 ; "A Study issued in 1894. 3^4 The Smithsonian Institntion thought ^ is essentially distinct from that characteristic of the stage of writing; that few civilized men have learned to grasp primitive thought ; and that no primitive man grasps civilized thought save at the end of a civilizing process. Indeed it would appear that it is this diversity in mode of thought rather than differences in arts, industries, institutions, and beliefs, more indeed than all other things combined, that separates primitive man from civilized. Practically all the American tribes were in the domiciliary stage when the continent was discovered ; and, while most of them occupied temporary or portable habitations, some resided in permanent villages, sometimes dominated by temples, council-houses, and barbaric palaces. The vari- ous types of structure have been investigated ; the Iroquois long-house and the Siouan camp circle — products and ex- ponents of social law — have been studied in detail ; Casa Grande, the stateliest and best preserved prehistoric house in the United States, has been described and illustrated,^ and means have been adopted for its preservation ; the skin lodges of the plains, the bark-thatched wigwams of the east- ern forests, the snow houses of the Arctic, the earth lodges of the northern interior, the brush tipis of the Cordilleran valleys, the cactus-protected grass houses of the Southwest, have been examined ; the cliff houses of the western canons, the cavate dwellings of the mesas, and the stone-walled or adobe villages of the arid region, have been made known and classified as to type and function ; while the great mounds and extensive earthworks of the Mississippi valley and other portions of the continent have been subjected to survey in the field and comparative study in the office. A noteworthy report of the bureau is the memoir on American houses and 1 Defined in the Thirteenth Annual Re- 2 « Casa Grande Ruin," in Thirteenth An- port of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1896, pages nual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 22-24. 1896, pages 289-319. Bureau of American Ethnology 385 house-life^ by Lewis H. Morgan, whose epoch-making re- searches concerning the social organization of primitive peo- ples marked him as a founder of demotic science; and the monograph on mounds and earthworks^ by Doctor Thomas was the first complete demonstration of the relations of the long mysterious " mound-builders." The Mindeleff brothers and the Stevensons, as well as Professor Holmes and Mr. Cushine, also contributed much to knowledcre of the native architecture of the Southwest through a dozen memoirs published in the reports. One of the earliest lines of study related to aboriginal cos- tumery ; and it has been ascertained that the material, form, and construction of dress interacted constantly with artistic and other concepts. The relation between dress and deco- ration was pointed out by Holmes, who in a recent publi- cation showed also that the prehistoric fabrics from caves and mounds were essentially similar to the fabrics found in use by the white discoverers.^ The researches indicate that the construction of articles of dress depends primarily on ma- terial, yet at the same time reflects the culture-status of the dressmakers, thus expressing the intimacy of connection between local culture-grade and local environment. When the Colorado was explored, and afterward when the bureau was instituted, much time and energy were devoted to the study of aboriginal handicraft through direct observation followed by comparison ; it was soon found that the infer- ences of civilized students concerning the manufacture and use of primitive implements are frequently erroneous, since primitive thought is unlike cultured thought; and accordingly 1" Houses and House-Life of the Amer- nual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, ican Aborigines," in Contributions to North 1894, pages 3-730- American Ethnology, Volume iv, 1881 (a 3 « Prehistoric Textile Art of the Eastern compleuient to his "Ancient Society"). United States," in Thirteenth Annual Re- s'' Report on the Mound Explorations of port of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1896, pages the Bureau of Ethnology," in Twelfth An- 3-49- 386 The Smithsonian Institution it was found desirable to transfer that branch of technology relating to primitive implements and weapons from a specu- lative to an observational basis. The work in this direction shaped the later operations of the bureau, and laid the foun- dation for most of the researches in archaeology. Notable contributions to the scientific study of native American tech- nology have been made by Professor Holmes, Doctor Thomas, and Mr. Gushing. Through the researches of these and other investigators it has been shown that native American art is essentially a unit, and that while more or less distinct phases sometimes overlap, the chronologic differences are no greater than the geographic differences found in passing from one portion of the continent to another. In brief, the researches indicate that at the time of the discovery the American peo- ple were in the stone age, though approaching the non-smelt- ing age of metal ; and that this age was indivisible, each of the known tribes making and using both crude and finished stone tools. Incidentally it has been shown that study of the handicraft of primitive people affords the only key to prehistoric art, and that foreign inferences as to culture stages are inappli- cable to the western hemisphere. The native domestic wares have received much attention. The Stevensons, the Mindeleff brothers, and other collabo- rators made extensive collections of pottery, particularly in the Southwest, and these have been supplemented by the un- precedentedly rich collections of prehistoric ware made by Doctor Fewkes ; and the collections have been successfully studied by Professor Holmes,^ who has thereby traced the development of decoration, and by Doctor Fewkes, who has traced the growth of the mythic symbolism of the pue- 1 Professor Holmes' investigations are Bureau of Ethnology, pages 3-152, and on summarized in memoirs on aboriginal stone aboriginal pottery, accomjianying the Six- art, in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the teenlh Annual Report (in press). Bureau of American Ethnology z'^1 bios ; ^ while Gushing has worked out several important stages in the development of the potter's art and of the associated symbolism.^ The art of basketry is in many ways allied to that of pottery, and the decorative designs are alike signifi- cant. Much information has been gathered also concerning wooden-ware and gourd-ware. The researches show that the domestic arts of America are indigenous and essentially a unit, and that the art products cover the entire range from middle or lower savagery up to the borderland of feudal- ism. Fully a score of memoirs published in the reports deal with this subject. In connection with the researches relating to native imple- ments, weapons, and utensils, inquiry was made concerning the sources of the materials employed in the arts. As these inquiries were pushed, it was found that extensive quarrying and mining operations were conducted by the Indians in dif- ferent parts of the country. Several collaborators were en- gaged in the work, notably Professor Holmes, who explored extensive aboriginal quarries on the Atlantic slope and in the interior, and examined the remarkable mines for copper on Lake Superior and for gold and mica in the Appalachians. Researches concerning prehistoric works have recently been extended into Florida, chiefly by Mr. Gushing, and have been rewarded by the most remarkable discoveries in the history of American archaeology ; evidence has been found that the keys and coastal lowlands skirting the Gulf below the twenty-seventh parallel have been occupied, raised by ramparts of shells, indeed artificialized, by a powerful and well-organized sea-faring people; and the abundant imple- ments, weapons, fabrics, and ceremonial objects found in the 1 Doctor Fewkes' results are incorporated 2 "A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustra- in the Seventeenth Annual Report of the tive of Zuni Culture Growth," in Fourth An- Bureau of Ethnology (in press), and general nual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, papers in the Smithsonian Reports. 1886, pages 473-521. 388 The Smithsonian Instihition rampart-protected bogs afford a striking record of the char- acteristics of the people. The games of the Indians have been carefully studied by several collaborators, and have been found to illustrate the natural history of amusement, and thus to form a basis for the science of esthetology. The simpler games have been found to be mimetic ; commonly the diversion mimics the in- dustry, whether it be the care of children or house on the part of the girl, or hunting, fighting, and racing on the part of the boy ; while other games imitate social and religious obser- vances. Some of the simplest amusements remain purely diversional ; others develop into elaborate games and arts of pleasure. An important factor in modifying native games grows out of the mythologic tendency of the Indian mind ; objects and forces which are not understood are deemed " mysterious " (transcendental or supernatural, so far as civil- ized language can express primitive concept), and thus the result of a throw, a race, or a shot is ascribed to fate, and througrh association effort comes to be reg^arded as an invo- cation. In this way the organized games become divinatory. This curious relation is well brought out in different publica- tions by Mr. Gushing, Mr. Mooney, and Mrs. Stevenson, and in a recent memoir by Doctor Hoffman which deals with Indian jugglery.^ Other lines of esthetic development lead toward graphic expression, and thus blend with decoration and eventually with pictorial and conventional symbolism, in which there is always a mythologic or divinatory element, as shown by Doctor Fewkes. Major Powell's researches among the Indians of the Rocky Mountain region led to the discrimination of certain stages in the development of social organization. The most fundamen- 1 "The Menomini Indians," in Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1896, pages 3-328. See also ibid., pages li-liv. Bureau of American Ethnology 389 tal distinction brought to light was that between tribal society, which is organized on the basis of actual or assumed kinship, and national society, which springs from altruism and is com- monly organized on a territorial basis. As the researches progressed it was ascertained that tribal society, as exempli- fied by the American Indians and other primitive peoples, comprises two stages : in the earlier stage, commonly styled savagery, kinship is reckoned in the female line, and the kindred are grouped in clans ; in the second stage, which corresponds with barbarism as properly defined, kinship is reckoned in the male line, and the customary group of kindred is a gens. Both clans and gentes are grouped in tribes, and these groups may be combined in confederacies.-^ Nearly all of the American Indians belong to the tribal stage of society, though it would appear that the germ of feudal organization existed among some Mexican and Cen- tral American peoples, and was fairly matured in Peru at the time of discovery. Circumstances have thus far prevented detailed study of the most advanced social organizations, but the lower types have received much attention. Most of the tribes of the United States have been found to follow the clan system, though many are gentile ; it has been ascertained that the chieftaincy is usually hereditary, in clans or gens, and elective or selective among the individuals of the group on the basis of actual or assumed seniority. The greater part of the material accumulated and used in these studies is incorporated in a manuscript "Cyclopedia of Indian Tribes," now in preparation for the press chiefly by Mr. Hodge, though memoirs bearing on the subject have been published in several reports. Soon after the researches among the Rocky Mountain In- 1 The earlier results of this work are summarized in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1SS4, pages xxxv-lxii. 390 The SiJiithsonian Institution dians began, Morgan's classic work on "Systems of Consan- guinity and Affinity of the Human Family " ^ was published, and the principles enumerated therein were carefully sub- mitted to the test of field observation during several succes sive seasons ; and when the bureau was instituted a part of the researches followed the lines indicated in Morgan's trea- tise. In this way a large body of material relating to abo- riginal kinship systems was accumulated and was utilized in the definition of stages in social development. It was ascer- tained that, while primarily real, the recognized kinship among primitive peoples is in part assumed, and that this assumption of kinship has far-reaching consequences, too numerous and complex for summary statement. During the progress of the anthropological researches of the Rocky Mountain Survey, Major Powell ascertained that the Indians have a system of tribal laws which are notably fair, comprehensive, and efficient. In the absence of writing there are no statutes, yet through the intricate system of pre- scriptorial association the laws are perpetuated almost as completely as, and inculcated much more generally than, the statutes of civilized peoples ; in nearly all tribes the code was crystallized in the tribal organization, in the names of indi- viduals and groups, in kinship and marital relations, in form of salutation, in the position of individuals about the camp- fire and of camps in the group, in the points of the compass, in colors, in symbols on arrow-shaft or garment or habita- tion, and in many other ways. When the bureau was insti- tuted, aboriginal law was found to form a fruitful field for re- search, and much information was collected. On comparing the facts discovered among many tribes, it was ascertained that the legal system of the Indians, while varying from place to place and from stage to stage in degree of development* 1 "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," 1871, Volume xvii. Bureau of American Ethnology 391 and while often singularly elaborate in plan and execution, rests on a simple and definite basis; the primary purpose of all Indian law is to prevent or settle dispute, and thus to promote peace and the welfare of the group. ^ When the bureau was instituted Director Powell gave careful attention to the subject of marriage, and ascertained that in America the forms known as endogamy and exogamy are simply two aspects of the same custom. In most tribes the laws relating to marriage are strict, and are regulated and enforced with prohibitions ; and, while the regulations vary, it is a generally observed law that a man may not marry in his own clan, but must marry in his own tribe, when the marriage is commonly arranged by the council ; so that the clan is exogamous, while the tribe is endogamous. Ac- cordingly, so far as the American Indians are concerned, endogamy and exogamy are correlative terms, useful in de- scription, but not expressing distinct stages in development. It was found that the regulations concerning marriage in the different tribes tend toward complexity, and that various de- vices are adopted to prevent them from becoming unduly onerous and inimical to tribal welfare : thus a prohibited mar- riage may be effected through elopement when, if the elopers are able to avoid vengeance for some period, the offense is condoned, and the couple eventually join the proper clan or gens ; in some cases provision is made for settling rival claims to the hand of a woman by wager of battle ; and in some cases there are regulations relating to marriage by cap- ture, in which the ordinary prohibition is suspended. A result of the researches relatinof to marriao-e amonof the Indians is the discovery that the blending of clans, the union of gentes, the confederation of tribes, and in general the combination 1" Wyandot Government," in First Aiimial Bureau of Ethnology, 1S84, page Ivii. "On Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881, Regimentation," Fifteenth Annual Report of pages S7~69- Third Annual Report of the the Bureauof Ethnology, i897,pagesciv-cxxi. 392 The Smithsonian Institution and demotic development of the people were brought about through intermarriage, partly spontaneous, partly regulated by common law, and sometimes adopted by leaders to termi- nate intertribal strife. ^ The idea of property right was inchoate among the American aborigines, though moderately developed among the cultured people of the tropics and still clearer among some of the tribes in the Arctic, the natural home of thrift ; and the many stages in development exemplified among the tribes have offered opportunity for making much progress toward elucidating the natural history of property right. The subject was extensively treated by Director Powell, with primitive law and marriage customs, in several early reports. The initial researches showed that the distinction between opinions and beliefs among the Indians is vague, and does not agree with that found among cultured peoples. As the work progressed it was ascertained that the Indian philoso- phy and belief are fundamentally mystical. Among many tribes objects are vaguely supposed to have mysterious doubles in a vague ideal counterpart of the actual world, and the unknown is invested with shadowy and illimitable po- tency; and all of the Indians so far investigated carefully have been found to be mystics. The all-pervading "mys- tery" of Indian belief is hardly susceptible of definite trans- lation into civilized language, since the concept pertains to the prescriptorial stage of thought. Several stages in the development of the primitive belief have been discovered and subjected to comparative study, chiefly by Powell, and thereby light has been thrown on the natural history of so- phiology. The earliest clearly defined stage is that in which mysterious potencies are imputed to all objects, inanimate 1 "Tribal Marriage Law," in Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1884, pages Ivi-lxii. Bureau of American Ethnology 393 and animate; this has been called hecastotheism. In the second definite stage the mysterious potency is limited gen- erally to animate forms, though sometimes extending to plants and rarely to inorganic things ; this has been called zoothe- ism. Most of the tribes were in the higher of these stacjes, and their belief was bound up with every-day conduct and social organization in curious fashion. One expression of the belief was found in the clan nomenclature: nearly every clan or gens bore the name of an animal tutelary, and a picture of, or conventional symbol representing this animal was used as a clan totem. Some of the tribes were found to have advanced partly into the third stage of belief, in which the forces of nature are personified or deified; this is physithe- ism. Contrary to a popular notion originating in the se- cretiveness and shrewdness of the Indians with respect to matters of belief, it was ascertained that none of the native peoples thus far studied with care have advanced to the stage of spiritual concepts, or of psychotheism. With the qualifi- cations and limitations thus implied, all of the American tribes have been found to be polytheistic. Numerous publi- cations relating to this line of work, in which several collabo- rators aided, have been issued ; notably Powell's " Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians,"^ the basis of the later work. The beliefs of the Indians are crystallized in symbols and ceremonials, which are often highly elaborate. The simpler symbols, or fetiches, usually represent zoic deities ; these are adored through the symbols which, although held to be sacred, are not in themselves objects of worship. Commonly the fetiches are crude, vaguely suggesting, through pre- scriptorial association, the characteristics ascribed to the deities; among some tribes the beast-gods are more defi- 1 First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, i88l, pages 19-56. 26 394 TJie Smithso7iia7t Institution nitely represented by carvings and paintings, often in the form of masks ; among the Pueblo people and the advanced tribes of Mexico and Peru the deities were considered an- thropomorphic or zoomorphic at will, and were sometimes represented by idols of human form, either normal or mon- strous, symbolizing the personages of the barbaric pantheon. The more important symbols are intrusted to shamans or priests, who become sacred through association, and are kept in sacred places, sometimes developed into temples ; among many tribes the priesthood is an important and even dominant class. The simpler rights appear in every-day conduct; higher ceremonials are oblations in the presence of the fetiches, and these culminate in sacrifice of property, or of animal and even human life. The ordinary ceremonial is individual, but among the tribes investigated there are elab- orate collective ceremonials usually extending over several days, and occurring several times annually. In general, the Indians are profoundly devout believers, whose faith controls action in greater degree than is realized in higher culture. Under the terms of law the collections made by the bureau are transferred to the United States National Museum ; and it has been found convenient and profitable to maintain inti- mate relations with that branch of the Institution and con- stantly to base the laboratory researches on the anthropologi- cal material from all sources stored in the museum. Exten- sive collections have been made directly for the enrichment of the museum as an assemblage of objective material re- lating to the American Indians. The collections made by Director Powell while in charge of the Rocky Mountain Survey are particularly noteworthy ; they comprise imple- ments and weapons, costumery, gaming devices, symbolic and ceremonial objects, and are especially rich in native veg- etal food-substances ; they may be considered to form the Bureau of Atfierican Ethnology 395 nucleus of the ethnologic department of the museum. Ample collections were made also by the Stevensons, by Professor Holmes and Mr. Mooney, and by other collaborators ; re- cently Doctor Fewkes has gathered unprecedentedly abun- dant stores of decorated pottery from the Pueblo country ; and the writer has added some unique material from the Papago country, as well as from the interior of Seriland, never before visited by white men. The publications issued to date comprise fourteen annual reports embracing fifty-nine appended memoirs (three addi- tional reports, embracing twelve memoirs, are in press) ; twenty-four bulletins, each containing a special paper or memoir; eight volumes of " Contributions to North Ameri- can Ethnology"; four "Introductions" issued for the use of correspondents and collaborators ; and a few miscellaneous documents. The manuscript collections are voluminous. Under the plan of limiting publication to important descriptive matter and to thoroughly digested scientific results, the major part of the observations remain unpublished, though in constant use. The unique manuscripts and most of the original records are kept in fire-proof vaults under more than two thousand titles; the material for the "Cyclopedia of Indian Tribes " is recorded on a hundred thousand cards ; and there are several hundred manuscripts prepared by the Director, the different collaborators, and many correspondents which are not catalogued. Advantage has been taken of every opportunity to make or acquire photographs of Indians and their works; and the files now include about twenty-five hundred portraits, with some twenty-five hundred groups, houses, ceremonials, and other subjects. During the last three years publication has been pushed forward more rapidly than hitherto, for it is realized that the material pertaining to 39^ The Smithsonian Institution most lines of research is now sufficiently voluminous to war- rant thorough study and final issue. These paragraphs do no more than touch lightly on salient points in the history, policy, and work of the Bureau of Ameri- can Ethnology. The field is vast, and the lines of research are many; and it has ever been the aim of Director Powell and his collaborators so to select and pursue lines of work as to aid in creating and diffusing among men definite knowledge concerning the American aborigines as one of the great branches of mankind. Accordingly the small library of re- ports published and the small assemblage of objects collected through the work of the bureau contribute toward the me- morial to Smithson, the founder, and Henry, the organizer, of the parent institution of American science. At the same time the work of the bureau is a tribute to the foresight, liberality, and wisdom of the statesmen who have endowed and sustained the " researches concerning the American Indians." THE INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE SYSTEM By William Crawford Winlock ^1)HE "diffusion of knowledg-e," which, next to its " increase," was so prominently in the mind of the founder of the Smithsonian In- stitution, was provided for in the program of organization, submitted by Professor Henry to the Board of Regents in 1847, by a system of pubHca- tions and their exchange ^ and distribution throughout the world. In his report for 1851 Professor Henry describes the ex- change system, organized for the purpose of distributing the first volume of the Institution's publications, as an extension of a system which had then been in operation, on a small scale, for nearly half a century between the American Philo- sophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on this side of the Atlantic, and several scientific societies abroad. While the Smithsonian Institution ex- changes had no direct connection with those established 1 Reference should be made to a "History history of the exchange service with copies of the Smithsonian Exchanges," by George of official documents relating to ils develop- H. Boehmer, printed in tlie" Smithsonian Re- ment. This manuscript has been consulted port" for 1881. Mr. Boehmer had also pre- in the preparation of the following brief ac- pared the manuscript for a more complete count of the exchanges. 26* 397 398 The Smithsonian ItistiUition between national governments by Vattemare,^ it soon super- seded all other plans for international exchanges. It is not without interest to briefly allude to the earlier efforts of this kind. In 1694 the Royal Library of France exchanged its duplicate volumes for new books printed in foreign countries, and about the beginning of the present century the American Philosophical Society and the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences instituted the exchange to which Professor Henry refers. Monsieur Vattemare about 1832 made an effort to estab- lish an exchange of duplicates between some of the principal libraries of Europe, and succeeded in interesting many of the governments in the work, though his efforts do not seem to have been rewarded with the success they merited. He visited the United States in 1839, and secured the interest and cooperation of many prominent men in official life. On his second visit to the United States in 1848 he was designated as the agent for the Library of Congress to conduct the exchange between France and the United States. Another effort to establish a system of exchanges, chiefly of natural history specimens, was made by the National Insti- tute in May, 1840, which resulted in securing many valuable additions to the national collection. The United States government, in addition to assisting Monsieur Vattemare, had on several occasions indicated its desire of effecting exchanges with foreign governments. By 1 Alexandre Vattemare was born in Paris November 8, 1796, and died there April 7, 1864. He was educated as a surgeon, but became a professional ventriloquist, lieing well known both in Europe and America. Subsequently he gave up this occupation to urge the adoption of a system of exchange of duplicate books between libraries, especially of government publications, but afterward extended the system to include art objects, maps, specimens of natural history, and other siniilar articles. He came to the United States in 1839, and again in 1847. He is credited with being the means of adding 300,000 volumes to the liljraries of this coun- try. The correspondence of M. Vattemare with the National Institute, in which he has set forth at some length the progress of his i^lan for international exchanges, will be found of much interest. ;«fe« m MORRISON REMICK WAITE. FIFTH CHANCELLOR OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1S74-1888. 398 - emare/ it soon ^' ..ciLi^nal exchange? :st to briefly al' .rlier In 1694 the Royal Library of for new books printed in '^•"nnino- of thp present Arts arici bcicnces instituted the e: o V i-^rotessor Hei "ers. Monsieur mare about 1832 made an ef! li^h an pvrhnnae of duplicates between some of ...^ ^.....^.^^. "oe, and succeeded in interestr - of his efforts ^Q, and secured the ac^ in 184^ ^- ijrary of ress to c t the nd the United s. :t to estab. stem of exchanges, of natural history specimens, was made by the Natio'^ ,.,Ji- tute in May, 1840, which rjssulted in securing man ^ ' ction. ii addition to assisting I He is becan ng v,l1 .1- re ion of a system c :»e has ''-•■' -f ■11 ,KOITTJTITa>Ii /.AlKOaHTIi/.ci 'ART 'dO i-JOJJ30^AH0 HT^dra .8SSt-kTSl The International Exchange System 399 the Act of July 20, 1840, the Librarian of Congress was author- ized to exchange duplicates in the library for other books or works. By the act of March 4, 1846, he was directed "to procure a complete series of reports of the United States Congress and of the laws of the United States, and trans- mit them to the Minister of Justice of France, in exchange for works of French law presented to the United States Supreme Court." "By a resolution of June 30, 1848, it was ordered that the joint committee on the library be furnished with twenty-five copies of the Revolutionary archives, twenty- five copies of Little and Brown's edition of the "Laws of the United States," and seven copies of the exploring expedition, then published, and an equal number of subsequent publica- tions on the same subject, for the purpose of international exchange."^ The first volume of Smithsonian publications issued was a memoir on the ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley by Squier and Davis, published in 1848 and distributed in the following year. It was found that after agencies were estab- lished in different parts of the world for the exchange of the Institution's own publications, other exchanges could be car- ried on through them at slight additional expense, and the Smithsonian Institution accordingly offered to other institu- tions of learning, and in some cases to individuals, the privilege of sending and receiving small packages through these agencies. The plan of conducting the foreign exchange was to issue at stated periods a circular to the effect that the Smithsonian Institution was then making preparations to send copies of its publications to the different libraries and societies in Europe and other parts of the world, and that it would undertake 1 '' Public Libraries in the United States of America, their History, Condition, and Management." Special Report, Bureau of Education, 1876, part i, page 284. 400 The Smithsonian Institution the transmission and safe delivery of the pubHcations of other American institutions, in accordance with certain rules, providing, in effect, that the packages should be properly- wrapped, addressed, and delivered to the Institution in Wash- ington accompanied by a detailed invoice. No charge was made for the expense of sending from Washington if the parcels were of moderate bulk, though the right to make a charge proportional to the actual ex- pense incurred by the Institution was reserved in some instances. These facilities soon proved of such value that the ex- change service assumed a much wider importance than could have well been anticipated, though, as far as the exchange of the Smithsonian publications proper was concerned, the principal object was not so much to procure a large library for the Institution as to diffuse among men a knowledge of the new truths discovered by the agency of the Smithsonian fund. Professor Henry said in 1852 :^ " The worth and importance of the Institution are not to be estimated by what it accumulates within the walls of its build- ing, but by what it sends forth to the world. Its great mis- sion is to facilitate the use of all the implements of research, and to diffuse the knowledge which this use may develop. The Smithsonian publications are sent to some institutions abroad, and to the great majority of those at home, without any return except, in some cases, that of cooperation in meteorological and other observations. "In carrying out this plan, the Institution is much indebted to the liberal course adopted by the government of Great Britain, and to the ready cooperation of the Royal Society of London. All packages intended for Great Britain, for some parts of the continent, and the East Indies, are directed 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1852, pages 20 and 21. The International Exchange System 401 to the care of the Royal Society, and, on the certificate of its President, are, by a special order of the government, admitted duty free, and without the delay and risk of inspection." And in 1854: ^ "There is, therefore, no port to which the Smithsonian parcels are shipped where duties are charged on them — a certified invoice of contents by the Secretary being sufficient to pass them through the custom-house free of duty. On the other hand, all packages addressed to the Institution, arriving at the ports of the United States, are admitted, without deten- tion, duty free. This system of exchange is, therefore, the most extensive and efficient which has ever been established in any country." An essential feature of the orLjanizatlon of the Smithsonian exchange service was to secure the cooperation of an im- portant scientific society or permanent library in the principal foreicjn countries willingf to undertake the distribution of the publications it might receive for institutions in its neigh- borhood. In many instances, also, members of the diplo- matic and consular service of the United States rendered efficient aid, and several prominent publishing houses like- wise acted as local agents. The following communication" from Sir Edward Sabine, who later became President of the Royal Society, shows the deep interest manifested in this movement : "Royal Society's Apartments, "Somerset House, London, March 19, 1852. "My Dear Sir: "I duly communicated to the Earl of Rosse, President of the Royal Society, your letter to me on the subject of the inter- 1 "Smithsonian Report," 1854, page 21. Reports of Committees, Statistics," etc. 2 Rliees, William J. "The Smithsonian In- Washington, 1S79, page 82. Also Boehmer, stitution: Journals of the Board of Regents, George H.," History of Exchanges," page 1 1. 402 The Smithsonian Institution change of scientific publications between the United States and this country, and the admission into England, duty free, of scientific books and memoirs presented to institutions or to individuals here, either by or through the Smithsonian Insti- tution. I accompanied this communication by a letter ad- dressed to the President, which you will read in the enclosed printed minutes of the Council of the Royal Society of January 15, 1852, The subject has since been brought by the Earl of Rosse under the consideration of Her Majesty's govern- ment, who have shown, as might be expected, much readiness to meet, in the same spirit, the liberal example which has been set by the United States, in exempting from duty scien- tific books sent as presents from this country to the Smith- sonian Institution, and through that Institution to other insti- tutions, and to individuals, cultivating science in the United States. The mode which has been suggested by our Board of Customs, for admitting duty free scientific publications de- signed for this country, and which, we hope, will receive the approval of the Treasury, is, that a list should be furnished by the Royal Society of the names of all institutions and indi- viduals to whom such works may be expected to be addressed, when the custom-house officers will have directions to pass without duty all such publications having the names of such institutions or persons inscribed either on the cover or on the title-page, which are sent to this country in packages directed to the Royal Society — the list to be amended or extended from time to time. The Royal Society will gladly take charge of and distribute under these regulations the books which the Smithsonian Institution may send for institutions and indi- viduals in this country, receiving them from the agent in London appointed by the Smithsonian Institution ; and I shall be obliged by your furnishing me, at your earliest con- venience, with a list, as complete as you may be able to make it, of the names of the institutions and persons to whom books or memoirs are likely to be sent. "The Royal Society will also gladly receive and forward to their ultimate destination (where such assistance may be use- ful) packages containing publications of a similar description, The International Exchange System 403 designed for institutions and individuals on the continent of Europe ; such packages being directed to the Royal Society, and stated on the outside of the case or package to be from the Smithsonian Institutio7i. The customs' duties will, in such cases, be either altogether remitted or returned on re- exportation. "If it be a convenience to the cultivators of science in the United States, that publications presented to them by insti- tutions or individuals on the continent of Europe, or else- where, should be addressed to the Royal Society as a channel of communication, the same faciUties will be given by the Board of Customs, and the Royal Society will, with pleasure, make the required arrangements. It will be necessary, in such cases, that packages arriving from the continent of Europe or elsewhere should be marked on the outside, y^r///^ SmitJisonian Institution, and the foreign Secretary of the Royal Society should be apprised of their being sent. Ex- penses of freight would of course be defrayed by the agent of the Smithsonian Institution. "I remain, my dear sir, with great respect and regard, "Very sincerely yours, "Edward Sabine, " Vice-President and Treasurer of the Boyal Society." An interesting special use of the exchange system took place in 1867, when, at the suggestion of the Honorable John Bigelow, a former Minister to France, a request was made by the Institution that some of the principal publishers of school-books in this country should furnish copies of their elementary text-books, in order that they might be presented to Professor Laboulaye, of the College of France, for exami- nation, with a view to the application of some of their pe- culiar features to the purposes of instruction in his own country. In response to this request, nearly two hundred volumes of school text-books were furnished by the princi- 404 The Smithsonimi Institution pal publishers In the United States, and received with warm thanks by Professor Laboulaye. In recognition of the disinterested work of the Institution, many of the principal steamship companies granted to it im- portant concessions in free freight, and without this friendly aid the system could scarcely have grown to the proportion it has now attained. Among others the Secretary made special acknowledgment in earlier years of obligations to the United States Mail Steamship Company, the Panama Rail- road Company, and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company ; to the North German Lloyd, to the Cunard Steamship Com- pany, and to many of the principal publishing houses in this country. The Royal Society, after acting as the agent of the Insti- tution for several years, found in 1862 the constantly increas- ing duties of distributing exchanges somewhat burdensome. It was, therefore, deemed necessary to establish a salaried agency at the expense of the Institution, to be located in London, for Great Britain and its colonies. Messrs. William Wesley & Son, booksellers, at 28 Essex Street, Strand, were appointed the London agents. For the same reason that made a change necessary in the administration of the affairs of the Institution in Great Brit- ain, Doctor Felix Fliigel, of Leipsic, was appointed to at- tend to exchange matters between Germany and the United States, and subsequently exchanges between the United States and Austria-Hungary and also Switzerland, were con- ducted through the Leipsic agency. With the exception of the agencies of the Institution in Great Britain and Germany, there are at present no salaried officers of the Institution in foreign countries, all transactions being conducted gratuitously, either by foreign official ex- change bureaus or by libraries or scientific institutions which The International Exchange Systein 405 have willingly assumed the task for the benefit that may accrue from the service. So useful had this exchange system become within the first ten years of its existence that in 1855 ^^ following commu- nication ^ was forwarded by Professor Asa Gray, the Secre- tary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to Pro- fessor Henry : "American Academy of Arts and Sciences, " Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, "August, 1855. " My Dear Sir : "The following extract from the record of the annual meeting in May last has just been furnished me by the re- cording secretary : " ' Professor Agassiz referred to the allusion in the libra- rian's report to the Smithsonian Institution, and expressed in strong language his sense of indebtedness of the scientific world to that Institution, for its enlightened efforts to diffuse knowledge, particularly as a medium of exchange of publica- tions. In conclusion, he moved that the thanks of the acad- emy be p7^esented to the Smithsonian Institution for its efficient agcjicy in effecting for the acade7ny its exchanges with societies and individuals, which was unanimously adopted.' "I have great pleasure in forwarding to you the vote of the academy, in obedience to its instructions. " And I remain, very respectfully, " Your obedient, faithful servant, " Asa Gray, " Corresponding Secretary" The Smithsonian exchange service was early taken ad- vantage of by the bureaus of the United States government to effect the distribution of their technical publications to 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1855, page 79. 4o6 The Smithsonian Instihttion foreign libraries and the collection of similar reports in return, and between the years 1851 and 1867 it is estimated that over twenty thousand packages of such government publica- tions were carried by the exchange service, at an approximate cost to the private fund of the Institution of over eight thou- sand dollars. The government exchanges, however, were in a chaotic condition until the enactment of a joint resolution, approved March 2, 1867, that fifty copies of all documents printed by order of either House of Congress, or by order of any de- partment or bureau of the government, should be placed at the disposal of the joint committee on library, who should exchange the same, through the agency of the Smithsonian Institution, for similar works published in foreign countries; these works to be deposited in the Library of Congress. Respecting this system Professor Henry said ^ in 1870, in his testimony concerning the expenditure of the Smithson fund, before an English government scientific commission, of which the Duke of Devonshire was chairman and Sir John Lubbock and Professor Huxley members : " There is one part of the operations which I have not sufficiently dwelt upon, and that is the system of international exchansfes. In order to send the volumes of Smithsonian Contributions over the world, the Institution has agents; an agent in this city, an agent in Paris, an agent in Leip- sic, an agent in Amsterdam, and another in Norway ; and every year the volumes of the Institution are sent to these aofents for distribution, and with them the transactions and proceedings of all the societies of the United States, and also of Canada, and of South America. For example, all the Canadian institutions send copies of their publications to the Institution, and then the Institution distributes them over the world, and receives in return for the several donors the pro- 1 Rhees, William J, "Journals of the Uoard of Regents," etc., page 782. The International Exchange System 407 ceedings and transactions of foreign societies. This part of the operations costs about ^1,000 sterHng a year, but it is considered of great importance in the way of making science one in all countries. This is considered a very important part of the plan of operations. Not only are books dis- tributed, but the Institution has commenced the practice of distributing specimens of natural history over the world and getting others in exchange. As an interesting fact in con- nection with this system, I may mention that all the lines of steamers, the Cunard line of steamers, the German Lloyds' steamers, and the lines from San Francisco, all convey the Smithsonian packages free of cost, and also that they are admitted through all custom-houses without being opened, and free from all duties in all countries. " Doctor Sharpey : Do you receive for the societies in America, for example, from the societies in London, and dis- tribute those exchanges to the societies in America? — Yes, for all the societies. The great object is to facilitate in every possible way the promotion of science, and especially the fostering of original research, and enlarging the bounds of human thought. It is a matter of surprise that the idea is not more generally understood by statesmen and legislators, that modern civilization depends upon science, including the knowledge of the forces of nature, and the modes in which they become the agents of man. Every discovery is con- nected with good. Even the human body cannot be properly understood without a knowledo-e of that of all other ororan- ized beings." The resolution of Congress carried no appropriation, so that it was not until 1873 that the exchange actually began, and its operation was necessarily restricted, owing to the large drain made upon the funds of the Institution. Never- theless, Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford was enabled to say of this work in 1876^ that "the Smithsonian Institution has 1 " Public Libraries in the United States of America, their History, Condition, and Management." Special Report, Bureau of Education, 1S76, part I, page 684. 4o8 The Smithsonian Institution rendered incalculable service to the scientific development of this country through its broad and liberal system of ex- chanpfes with learned societies throug-hout the world." And in 1881 ^ Professor Baird stated that " No one of the various operations carried on by the Smithsonian Institution is of more importance in the advance- ment of science than that of the international exchange of publications between the governments and their bureaus, de- partments, the learned institutions, and scientific men of the two worlds. Notwithstanding the increase of the govern- mental international system, in which quite a number of nations have joined, the work of the Smithsonian Institution still continues to be of preeminent magnitude and impor- tance. Originally initiated for the purpose of distributing the publications of the Smithsonian Institution to libraries, socie- ties, and learned men abroad, and to receive returns for the same, it was gradually extended so as to take within its sphere all the establishments in the New World requiring a similar service. Indeed, by its system of agencies in vari- ous portions of the world to which packages were sent for transmission to destination, and where returns were gathered and forwarded to Washington, it maintained an arrangement of its own, entirely independent of any other organization." Congress had, as already mentioned, even as early as 1840, taken into consideration the exchange of its documents for similar works of foreign governments, and, as the result of Monsieur Vattemare's efforts, in 1846 provision was made for exchanging a complete set of the laws of the United States with the French government, while in 1848 the joint com- mittee on the library was authorized to appoint exchange agents for the exchange of books and public documents for the use of the United States, for any single State, or for the 1 "Smithsonian Report," i88l, page 30. The International Exchange System 409 Academy in West Point, or for the National Institute — all these to be admitted free of duty. Special acts for the exchange of specific volumes were passed in 1848, 1849, and 1856, but the first general law for the exchano^e of United States documents was that enacted in 1867, a joint resolution being approved on March 2 of that year to the effect : "That fifty copies of all documents hereafter printed by order of either House of Congress, and fifty copies additional of all documents printed in excess of the usual number, to- gether with fifty copies of each publication issued by any department or bureau of the government, be placed at the disposal of the Joint Committee on the Library, who shall exchange the same, through the agency of the Smithsonian Institution, for such works published in foreign countries, and especially by foreign governments, as may be deemed by said committee an equivalent ; said works to be deposited in the Library of Congress." While this resolution carried with it no appropriation, Professor Henry at once undertook the preliminary corre- spondence necessary to carry it into effect by addressing a circular letter, through the Department of State, to the dip- lomatic representatives of the United States and foreign countries and to the foreign ministers accredited to this gov- ernment, stating the object of the resolution, and asking the cooperation of foreign governments in carrying it out. To this circular letter very general and satisfactory replies were received, each government responding offering to send com- plete series of its publications in return for those of the United States. It was not until 1873, however, that the first transmission of documents abroad was made by the Insti- tution. In 1875 ^i^ International Geographical Congress was held 27 4IO The S^nithsonian Institution in Paris, at which was discussed, as a matter closely allied to the main objects of the Congress, a uniform system for exchanging the scientific and literary publications of all coun- tries. The commission, under the presidency of Baron de Vatteville, submitted to the different governments repre- sented, a detailed plan for international exchanges, and in 1878, as the result of correspondence between the Smith- sonian Institution and the Department of State, the Institu- tion was recognized by the Secretary of State as the special agent for the United States government to carry out the suggestion of the convention, which involved not only the exchange of official documents, but of the publications of learned societies as well, the exchange of official documents with the governments represented being, in the case of the United States, for the benefit of the Library of Congress. Further conferences upon the subject were held in Brus- sels in 1877 and 1880, and again, after six years' experience of the working of the plan proposed in Paris, a general con- ference was called by the Belgian government in 1883. The United States government was represented at this latter conference by its resident minister, Honorable Nicholas Fish, and later by his successor. Honorable Lambert Tree, and the draft of articles of agreement for the international exchange system proposed was in due time communicated by the De- partment of State to the Smithsonian Institution for criti- cism. These articles of agreement having been submitted to the contracting powers, a conference was called in Brus- sels on March 15, 1886, at which they were signed by duly accredited diplomatic representatives, and the convention was laid before Congress and ratified by the President July 19, 1888. Ratifications were finally exchanged, and the conven- tion was proclaimed by the President on January 15, 1889. There were, in fact, two conventions adopted, the first for the The Interyiational Exchange System 4 1 1 " International Exchange of Official Documents, Scientific and Literary Publications," and the second for the "Imme- diate Exchange of the Official Journals, Parliamentary Annals and Documents " of the States interested. The first convention was entered into by Belgium, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Servia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. Its essential provisions were that each State should establish an Exchange Bureau, and should provide for the interchange of the respective official documents, parliamen- tary and administrative, and other works executed at govern- ment expense, each State assuming the cost of packing and transportation to the place of destination, except that where the transmissions were to be made by sea special arrange- ments might regulate the share of expense to be borne. It was also provided that the official exchange bureaus should act as intermediaries between the learned bodies and literary and scientific societies of the contracting States, for the reception and free transmission of their publications. The second convention, which was adopted by the same countries, with the exception of Switzerland, provided for the transmission to the leg^islative chambers of each contracting State immediately upon publication of copies of the respec- tive official journals and the parliamentary annals and docu- ments that are made public. To these conventions Uruguay and Peru subsequently gave their adherence, so that there are now ten States, in- cluding the United States, under treaty obligations to main- tain exchange relations. The carrying out of this obligation on the part of the United States, as far as the first treaty was concerned, did not change the prevailing conduct of the ex- change service carried on by the Smithsonian Institution. To the second treaty, the immediate exchange of official journals, effect has not been given by the United States 412 The Smithsonian Institution through lack of legislation placing the necessary documents at the disposal of the Exchange Bureau and making an ap- propriation for the clerical assistance and postage ; nor has this treaty apparently been fully carried out, as yet, by any of the contracting nations. The absence of several of the principal nations — England, France, Germany, and Russia — from the treaty will be noted ; but with these countries, as the result of the informal agreement reached with the Institution under the act of Con- gress of 1867, special exchange relations have been main- tained by the United States, and in France and Russia the governments support official exchange bureaus as part of their administrative service, while between England and Ger- many and the United States special arrangements have been made for the exchange of official documents, though with none of these countries, with perhaps the exception of Eng- land, is there any approach to an official exchange at all equitable to the United States — a condition, in part, due to the fact that no country publishes on so liberal a scale as our own. That this may, perhaps, be remedied by personal rep- resentation to the many and scattered publishing offices of foreign governments seems probable from the results secured in 1885, when Mr. George H. Boehmer, as representative of the Library of Congress and of the International Exchange Office, visited many of the principal countries of Europe, and secured a large number of documents for the Library of Congress. The Institution now receives fifty sets of all documents issued by the Government Printing Office, and despatches to foreign countries forty-three sets. Each country receives in four instalments an average, annually, of about two hundred and thirty-one volumes, and three hundred and seven pamph- lets, the transmissions being made to the designated gov- The International Exchange System 413 ernment library corresponding to our own Library of Congress. The entire cost of the exchange service was borne at first by the Smithsonian fund, although from the very first the facilities of the service were placed at the disposal of govern- ment bureaus engaged in scientific work. An idea of the increase in the cost may be had from a glance at the accounts of expenditures for this purpose, which shows that from 1846 to 1850 the cost of exchanges was $1,603. For the year i860 alone it was $2,348.04. In 1870 it had grown to $4,165.62. In 1876 the distribution of government docu- ments was first made extensively, and the cost increased to $10,199.10, while in 1885 it was $13,307.59, and in 1895, $16,997.99. The Institution continued to maintain the exchange service at its own expense until 1881, when the first appropriation of $3,000 was granted by Congress ; and without reference to aid given by the Institution to government bureaus for their exchange service between 1851 and 1867, during which period it is estimated that over twenty thousand packages of publications were transported for the national government, at a cost of about $8,000, from January i, 1868, to June 30, 1886, the Institution advanced for the support of the Inter- national exchange system in the interest and by the authority of the national government, $38,141.01 in excess of the appropriations for the exchange of official government docu- ments and $7,034.81 in excess of appropriations from July i, 1886, to June 30, 1889, for the purpose of carrying out the convention entered into by the United States — an aggregate advance of $45, 1 75.82. As now conducted, the rules for the control of the exchange service provide, in addition to the distribution of the United States government publications to foreign libraries, for the 27* 4H The Smithsonian Instihition distribution to certain accessible points abroad of books, pamphlets, charts, and other printed matter sent as donations or exchanges from literary and scientific societies or individ- uals to correspondents abroad, and involve no expense to the sender beyond that of delivery to the Smithsonian Institu- tion in Washington. No charge is made to the receiver, except in some instances the small cost of delivery from the Smithsonian agent or correspondent nearest him. Similar material sent from abroad to this country is forwarded to the recipient without expense to him, the packages having been delivered free of freight charges to the foreign agent or cor- respondent of the Institution. The Institution is, by special act of Congress, enabled to transmit packages in this country under frank. To describe somewhat more in detail the methods now employed in the Exchange Office, I would say that a scien- tific society or individual in the United States desiring to send publications abroad as donations or exchanges should have each package transmitted strongly wrapped and sepa- rately and legibly addressed, being careful to give the full local address, and should send them in bulk, carriage pre- paid, to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The separate packages should not exceed one-half of one cubic foot in bulk, and they should not contain letters or written matter. Before transmission, a list of packages, with the address on each package, is to be mailed by the sender to the Smith- sonian Institution when sent from the United States, or to the foreign agent of the Institution when sent from abroad. The Institution must be informed by mail of each sending on the day of transmission. Upon the receipt of the consignment at the Institution each package is assigned an " invoice number," the same number The Internatiojial Exchange System 415 applying- to all packages of that consignment, and a record is made of the entire list of packages under the sender's name. The separate packages are also entered under the name of the person or office addressed. An account is thus estab- lished with every correspondent of the Institution, which shows readily what packages each one has sent or received through the Exchange Bureau. The books are then packed with invoices from other senders, and are forwarded by freight to the bureau or agency abroad which has under- taken to distribute exchanges in that country. To Great Britain and Germany, where paid agencies of the Institution are maintained, shipments are made about three times a month ; to other countries at greater intervals. Each package sent out contains a receipt card bearing an "invoice number" identical with that upon the package. This invoice number should be carefully noted, as it is the only means of identifying the package, and it is of the greatest importance that the recipient should sign and re- turn the acknowledgment without delay. The receipt having been filed in the Exchange Office the record of that particu- lar package is made complete, while failure to return the receipt card gives rise to a doubt as to the correctness of the address, and future packages for that address may be returned to the sender. Transmissions from abroad are received by freight in large boxes and are distributed in the United States under frank by registered mail, a record first having been made of the name of the sender and of the address of each package. A receipt card, returnable by mail without postage, is sent with each of these packages, and should be forwarded at once by the recipient in acknowledgment of the package. The Institution and its agents will not knowingly receive for any address purchased books, nor apparatus and instru- 41 6 The Smithsonian Instittttion ments, philosophical, medical, etc. (including microscopes), whether purchased or presented ; nor specimens of natural history, except where special permission from the Institution has been obtained. The first volume of " Smithsonian Contributions to Know- ledge " was distributed in 1849 to 173 foreign institutions, virtually representing the Institution's foreign exchange work at its inception. In 1852, the first year for which any detailed report of the exchange operations is given, 572 packages were sent out by the Institution and 637 packages were received, though each of the packages sent and received may embrace several " arti- cles." In i860 a total of 4822 packages passed through the Exchange Office; in 1870, 5510; in 1880, 20,845; in 1890, 82,572; in 1895, 107,118 — the entire weight in 1895 being 326,955 pounds, or about 164 tons. It is difficult, without the actual presentation of statistical tables, to give an adequate idea of the result of this exchange system. Moreover, prior to 1885, when the government exchange may be fairly said to have been begun, and when Congressional appropriations enabled the Institution to em- ploy a force which allowed of the collection of proper statis- tics, 390,488 titles were received from all sources abroad for the libraries of the United States; of which 217,140 came to the Library of Congress, the library of the Smithsonian, and the libraries of the various departments and bureaus of the government, 136,810 to various institutions throughout the country, and 36,538 to individuals. During the past decade accurate statistics have been kept not only for the entire country, but for the various States in the Union. If I had space to discuss them, the figures would present some most interesting features. Roughly, it may be said that the number of titles received The International Exchange System 417 from foreitrn countries and distributed to institutions and individuals in the United States from 1886 to 1895 bor- dered upon 344,078, being- almost equivalent to the activity of the previous forty years, and fully justifying the treaties made by the United States and the expenditure incurred. It should be noted, however, that the return to this coun- try from foreign countries is by no means equivalent to the quantity sent abroad, since during the same period 601,637 titles were sent by the government, by institutions, and by individuals of the United States for foreign distribu- tion. The list by States is most instructive. In the ship- ment abroad the District of Columbia naturally leads, the older States with many institutions heading the list. Massa- chusetts stands first. New York second, Pennsylvania third, and Connecticut fourth. It is a matter to be noted, and one in every way commendable to the scientific activity of the great State on the Pacific Coast, that California stands fifth in this list, being closely followed by Illinois; Missouri fol- lows, Maryland stands next, being followed successively by Ohio and Wisconsin. The returns are even more instruct- ive ; and, strangely enough, the order in returns does not agree with the order in the amount of sending. In this second list the District of Columbia, as before, leads, Penn- sylvania following, succeeded by New York, Massachusetts, California, Missouri, Minnesota, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Connecticut. Without entering into the detail of the clerical work of the office, it will be sufficient to say that a ledger account is kept with each individual or institution from which a package is received in the Exchange Office, or to which a package is sent, the record identifying the sender as well as the receiver. To facilitate this work and abbreviate the records, there was compiled and published in 1862 a list of foreign addresses, 41 B The Smithsonian Institution arranged geographically, and including the principal libra- ries, societies, and government offices and journals with which the Institution was in correspondence. To each of these titles an arbitrary number was given for the sake of con- venience of reference. A revision of this " List of Foreign Correspondents of the Smithsonian Institution " was made in 1895 by Mr. George H. Boehmer, and it now embraces 10,765 libraries and 12,643 individuals — a total of 23,408 addresses, distributed in 3771 different cities or places. The courtesy of many of the great transportation compa- nies in extending to the exchange service the privilege of free freight has been continued even to the present day, and the assistance that has thereby been rendered to the Institu- tion, and indirectly to libraries and scientific institutions throughout the world, cannot be overestimated. The influence that the Smithsonian Institution has exerted through its international exchange service upon other in- stitutions of learning at home and abroad, and how far its aim in the diffusion of knowledge has been accomplished by the methods whose history for half a century has here been sketched, are touched upon elsewhere. The enrichment of its own library has been but incidental. It can safely be said that no large library in the world has not experienced its benefits, while individual workers in science have been reached upon the very outskirts of civilization, and have been afforded encouragement and aid, and the means of communi- cating with their fellow-workers for half a century. THE ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY By Samuel Pierpont Langley N the view of one of those who did much to shape the early history of the Smithsonian In- stitution, — President John Quincy Adams, — no more prominent object could be designed for the expenditure of the Smithson bequest than the erection and maintenance of an observatory — an institu- tion which would be local in its site only, and devoted to objects in which all men were interested. In the bilP introduced at his instance to provide for the disposal and management of the Smithson fund, it is enacted that part of the accruing interest be appropriated toward the erection and establishment in the city of Washington of an astronomical observatory adapted to the most effective and continual observations of the phenomena of the heavens, to be provided with the necessary, best, and most perfect instru- ments and books, for the periodical publication of the said observations, and for the annual composition and publication of a nautical almanac. A like clause appears in a subsequent bill,- and though 1 House of Representatives, No. 386, Twenty-seventh Congress. 2 House of Representatives, No. 418, Twenty-eighth Congress. 419 420 The Smithsonian Institution neither of these bills became law, it is well to remember how strenuously the application of the Smithson fund to this pur- pose was urged at the time when the Institution was taking the shape it now bears. At the time that President Adams submitted these bills astronomy had departed little from the beaten track in which it had moved for centuries, and in which its main object had been to fix with precision the places of the heavenly bodies, without determining their nature. As the writer has else- where said : " The prime object of astronomy until lately has been to say zuhere any heavenly body is, rather than ivkat it is, but within the present generation a new branch of astronomy has arisen, which studies the heavenly bodies for what they are in themselves and in relation to ourselves. Its study of the sun, for instance, beginning with its external features, led to the inquiry as to what it was made of, and then to the finding of the unexpected relations which it bore to the earth and to our daily lives on it, the conclusion being that in a physical sense it made us and recreates us, as it were, daily, and that the knowledge of the intimate ties which unite man with it brings results of a practical and important kind which a gen- eration ago were hardly guessed at." As the aims of this new astronomy are different from the old, so are its methods, in which it bears but an imperfect resemblance to those of the older or classic astronomy ; and this diversity of method influences even the external struc- ture. In place of an imposing edifice, crowned by a dome which shelters a great telescope, we are more likely to find a modest installation in which the telescope, though present, is not necessarily the important feature; in which there are no great meridian instruments, but instead a room shel- tering spectroscopes, photographic objectives, and the like; The Astrophysical Observatory 421 while in place of the equatorial and of the meridian instru- ments which are elsewhere used in the same way, night after night during perhaps a large part of the lifetime of the ob- server, the apparatus of the new astronomy is frequently modified, and, in an active observatory for solar research, will probably be found to be undergoing repeated change, the work being more or less of the nature of discovery, and each discovery leading probably to some alteration and improve- ment of the means by which the last was attained. In the half century which has elapsed from the time when President Adams manifested so strong- an interest in astron- omy, and after the government had erected and provided for an observatory, — the United States Naval Observatory, at the capital, necessarily devoted to the pursuit of the old astronomy, since at that time there was none other, — the conception of another form of astronomy arose in the minds of men of science ; and in 1861, when Kirchhoff and Bunsen published their researches on spectrum analysis, the "new astronomy " may be said to have been born. It has been modified since in many directions, and as its public importance became recognized, it has at the hands of various European governments had special establishments consecrated to it. Thus, in France, in the Observatory of Meudon, near Paris, constant observations have been carried on upon the solar surface by Monsieur J. Janssen, by means of photographic processes, which have greatly surpassed in accuracy any preceding ones, while parallel researches have gone on there upon the nature of the absorption which pro- duces the various lines of the spectrum, and other matters of interest in connection with solar studies. The French government for two hundred years has had an observatory, within the city of Paris, devoted to the classical astronomy ; and this new installation, at the Pare 42 2 The Smithsonian Institution de Meudon, overlooking the city, is a recognition both of the public importance of the work and of its distinct charac- ter from that prosecuted at the older establishments. In Germany, the Prussian government, in addition to its observatory in the city of Berlin, for the old astronomy of precision, has erected and most liberally endowed an astro- physical observatory in the park in Potsdam, not very far from the capital. In Italy various establishments of the same character exist, and in other continental countries, and in England, there are several such observatories, due chiefly to private beneficence. In the United States there are fewer; one of those most definitely devoted to the new class of investigation being that in the neighborhood of Pittsburg, which was maintained largely through the munificence of a private citizen, the late William Thaw, of that city. Owing to the nature of the investigations carried on, the astrophysical observatory should be situated, as a rule, in the open country : not in the precincts of a city ; for in many cases it is even more important than in an ordinary observa- tory that it should be remote from the tremor and disturb- ance of such a neighborhood. When the writer — whose professional life has been largely given to these researches — was invited by Secretary Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, to come to Washington, it was with the understanding that the government should be asked for, and might be expected to furnish, the means and the site for such an observatory ; but the death of Mr. Baird prevented the matter having the aid of his weighty recom- mendation before Congress.^ 1 Concerning this it is remarked in the sions, the biological and the physical, and Report of the Secretary of the Institution since it has been the case that of late years for the year 1888 : the first of these has been almost exclusively " Natural science falls into two great divi- encouraged by the Smithsonian, it was the The Astrophysical Observatory 423 When the writer accepted the position as Secretary of this Institution, in November, 1887, nothing had been done; but Doctor Jerome H. Kidder, a friend of the Institution and of the proposed observatory, had designed to interest wealthy private citizens of Washington in the plan, and to obtain from this source a fund which would be put at the disposal of the Smithsonian Institution for this purpose/ The lamented death of Doctor Kidder put an end to this plan also, but through the generosity of Doctor Alexander desire of the late Secretary, Professor Baird, to do something to restore the balance, and with this end in view he had made prepara- tions to secure an astrophysical observatory and laboratory, and though these prepara- tions were interrupted by his death, it is un- derstood lliat through his action some friends of the Institution have already offered to give the means for the erection of the modest structure needed for the accommodation of such a special observatory. The site would necessarily be suburban, on account of the especial need of seclusion and the absence of tremor in the soil, such as is felt in the neighborhood of the streets of a city. " No steps have yet been taken to secure a site, but in view of the promise of means for the building, and the fact that the con- struction of the necessary apparatus will oc- cupy a long time, I have ordered such of the essential pieces as are not likely to be ready, even under these conditions, till the building is prepared to receive it." — Smithsonian Report, 18S8, page 19, 1 This is referred to in the Report of the Secretary for the year ending June 30, 1889, (page 7) as follows: " In my last Report I spoke of the prep- arations made by the late Secretary for se- curing an astrophysical observatory and laboratory of research, and I mentioned that through his action some friends of the Insti- tution had already offered to give the means for the erection of the simple structure needed for the accommodation of such a special ob- servatory. I added that the site would nec- essarily be suburban on account of the special need of seclusion and the absence of tremor in the soil. " I have elsewhere referred to the collec- tions of the Institution in connection with the purchase by Congress of a zoological park, which it would appear tohave been the first in- tent of Congress to place under the care of the Regents. It had been my hope in that case to place this observatory somewhere in the park, but in view of the long delay which has already arisen, and of the indefinite further de- lay which may occur, I have thought it better to put a wooden structure of the simplest and most temporary character in grounds immediately south of the Institution, al- though this site is quite unsuitable for a per- manent building. Such a shelter will proba- bly be erected before the coming winter, and will, while serving as a store-house for the apparatus, enable observations to be com- menced. " The promotion of original research has always in the history of the Institution been regarded as one of its most important func- tions, and the proper object of the personal attention of the Secretary ; and I shall be very glad to do something in this direction on the most modest scale, rather than incur the chance of indefinite further delay." And also in the Secretary's Report ending June 30, 1890 (page 10) : " I take pleasure in reporting that the In- stitution has been able to do rather more for the encouragement of original research than it has done for several years past. " Referring to my two previous Reports in regard to the project of Professor Baird for securing an astrophysical observatory and laboratory, I am able to say that this object has assumed definite shape in the construc- tion of the temporary shed which has just 424 The Smithsonian Institution Graham Bell, a sum of $5000 was at this time put at the dis- posal of the Secretary, for scientific researches, and Doctor Kidder had given a legacy of the same amount, which was by his wish to be devoted to advancing the interests of the new observatory. Under these circumstances, the writer, in 1890, made a re- quest to Congress for the assignment of a site, removed from the tremor of the city, on which it was proposed to erect a building of such an extremely modest character as could be put up for the sum in question, to be supplied with instru- ments, in part at least, by the Institution, and to be main- been mentioned. In this shed there have been built, as the most expensive part of the structure, a number of brick piers required for the firm support of the delicate apparatus employed. "The principal instrument consists of a siderostat constructed by Sir Howard Grubb, of Dublin, Ireland, for the Smithsonian In- stitution, to meet my special requirements. This arrived in March, 1890, and has been mounted and put approximately into position for use. Another important and novel in- strument, a spectro-bolometer, was made un- der my directions to meet new and unusual demands, and has also been received and put in place. A third piece of apparatus, a special galvanometer, also designed for the particular class of work in view, has been re- ceived ; and the only considerable instrument now required to complete the outfit is a re- sistance box, which has been ordered and is expected from London before the end of the calendar year. "The siderostat is probably the largest and most powerful instrument of its kind ever constructed. The spectro-bolometer is the largest instrument of its kind, and with this improved apparatus it is hoped that in- teresting investigations begun several years ago will be continued. " Supplementary to these there are a few pieces of apparatus, the personal property of the Secretary, so that at the close of the year it might be said that the Institution was in possession of the nucleus of a modern astro- physical laboratory. With this apparatus temporarily mounted, researches have already begun, and one of a scientific and economic character, upon ' The Cheapest Form of Light,' has been the subject of a communi- cation to the National Academy of Sciences. This work is mentioned as indicating my in- tention to give greater place to one of the chief objects of the Institution, — the direct addition to knowledge by original research, — which, at least as regards the physical sciences, has received comparatively little at- tention since the time of Professor Henry. " The prospects of renewed contributions to physical science by the Institution in the field of original research are happily now better than for many years past. The late Doctor Jerome H. Kidder, formerly an offi- cer of the United States Navy, and later attached to the United States Fish Commis- sion and to the Smithsonian Institution, had bequeathed to the Institution, in a will made several years ago, the sum of $10,000, to be employed for biological researches. Doctor Kidder, having become especially interested in the proposed astrophysical observatory, had the intention of transferring this bequest, or at least a portion of it, to such an end, and he even ordered that a codicil giving $5000 to the Institution for an astrophysical ob- servatory should be added to bis will, but he was stricken with so sudden an illness that he was unable to sign it. In view of these circumstances and after careful deliberation upon the matter, the Regents decided to ac- cept as finally and decisively indicative of the wishes of the testator the provisions of this The Astrophysical Observatory 425 tained by an appropriation from Congress. In anticipation of this, one or two of the principal instruments which would take long in construction were ordered in advance of the erection of the building which was to shelter them. Owing to difficulties which it is not necessary to rehearse, the granting of a site, which it had been first proposed to occupy within the extended grounds of the new park, was deferred, and the following appropriation was made by Con- gress in the Sundry Civil Act of March 3, 1891.^ It is proper to record that it was largely through the interest of Mr. Joseph G. Cannon, Chairman of the Committee of Appropri- codicil bequeathing $5000 for tlie purpose of an astrophysical observatory, and this sum was therefore paid by Doctor Kidder's executor to tlie Institution. "A further sum of $5000 was likewise generously presented by Doctor Alexander Graham Bell to the writer individually for the prosecution of the researches in astro- physics, to which he has devoted much of his life, but it has seemed proper to him, under the circumstances, tiiat this sum should be placed to the credit of the Smithsonian In- stitution upon the same footing as the Kidder bequest, and with the consent of the donor it has been so transferred. I am, therefore, desirous of here expressing my own personal as well as my official obligation to Doctor Bell for this gift for the increase of know- ledge. " The initial step for the establishment of an astrophysical observatory under the na- tional government thus having been taken by private individuals, it is hoped that Congress will see fit to place it upon a firm footing, and to make a small annual provision for its maintenance. And it seems proper to men- tion that the field of research to which such a department of the Institution would be de- voted, has been considered of sufficient im- portance by the legislators of leading foreign nations to justify the erection of costly spe- cial observatories and to provide for their maintenance with a staff of astronomers and physicists of wide reputation. "The class of work here specially referred to does not ordinarily involve the use of the 28 telescope, and is quite distinct from that car- ried on at any observatory in this country. It would in no way conflict with the work of the present United States Naval Observatory, being in a field of work that the latter has never entered. " Briefly stated, the work for which the older government observatories at Green- wich, Paris, Berlin, and Washington were founded, and in which they are for the most part now engaged, is the determination of relative positions of heavenly bodies, and of our own place with reference to them. Within the past twenty years all these gov- ernments but our own have established astrophysical observatories, as they are called, tliat are engaged in the study of the constitu- tion of the heavenly bodies as distinguished from their positions ; in determining, for ex- ample, not so much the position of the sun in the sky as the relation that it bears to the earth and to our own daily wants ; how it affects terrestrial climate ; and how it may best be studied for the purposes of the meteorologist, and so on ; and it is an ob- servatory of the latter kind that the donors just mentioned appear to have had promi- nently in view, and which it is proposed to conduct (tliough on an extremely modest scale) under the auspices of the Institution." 1 Astrophysical Observatory, Smithsonian Institution, 1892. For maintenance of /Vstro- physical Observatory, under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, including sala- ries of assistants and the purchase of addi- tional apparatus, ten thousand dollars. 426 The Smithsonian Institution ations, and through that of Mr. J. D. Sayers, a subsequent chairman, that the appropriation was made. It was given with the understanding that this modest sum annually would suffice for some years for the maintenance of the observatory and for the provision of its apparatus, and this was the more feasible as no expenditure would be involved for its manage- ment and direction, which it was intended to leave in the hands of the Secretary, whose services would be given with- out cost to the government. The Smithsonian Institution has the title to a park of about twenty acres of land, forming a portion of the larger area commonly known as "The Smithsonian Park," and in this narrow area, in the portion immediately south of the principal buildings of the Institution, surrounded by streets and traffic; in this (from a scientific point of view) most unfit site there was erected in 1890,^ at the cost of the Institution, — not of 1"A temporary wooden building of the simplest possible construction has been erected in the Smithsonian grounds just south of the main building, having been be- gun on the i8th of November, 1889, and finished about the 1st of March, 1890. This building is not to be regarded as an entirely suitable or permanent housing for.the instru- ments. Its location, close to traveled streets, is unsuited for refined physical investigation, but the preliminary adjustment of the instru- ments and certain classes of work can be effectively and conveniently carried on here. " The principal instrument is a specially constructed siderostat by Sir Howard Grubb, of Duljlin, Ireland. This instrument is in position. A spectro-bolometer, the outcome of many years' experience, has been made, under my personal direction, by William Grunow & Son, of New York, and has been received and mounted. A galvanometer, de- signed for the particular class of work in view, has been received, and was the last of the principal pieces of apparatus (provided for from the Smithsonian fund) to be put in place. The outfit is now in the main com- plete. "This country has no observatory devoted exclusively to astrophysical research, though England, France, and Germany have main- tained for a number of years at a considerable expense observatories for the study of the physical condition of celestial bodies. I therefore indulged the hope that, in present- ing the matter to Congress, as previously reported, a request for a small annual appro- priation for the maintenance of the observa- tory thus founded and equipped might meet with favorable consideration. I may say that the amount asked for ($10,000 for an- nual maintenance) has been appropriated, and will be available during the coming fiscal year. " In adjusting and determining the constants of the instruments, a work involving consid- erable labor, I have had the valuable assist- ance of Professor C. C. Hutchins, of Bowdoin College, during a portion of the summer va- cation. No i)ermanent appointments of the assistants who will be required to carry on the investigations contemplated will be made until after the appropriation shall have be- come available." — Smithsonian Report, 1 89 1, page 7. The Astrophysical Observatory 427 Congress, — a one-story building, or rather shed, whose object was to furnish an immediate shelter for the instruments al- ready ordered, and to enable some work to be done under the appropriation while a more suitable site and building were being provided. This site has not yet, after a lapse of over six years, been obtained, and the investigations which are to be described have been carried on under all the disadvantages of such an entirely inadequate installation. It will be seen in the subsequent description of this work that above any other department, even, of astronomical re- search, it demands entire quiet and absence of tremor in the surroundings, and that it has been necessary to give so long a time to certain researches is due to the difficulties inherent in the site rather than in the methods of observation. I MAY preface a brief account of the work of this new observ- atory by repeating a portion of what has been already said, in laying before the committees of appropriations of the Senate and House, the reasons which should induce government aid : " The general object of astronomy, the oldest of the scien- ces, was, until a very late period, to study the places and mo- tions of the heavenly bodies, with little special reference to the wants of man in his daily life, other than in the applica- tion of the study to the purposes of navigation. "Within the past generation, and almost coincidentally with the discovery of the spectroscope, a new branch of as- tronomy has arisen, which is sometimes called astrophysics, and whose purpose is distinctly different from that of finding the places of the stars, or the moon, or the sun, which is the principal end in view at such an observatory as that, for in- stance, at Greenwich. "The distinct object of astrophysics is, in the case of the sun, for example, not to mark its exact place in the sky, but to find out how it affects the earth and the wants of man on 42 8 The Smithsonian histitution it ; how its heat is distributed, and how it, in fact, affects not only the seasons and the farmer's crops, but the whole sys- tem of living things on the earth, for it has lately been proven that in a physical sense it, and almost it alone, literally first creates and then modifies them in almost every possible way. " We have, however, arrived at a knowledge that it does so, without yet knowing in most cases how it does so, and we are sure of the great importance of this last acquisition, while still largely in ignorance how to obtain it. We are, for example, sure that the latter knowledge would form among other things a scientific basis for meteorology and enable us to predict the years of good or bad harvests, so far as these depend on natural causes, independent of man, and yet we are still very far from being able to make such a pre- diction, and we cannot do so till we have learned more by such studies as those in question. " Knowledge of the nature of the certain, but still imper- fectly understood, dependence of terrestrial events on solar causes is, then, of the greatest practical consequence, and it is with these large aims of ultimate utility in view, as well as for the abstract interest of scientific investigation, that the government is asked to recognize such researches as of na- tional importance ; for it is to such a knowledge of causes with such practical consequences that this class of investiga- tion aims and tends. "Astrophysics by no means confines its investigation to the sun, though that is the most important subject of its study and one which has been undertaken by nearly every leading government of the civilized world but the United States. France has a great astrophysical observatory in Meudon, and Germany one on an equal scale in Potsdam, while England, Italy, and other countries have also, at the national expense, maintained for many years institutions for the prosecution of astrophysical science. " It has been observed that this recent science itself was almost coeval with the discovery of the spectroscope, and that instrument has everywhere been largely employed in most of its work. Of the heat which the sun sends, however, and The Astrophysical Observatory 429 which, in its terrestrial manifestations, is the principal object of our study, it has long been well known that the spectro- scope could recognize only about one-quarter; three-quar- ters of all this solar heat being in a form which the ordinary spectroscope cannot see nor analyze, lying as it does in the almost unknown 'infra-red' end of the spectrum, where neither the eye nor the photograph can examine it. It has been known for many years that it was there, and we have had a rough idea of its amount, with an almost total incapac- ity to exhibit it in detail. Our imperfect knowledge of this region is at present represented by a few inadequate types of parts of it given in drawings made by hand, where the attempts to depict it at all are even to-day more crude than the very earliest charts of the visible spectrum made in the infancy of spectroscopic science. " One of the first pieces of work which this observatory has undertaken is to explore and describe what may be properly called 'this great unknown region,' by a method which the writer has recently been able to bring to such a degree of suc- cess as to give good grounds for its continued prosecution and for the hope that a complete map of this whole region will shortly be produced by an automatic, and therefore trust- worthy, process, showing the lines corresponding to the so- called Fraunhofer lines in the upper spectrum." It is now well understood that nearly every movement which goes on within the confines of this planet, not only from changes of the seasons or of rain, or the movement of wind, or storm, but every manifestation of life from that of the lowest vegetable form, up through animal existence, to that of man, including all his works and industries, comes from the sun, so that man himself and all his works are, in a physical sense, strictly its product. It is known in some cases to what these effects are traced, in the greater number we are still ignorant, but in all cases we know that a something we call " energy " comes across the 28* 430 The Smithsonian Instihttion void of space from the sun to the earth in its rays, and falHng upon us affects our senses in various ways. When it falls upon our bodies it produces a sensation of warmth ; when it falls upon our eyes it produces a sensation that we call "light" ; when it falls upon our skin it produces also an effect different from either ; for instance, it tans the cheek, by what we call chemical action, but these three dif- ferent effects are caused by the same thing — solar energy, which differs in its manifestations according to the body on which it falls, but is one and the same always in its essence. When it falls upon the ocean it draws the water up into the sky to drop subsequently to the earth as rain ; when it falls upon the land, it rears everything from the blade of grass to the tree ; and so through all animate and a large part of inanimate nature we find everything that affects man and his interests on the earth to come to us in this sunbeam, whose study gradually leads to conclusions of not merely interesting but of an eminently practical character. Sir Isaac Newton, letting these rays pass through a prism, discriminated between them, pointing out that they were com- posed of different colors, but he did not know that there was anything in them beyond what the eye could see. Nearly one hundred years later, in the first year of the present cen- tury, it occurred to Sir William Herschel to move a thermom- eter in the spectrum formed by a prism, and notice the heat in the different rays. He found little heat in the blue, more in the green, and more still in the red, where to the eye the spectrum appears to end. Carrying the thermometer still further, that is, entirely outside and beyond the visible spec- trum at its red end, he found that the instrument rose still more, showing that there was something there invisible to the eye. It was recognized later that the heat in this invisi- ble region was greater than all the heat in the region that The Astrophysical Observatory 431 could be seen ; but beyond diis litde was known, except the fact that this heat was of different kinds, and possessed of dif- ferent properties, in the same way that hght is possessed of different colors; there was no considerable investigation of the matter, from the lack of any thermometer delicate enough to appreciate the heat in very small portions, and capable of being placed with such precision as to discriminate the posi- tions of these portions one from another. Since the beginning of this century, it had been known that there had been made visible to the eye in the Newton- ian spectrum certain sharply defined black lines called, from their discoverer, "F'raunhofer lines," and which we now know are caused by selective absorption in the atmospheres of the sun and of the earth jointly. Some of these are due to our atmosphere alone, and come and go with different states of the weather, affording a direct means of predicting the ap- proach of rain. All of them are of interest in other ways than to the meteorologist, though all are interesting to him also. Now, if we take a base line, and at certain intervals, set off upon it perpendicularly lines proportional to the height of ^- the thermometer in the corre- ^ fed ^^^^^^^^^ spending parts of the spectrum, lamanskys curve. we obtain some such curve as is shown in the fio-ure. where the portion on the right indicates what is invisible, and shows three interruptions, discovered by Lamansky in 1871,^ and which as indicating nearly all that was known before the writer commenced his work may be compared with the curve given later. The invisible portion of the spectrum contains a great deal more energy than all the 1 Lamansky M. S. "On the Heat-Spectrum of the Sun .and the Lime-light." London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine, Volume LXlii, 1872, page 282. 432 The Sinithso7iian Institution rest that is visible. The actions, then, to which nearly all the changes on earth are due, go on principally in this invisi- ble region ; but, with the exception of some investigations by Draper and Becquerel in the part just below the visible red, this was all that was known in the matter twenty years ago ; for since these rays cannot be seen, and cannot be made evi- dent by ordinary photography, there remains no way of in- vestigating this most important region, except by means of some instrument which, like the thermometer or the thermo- pile, will register the heat. For lack, then, of a more sensitive instrument than science possessed, in this way, very little had been done until the year 1881, in which the writer invented a more delicate method of measuring heat, by means of an instrument which he called the " bolometer." This consists essentially of a metallic tape, usually about a third of an inch long, but narrower and far thinner than a human hair, through which an electric current is kept con- stantly passing. It is found that the slightest change in the heat which falls on this tape will affect a distant galvanometer connected with it, so that as the effects of vision are no way concerned, but only of heat, this may be compared, figura- tively, to an eye which sees in the dark. Moreover, as this thread can also be pointed with extreme precision, as in the case of a vertical thread of an ordinary transit instrument, the greater sensitiveness is accompanied by a corresponding accuracy of measurement. This instrument was, at that time, able to indicate a change of temperature of one one-hundred-thousandth of a degree, and it had the incidental advantage that it could be pointed so as to tell, within a fraction of a minute of an arc, in what part of the spectrum the change to which it was sensitive was found. A full description of the bolometer must be sought else- The As trophy steal Observatory 433 where ; but, in further explanation, it may be said that the electric current always passing flows less freely when the minutest degree of heat falls upon the strip, and more freely when this is made in the least colder, so that the galvanome- ter needle swings in the first case to the right, and in the second to the left ; and this, at present, may be arranged to record changes of temperature as small as one millionth of a degree. When this minute strip, or tape, is moved through the invisible spectrum, the tape being parallel to the Fraun- hofer lines, since what is black to the eye is cold to it, its contact with one of them produces cold, which increases the flow of electricity, and the galvanometer needle moves as described. When it passes into a warmer region, the needle moves in the opposite direction; and in each case the amount by which the needle moves is proportional to the degree of heat or cold in question, so that the final result is the same as if a thermometer could be constructed much finer than a human hair, from which all of these indications could be read on such an extended scale that the millionth part of a degree was visible, this thermometer being moved through the spec- trum, and falling or rising, according as it meets one of these dark and cold lines or g^oes into a warmer reofion. This rise or fall indicates, then, the presence of such a line, whe- ther the eye can see it or not, and when we pass out of the visible into the invisible region, this method remains trust- worthy where the eye and photography both fail us. When the instrument was first used, at least two observers were required, one to note the reading of the circle which fixed the place of the bolometer in the spectrum, and another who sat at the galvanometer and noted through how many divisions of the scale the needle swung, owing to the electric disturbances, the whole process being comparable to a groping in the dark, involvino^- oroing- over and over the work aeain '000 o 434 The Smithsouian Institution and again, month after month and year after year, with almost interminable repetition, so that a galvanometer had, in fact, to be read over a thousand times to obtain with sufficient accu- racy the position and amount of a deflection of the energy curve in any single part of the invisible region. It took nearly two years to fix the position of twenty lines by this process, with the degree of accuracy then aimed at. DISTRIBUTION OF ENERGY IN THE SPECTRUM OF A 60° PRISM OF SALT. ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY. -^ The annexed figure shows the amount of heat in different portions of the spectrum shown by the inflections of the curve as obtained by this early process ; but since it took two years to fix the position of twenty lines by this means, it would take a hundred years to fix the position of a thousand lines, sup- posing they existed; and it became evident that, if the bolom- eter continued to be the only means available, new methods of using it must be devised. Accordingly, when this work was commenced at the Smith- sonian Observatory, a plan which had been under study by the writer for more than ten years was introduced, by means of which the work could be carried on not only with far The Astrophysical Observatory 435 greater rapidity, but with greater certainty, and by an auto- matic process. The idea in its original simplicity is very easily understood. In the old process, just described, the deflection of a spot of light upon a scale was read by one observer, while another simultaneously read the position in the spectrum of the cold band, or line, which caused the thermo-electric disturbance. Now, in imagination, let us take away both the observer at the circle and the one at the galvanometer, and in the latter case remove the scale also, and put in its stead a photographic- ally sensitive plate. As the needle swings to the right or left the spot of light will trace upon the plate a black horizontal line, whose leneth will show how far the needle moves and how great the heat is which originated the impulse. If this be all, when under an impulse originated by the movement of the spectrum over the bolometer thread the needle swings a second time, it will go over the same place; but if the plate have given it by clockwork a uniform vertical movement pro- portional to the horizontal movement of the spectrum, the combination of the two motions of the needle and the plate will write upon the latter a sinuous curve which will be, in theory at least, the same as the curve formerly deduci- ble, only with much pains, from thousands of galvanometer readings. If we suppose that the movements of the invisible spec- trum, as well as of the plate, are controlled by the same clockwork, so that this spectrum is caused to move uniformly over the bolometer thread, and that these movements are, by accurate mechanism, rendered absolutely synchronous with those of the moving plate, it is clear that we shall be able to readily deduce from the photographic curve traced on the latter not merely the amount of the heat, but each particular position in the spectrum of the thread of the bolometer, 43 6 The Smithsonian Institution which alone can correspond with any given inflection of the curve. The theory is simple, but the practice is extremely difficult, and it has, in fact, consumed nearly five years of continuous labor to produce the results which are obtained by the pres- ent apparatus, which works in the following manner : A beam from the mirror of the siderostat is conveyed through the slit of a telescope having a rock-salt objective of about ten meters focal length to the prism, which is mounted on the massive spectro-bolometer, the novel feature lying in the mechanical connection of the large circle carrying the prism with a distant photographic plate, susceptible of verti- cal motion, and taking the place of the scale formerly in front of the remote galvanometer, both circle and plate being now moved by the same clockwork, through a continuous train of shafting, which works with such steadiness and precision as to make the two movements entirely synchronous. To understand this better, let us suppose that the very slowly moving circle carrying the prism moves the spectrum through one minute of arc in one minute of time, across the vertical bolometer thread. To the observer watching the spectrum the motion is as slow as that of the hour-hand on the dial, but it is continuous and uniform, and the same mechan- ism which causes this motion of the spectrum of one minute of arc in one minute of time causes the photographic plate to move vertically, before the galvanometer mirror, at any given rate, — for instance, at the rate of one centimeter of space in one minute of time. It follows that during every second of this minute a portion of the spectrum represented by one second of arc will have glided before the bolometer thread, and that during this same second the photographic plate will have been lifted automatically through one sixtieth of a centi- meter in space ; the essential thing being that the plate shall The Astrophysical Observatory 437 > O H I CO OQ O < U >-i CO O h co < W W h O < a< Q Z o O 43 8 The Sinithso7iian Institution show, on simple inspection, not only the inflection of the energy curve there written down, but the exact relative posi- tion in the distant spectrum which the bolometer thread oc- cupied at the moment it caused the disturbance. By suitably changing the wheels in the clockwork we may cause the spectrum to move fast or slow, in the former case giving only its principal inflections, in the latter case giving a great deal more of detail, but with liabilities to error, which will be spoken of later. The building shown in the annexed sketch plan, which was erected in 1890 at the cost of the Institution, has been slightly modified from its original form to meet the wants of this process as they have been developed by experiment, and it is only lately that the small photographic room shown at the right has been added. The observatory's latitude and longitude as given by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey is 38° 53' i7".3 and 5'' 08"" 06'' .24 respectively. The building is essentially a room arranged so that it can be closed to all light by means of sliding shutters before the windows, and by a sliding shutter under the skylight in the roof, and containing an inner chamber F F which can be kept at a constant temperature. In the front is a small room L containing books and writing materials, below which is a cellar in which are stored the batteries and a furnace, the latter being no longer used, having been replaced by steam radiators R, operated from another building. Around the walls are cases containing those pieces of apparatus which are not in constant use, and, with the exception of the small cellar, the floor joists are almost in contact with the soil, but piers for the instruments rise to the level of the floor at A, 76 centimeters above the floor at B, and 40 centimeters above the floor at J. When the shutters are closed the only light which enters comes from the siderostat at C, which The Astrophysical Observatory 439 sends a horizontal beam from north to south along the meri- dian at a height of 1 10 centimeters from the floor, through the tube T. The principal piece of apparatus, the spectro-bolometer, is shown at D. This instrument, made by W. Grunow & Son, is a development of that already devised by the writer and figured by him in the "American Journal of Science."^ Its object is to enable researches to be made on that invisible portion of the solar radiation below the red in which it is now known that a greater part of all the solar energy lies, in a region whose details have been, up to the present researches, comparatively unknown. This instrument consists of an azimuth circle of 52 centi- meters diameter, reading by verniers to five seconds of arc. Over the center of the azimuth circle is a prism, ordinarily of rock-salt, a material pervious to the rays in question, which do not freely pass through glass. This prism is fixed to a mirror parallel to its rear surface, and it turns with it when the circle is turned. A horizontal ray from the siderostat, which falls upon the prism, passes through it at an angle of minimum deviation, falls upon the plane mirror, and is by that reflected to a distant concave mirror, 7n, by which an image of the spectrum is formed at S. In the actual case, the visible part of the solar spectrum is about nine inches in length and one high, and filled with Fraunhofer lines, which are visible to the naked eye when projected upon a screen. The rays fall upon the strip of the bolometer at E. If, now, the circle be moved by the clockwork K, and with it the prism and its attached plane mirror, the spectrum is put in motion relatively to the bolometer strip, so that this is virtually carried through the spectrum, its exact position in it being at all times determined by reference to the circle. 1 "The Selective Absorption of Solar Energy," Volume xxv, page 169, March 1S83, plate 2. 440 The Smithsonian Institution As the strip of the bolometer passes through a dark line, its temperature falls, less current passes through the cable con- necting it with the distant galvanometer, shown at G, and the needle of the latter instrument is deflected, showing how great the radiant heat of the spectrum was at the precise position in question. In the accompanying illustration are shown two such curves obtained on different days, quite in- dependently of each other, by two successive movements such as have been described through the whole spectrum. They represent nearly two hundred lines, which are otherwise shown in the plate in the usual form as a line spectrum. The general coincidence of the two curves one with another affords the most convincing proof that could be desired of the accuracy of the process, which thus obtains in a few hours data which could hardly be obtained by a life-time of assiduous labor with the old one. But this new method is so sensitive that it can record more minute inflections than are here set down, these inflections being intentionally slurred over, as here given. When, however, we proceed with the aim of developing all the minute deflections that are caused by the changes in the atmosphere of the sun and the earth, we are confronted with the difficulty common to delicate physical measurements of every kind, that, owing to the sensitiveness of our apparatus, it will register deflections due to causes which we are not concerned with, and do not want to record. For instance, if a wagon be passing in a distant street the jar communicated to the ground, although quite imperceptible to all ordinary sense, will be registered by the galvanometer, forming a minute inflection of the curve, which might be confounded with those produced by the action of the sun itself, the distant sun and the wagon in the next street registering their action in the same place and in the same manner. rNFRA-RED SPECTRUM OF A ROCK-SALT PRISM. WAVE-LENGTHS 0.75jx TO -._.:.;j.. 440 The Smithsonian Institution ir passes throug as have ceeii ccscriDcci tarougn cnc v. represent nearly two hundred lines, shown in the plate in the usual form as oincidencp of the twc ' ^-'-^of that could e old one. But this new method t it ran record more mir than .i •. 'se inflections ^nally sli ven. Vv ncj we proc' ith the aim of de inute deflections that are caused by the chang -. - . „--i and the earth, we are confrn- the dui. ■ -■ ■-- to delicate physical men ■ kiiiu ' nsitiveness of our apparatus, ..■•a itself, the disr reet reeist. ._ their .: M' " ■ bu.::e manner. 3 tr: J- a OL _i < \^ — '.. /' ■ -y are many other causes of local d t it be understood that they are too slight to distort the when we are only taking the main features of the curve, as is shown in the exai- ' given. But it is ! the minuter f the solar • va- are sought that these local distur are of ,ame order nf ma crn nme especK- . . . n, the- lake a fuller m ularities o\ e con. MUllbi. Ihe ler mus; eferred to pr rs for ar of th ns of overcoming these d ^s, but that the ^ >f the achieved, it is rema. -. that enrh inf!< ivertible into a line 1 ^ ~ process of con , wha .11 our knowle ;^een. Describing it ^.. ^ upon th' al spectrum '"- —"-■'" lulcu that '-^ "^^' ewton be unit ould be represented by a li 29 iM"..^ HT-tr/:a:j-avAV/ f-uiii^"-": mFRA-RED SPEOTEUM OF A ' ROOK- SALT PRISM. WAVE-LENGTHS 2.09[i TO 5.69jj.. The Astrophysical Observatory 441 There are many other causes of local disturbance, but it should be understood that they are too slight to distort the record, when we are only taking the main features of the solar curve, as is shown in the example just given. But it is when the minuter details of the solar and terrestrial observa- tions are sought that these local disturbances, which are of the same order of magnitude, become especially troublesome. When, therefore, we proceed to make a fuller map of the irregularities of the invisible spectrum than shown above, we are compelled to study the causes of these accidental deflec- tions, and to try to eliminate them, and this necessity has greatly delayed the work, a full account of which will shortly be published. The professional reader must be referred to professional papers for an account of the means of overcoming these diffi- culties, but that the general reader may conceive of the re- sults achieved, it is remarked that each inflection of the curve is convertible into a line by a nearly automatic optical process, giving linear spectra, and while the measurements of pre- cision are made upon the original curves, these linear spectra are united by a process of composite photography for the purpose of illustration. That presented on the accompanying plate is obtained by another method. With it is given on the scale of mean dispersion the length of the spectrum as known to Sir Isaac Newton " (H — A)" to show what the extent of the increase in our knowledge has been. Describing it otherwise upon the scale of the normal spectrum, it may be stated that if the length of the spectrum as observed by Newton be unity, its length as here given would be represented by a little over twelve, and very nearly all of this addition has been made by the application of the processes which have been described. A comparison of the three superposed curves with the 29 442 The Smithsoniaji histitiition vignette already given from Lamansky's drawing will show in another way the progress which has been made by bolometric research. I have described here but one research, though that is not the only one prosecuted at the observatory. Among others one of more general interest is that on the "Cheapest Form of Light," carried on by the joint use of the bolometer and photographic processes, of which an account will be found in the "American Journal of Science."^ The principal conclusion of the research just named is that processes exist by which light can be produced without the present waste of energy in producing invisible heat along with it — a conclusion of much practical importance. Other and subordinate researches will be described else- where; of the principal one here spoken of it is proper to repeat that the difficulties have been enormously increased by the unsuitability of the site, and that it is to be earnestly hoped that the Institution may be enabled later to provide a more fitting one. 1 Volume XL, page 97, August, 1890. THE NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK By Frank Baker NTEREST in living animals is a characteristic of both savage and civilized man. Doubtless this was at first a mere curiosity to know more of the creatures he pursued in the chase or against whose attacks he had to guard, but later it rose to that desire to understand the phenomena of life in general, to obtain some insight into the mysteries of being, which is at the root of all scientific zoological studies. Royal preserves and menageries are as old as the civiliza- tions of Assyria and Egypt, and it was from the East, by means of the Roman conquerors, that the first collections of animals were brought to Europe. The displays of the Roman triumphs and the conflicts of famishing beasts in the arena were but little calculated to advance the interests of zoology, but it is from these that we trace the genesis of the zoological collections of to-day. Exhibitions of animals for the purpose of impressing the populace with the wealth or power of the ruling sovereign were common during the Middle Ages. The Emperor Frederick II had at his Sicilian court a notable collection, from which he sent to Henry III of England three leopards, in compliment to the three animals of that species 443 444 The Smithsonian Institution which appeared in that monarch's coat-of-arms. These ani- mals, with an elephant sent not long after by Louis IX of France, formed the nucleus of the famous Tower Menagerie, that was kept up until 1834, when it was merged with the Zoological Garden now in Regent's Park in London. The well-known collection of exotic animals in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris had a similar origin, being derived from the royal menagerie maintained with different degrees of in- terest by various kings, and finally, at the time of the French Revolution, turned over to the people. The conditions prevalent in these royal collections were not as a rule favorable to the study of animals, and we con- sequently find that with few exceptions they aided the ad- vancement of zoology but little. The animals were usually kept in small and badly ventilated cages with slight regard to their proper food or natural habits, and it is therefore not at all surprising that the mortality among them should have been very great. It was not until the care of such collections was intrusted to scientific zoologists that any improvement was manifested. The collections of Europe seem, however, to have been surpassed in extent, variety, and magnificence by those of the New World, where an equable climate, a rich fauna, and a natural fondness of the natives for animals appear to have combined to produce much better results. The accounts of the menageries of Montezuma and the Incas read like fairy tales. They were doubtless of great size and richness, but the conquerors of Mexico and Peru left nothing of these extraordinary collections. In the United States the establishment of permanent col- lections of animals for public exhibition is comparatively recent. The menagerie in Central Park in New York was not contemplated by the original plan of that park, but grew The National Zoological Park 445 up from chance gifts made to the city authorities, from i860 onward. In Philadelphia a zoological society, composed of public- spirited citizens interested in natural history, succeeded in 1872 in raising sufficient funds to begin the construction of a zoological garden in a retired portion of Fairmount Park. This garden, though limited as to space, has always been con- ducted with reference to the advancement of science, and is now, probably, the most important collection in America. A zoological society in Cincinnati also succeeded in 1874 in securing a collection of animals for exhibition. It now has an excellent garden in a flourishing condition. Collections of living animals have been formed in San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburg, and other places. Some of these are controlled by the city authorities as an attractive feature of public parks, others kept by priv- ate parties for their own pleasure or profit in game preserves thousand of acres in extent. The collection of animals for exhibition as museum speci- mens was early commenced by the Smithsonian Institution. This necessarily involved the accumulation of skins and skele- tons and the employment of skilled taxidermists to study the natural forms of living animals in order that they might im- part to the prepared specimens the grace and characteristics of life. A considerable number of livinor animals was ob- tained for this purpose annually, and as there were no adequate arrangements for keeping them, they were, after serving as studies for the modeler, either killed for their skins, or, if not desired as specimens, sent to the zoological garden in Philadelphia. During their temporary detention at the Institution such specimens attracted much notice from visitors. It early occurred to Mr. S. P. Langley, the present Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, that it would be 29* 44 6 The Sinithsonian Institution easy to extend this method so as to secure a considerable collection of livinof animals. The National Museum was fortunate in having upon its staff at that time Mr. William T. Hornaday, well known for his unusual skill as a taxidermist, and for his travels in Bor- neo and South America for the collection of specimens of natural history. As his interest in the matter was very great, a separate department of the National Museum, that of living animals, was created, and of this he was appointed curator. As a result of his energy and activity the museum possessed, at the close of the fiscal year 1887-88, no fewer than two hundred and twenty living specimens. At this time public interest was much excited by the al- most total extinction of the American buffalo or bison, which once covered the country as far east as Virginia with herds of almost countless numbers, and which, retreating before civilization, had finally succumbed to the unchecked extrava- gance of avaricious hunters and the repeating rifle until there remained but a few herds, small in numbers and widely scat- tered. This is one of the most striking and appalling cases of the effect of the contact of man with animate nature, but many others were also noted which, though less in degree, showed all thoughtful people that most of the larger native animals indigenous to this continent were doomed to extinc- tion unless active measures were taken to protect and pre- serve them. The great auk and the sea-cow of Steller are now to be seen only in museum cases, and rank in the popu- lar mind with the dodo and the megatherium ; the sea-ele- phant has nearly if not wholly disappeared, and the manatee is approaching extinction. The moose, the caribou, the antelope, the mountain sheep and goat, the fur seal, the sea otter, the Pacific walrus, and even the grizzly bear and panther, are rapidly disappearing, and in a few generations The National Zoological Park 447 may share the fate of the moa, the mammoth, and other animals once widely distributed but now extinct. The loss to zoological science in the disappearance of these animals is, of course, very great, and from an economic point of view the matter is by no means to be disregarded. When we consider the enormous food value of the great herds of bison, that, with a little care, might have been preserved almost indefinitely upon those parts of the country fitted only for grazing, we realize how shameful and unwise the waste has been. The extirpation of the fur seal and sea otter deprives this country of some millions of dollars of annual revenue ; the elk and deer if carefully protected would yield flesh and skins of considerable value ; the wild pigeon and the prairie chicken, now nearly extinct, have had a definite market value of no small amount. When we notice with what care similar animals are preserved in European coun- tries, and the prices that they readily command when brought to market, the reckless extravagance with which the vast animal resources of this continent have been wasted becomes apparent. It seemed to Secretary Langley that the Institu- tion might do something to bring this matter clearly before the eyes of our legislators and of the public generally by exhibiting specimens of the most important animals likely to suffer extinction, placing them as nearly as possible in the conditions natural to them so that they might breed and thrive in captivity as in their native haunts. An enterprise of this kind could also assist in the general difiusion of zo- ological knowledge, especially if there were associated with these animals that it was desired to preserve from extermi- nation such specimens belonging to the fauna of widely distant regions as might be useful for purposes of comparison or illustration. There would thus be combined the advan- tages of a park in which animals could be studied in nearly 44^ The Smithsonian Institntion their native condition and the attractions of the ordinary zoological garden. It was believed that this project was entirely novel and that it marked some advance over any scheme for the maintenance of animals in captivity that had up to that time ever been proposed. The zoological gardens of European capitals are invariably situated in the midst of a numerous population, where spacious grounds cannot be spared for their mainten- ance. This greatly embarrasses their development and the result is that the animals therein exhibited rarely if ever appear in their natural conditions, and the old methods of crowding, a heritage from the royal menagerie, yet prevail to some extent. It is rarely possible to accommodate their captivity to their obvious needs. The question of a possible site for such an enterprise was at once raised. Secretary Langley, with rare judgment, turned his attention to the picturesque valley of Rock Creek, a small affluent of the Potomac that empties at Georgetown. This little stream, ordinarily very quiet and peaceful, drains an area of about eighty square miles in the District of Col- umbia and Montgomery County, Maryland. The steepness of its watershed, which lies among the foothills of the Blue Ridge, is such that in a few hours, after a heavy and pro- longed rain, the little brook may swell to a foaming torrent. This has caused an amount of erosion that seems quite out of proportion to the size of the stream, and it accordingly lies some two hundred feet below the level of the surrounding" hills, in a valley varied greatly in its aspect according to the devious windings of the stream and the nature of the soil. It would be impossible to find in this latitude a situation more admirably adapted to the preservation of wild animals, combining as it does exposures of every variety, sunny slopes and cool hillsides, level meadows and rocky cliffs, affording The National Zoological Park 449 an abundance of excellent water, and sufficiently near the city to make it easily accessible. Fortunately the land along this beautiful stream, being hilly and not immediately available for building purposes, had not shared the general advance of prices that had affected nearly all property in the vicinity of Washington. Upon a hasty survey of the region made by Mr. Hornaday, under the direction of the Secretary, it was found that a tract of one hundred acres or more could be procured for a sum that did not seem exorbitant. It was not found difficult to interest public-spirited persons in an enterprise of this novel and peculiar character, which would not only afford an excellent opportunity for zoological study, but would also give to the public a beautiful pleasure ground, and preserve from devastation and the real-estate agent a delightful region greatly needed as a park by the inhabitants of Washington. Senator Beck, of Kentucky, and Senator Morrill, of Vermont, were among the first to warmly espouse the cause of the new park. The former introduced a bill on April 23, 1888, which provided for a commission, com- posed of the Secretary of the Interior, the President of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, which was to have power to select and obtain land, to lay it out as a National Zoological Park, and finally to turn the same over to the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. This bill received the earnest support of Senator Morrill and many other gen- tlemen in both Houses of Congress. Attached as an amend- ment to the sundry civil appropriation bill, it failed before the conference committee appointed by the two Houses. At the next session of Congress a measure of a similar character was introduced by Senator Edmunds as an amend- ment to the District of Columbia appropriation bill. With 450 The Smithsonian histitution this was associated an appropriation of $200,000 for the pur- chase of land for the desired site. It became a law upon March 2, 1889. The commission constituted by this act made an exhaust- ive examination of all the land in the valley of Rock Creek available for a site, and finally selected about one hundred and sixty-six acres lying two miles from the Executive Mansion and not far distant from frequented public roads and street-car lines. Some difficulty was found in estab- lishing the boundaries of some of the tracts, owing to the fact that many of the landmarks described in the earlier deeds had become obliterated by the lapse of time. This was, however, satisfactorily overcome at last, and the survey of the grounds was finally completed November 21, 1889. It was not until November 4, 1890, that possession was finally obtained of the entire site. On April 30, 1890, an act was passed definitely placing the National Zoologfical Park under the direction of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, authorizing them to transfer to it any living animals in their charge, to here- after make exchanges of specimens, and to administer the Park "for the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people." Thus the National Zoological Park became an accomplished fact, and the work of develop- ing it was begun with great enthusiasm. The first care was, necessarily, the preparation of the site and the providing of means of access to it. The funds at the disposal of the Regents for all objects, including roads, walks, bridges, water-supply, sewerage, fencing, and build- ings, were less than $100,000; and when it is remembered that the zooloo-ical collections of other cities are housed in buildings of modest proportions, it is true, but which have cost from $300,000 to $400,000, it will be seen that no very The National Zoological Park 451 great results were to be expected from such inadequate means. The preparation of grounds alone must necessarily be very expensive — the proper laying out, planting, and improving for park purposes being estimated by experienced authorities at from $3,000 to $5,000 an acre. It was at once determined to procure the best possible professional advice for the general planning and laying out of the park, it being felt that the utmost care should be taken to preserve the extraordinary natural beauties of the region, and that none but a master could be expected to adapt to the needs of the project so charming a piece of pic- turesque rural landscape. Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, whose reputation as a landscape architect is world-wide, was asked to give his advice, and visited the park on several occasions for that purpose. While it has not been possible, from want of funds, fully to carry out the plan outlined by him, it is hoped that no serious errors have been made, and that the leafy retreats of this lovely valley afford much the same pleasure to the tired citizen that they did when their beauty was known to few beyond the wandering naturalist and the solitary rambler. It being impossible, with the resources at command, com- pletely to develop the entire area of the park, it was found advisable to select a portion of the most available ground for immediate improvement, leaving the remainder in a state of nature. The area selected comprised about fifty acres situ- ated in the most central part of the park, where previous clearings had already made some open helds and grazing land, and where the ground was sufficiently level to offer a variety of suitable building sites. Considerable sums were necessarily expended in lading out roads, in protecting the banks of the stream, in form- ing ponds for aquatic animals, and in planting and otherwise 452 The Smithsonian Institution improving the grounds. There is at present a single main macadamized road extending through the park. Though this is by no means free from defects, as on the side next the city the approach is so steep as to be dangerous for heavily loaded vehicles, it has served the purpose of access. It is expected that additional roads will be built at an early day. In view of the probable future increase of the collection, it seemed desirable that the principal buildings should be planned in such a way as to admit of possible extension. It was also thouofht best that all structures should be of a char- acter adapted to the retired and picturesque natural scenery of the neighborhood. Imposing buildings, even if they could have been constructed within the small sums allotted by Con- gress, would have been out of place and calculated to mar the restful effect of the quiet valley in which they were located. The offices of the park were established in an old and dilapidated mansion, the only dwelling found upon the whole area of the site. This mansion is one of the earliest built in this region, dating back to 1805, and is in a most picturesque spot encircled by a broad sweep of Rock Creek. Its isolated situation makes it especially suitable for any matters of ad- ministration desirable to remove from the general public, such as laboratory work, the seclusion of sick animals, and the growth of plants and shrubs for the grounds. During the first year the entire park was fenced in, a single roadway was established extending through the area just referred to, and the creek was spanned by an inex- pensive bridge. While it would have been desirable to prepare at once houses for different classes of animals, so that each could have the treatment most appropriate to its needs, it was impossible, for want of funds, to arrange for more than one house which should shelter animals requiring heat during llie National Zoological Park 453 winter. This included both animals from the valley of the Amazon, that never in their native haunts experience great changes of temperature, and those from the southern portion of the United States, that thrive better when exposed to considerable vicissitudes. The carnivorous nocturnal ani- mals had to be housed with the timid herbivorous ones natur- ally wakeful by day. Experience has shown, as was expected, that better results would have been obtained had it been possible to separate these groups. The animals turned over to the management of the Na- tional Zoological Park were one hundred and eighty-five in number, large and small. They had been kept huddled to- gether in such temporary quarters as could be provided in a low shed and a few small paddocks upon the south side of the Smithsonian building. They were then transferred to their permanent quarters at the park. The experience of the first year was in every way favor- able. Great interest was taken by the public in the new enterprise, a considerable number of valuable gifts were made, among which was an Asiatic elephant presented by Mr. J. E. Cooper, of the Forepaugh shows. A few valuable specimens were purchased as opportunity offered of obtain- ing them at reasonable figures. The whole enterprise took on a healthy growth, and was evidently firmly established. During the next year the mutations of politics caused a change in the dominant political party, and there were elected to the House of Representatives a large number of new members to whom the park was a totally unknown project. The Committee on Appropriations no longer regarded it favorably, and the annual estimates, which were made only with reference to the proper and economical development of the original design, were much reduced. Further than this, the authority to increase the collection by the purchase of ani- 454 The Smithso7iian Institution mals, which had been contained in the previous appropria- tion acts, was withdrawn, and it was evidently intended to re- strict the operations of the park as much as possible. Indeed the question of abolishing it altogether was at one time con- sidered, but better counsels finally prevailed. This policy naturally retarded to a considerable extent the growth so auspiciously commenced. Instead of permanent structures suited to the needs of each class of animals, temporary make- shifts were necessarily erected, which, requiring to be fre- quently repaired and renewed, involved in the end a waste of public money. In no matter was this policy more injurious than in its effect on the growth of the collection. It now became impos- sible to procure specimens except by gifts, by transfer, or by collecting them at great expense within the limits of govern- ment preserves, like the Yellowstone National Park. Expe- rience has shown that the increase by gifts is very precarious. The animals given are, it is true, sometimes very valuable ; often, however, they are diseased or defective in some way. They are usually the random, accidental finds made by chance sportsmen or curiosity hunters, and are, naturally, more numerous in certain classes than in others. Numbers of opossums, raccoons, and small alligators are yearly pre- sented, but no one has ever thought of presenting a moose, a caribou, a manatee, a sea-lion, or any of the important ani- mals for the preservation of which the park was especially instituted. The increase by transfer really amounts only to this, that certain of the animals bred within the park may, if any one chances to want them, be exchanged for others. Native American animals are not much used in menageries, and there is, therefore, but little demand for them. Slight use has, therefore, been made of this privilege. The National Zoological Park 455 By the kind cooperation of the Secretary of the Interior, permission was given to the Smithsonian to make collections of wild animals within the Yellowstone National Park. This has become the only source of supply for certain species. It was hoped that large numbers of buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, moose, and beaver might be obtained there, and considerable sums have been expended for the purpose of building corrals and paddocks within that park for the capture and temporary confinement of animals and their transportation to Washington. This has proved an expensive undertaking. The isolation of the Yellowstone Park enhances greatly the prices of labor and material there, and its great distance from this city makes the charges for transportation amount to as much or more than the value of the animals. Some interesting results have, however, been attained. A colony of beavers was, with considerable difficulty, collected and placed in the National Zoological Park, where the animals at once made themselves at home and proceeded to build a lodge and several dams after the most approved fashion. It was thought that it would be necessary to isolate them entirely from the public, but it is found that they readily become tamed, those which have been properly treated having no fear of man, eating from the hand and carrying on their building operations undisturbed by the presence of the public. With regard to results attained by the park, it may be said that the popular interest in the collection is very great. On Sundays and holidays the walks and buildings are crowded with visitors, and any important accessions at once increase the throng. On several occasions the attendance has ex- ceeded ten thousand a day, and once, when a considerable number of new animals had just arrived, it nearly reached thirty thousand by actual count. Classes of children from the public schools are constantly seen during fine weather, 45 6 The Smithsonian InsHhttion in the school season, carefully examining the animals and noting their characteristics under the guidance of their teach- ers, who in this way are enabled to give them definite instruc- tion in the elements of natural history. Art students may often be seen making studies from life, drawing, painting, and modelinor the animals. To the taxidermist such studies are invaluable and indispensable. It is, of course, impossible, even with as generous an area as that afforded in the National Zoological Park, to reproduce perfectly the conditions of nature. It would not be practica- ble to give to moose a large forest in which to browse, or to caribou a growth of the arctic lichens and mosses upon which they thrive. Neither would it be desirable to allow the ani- mals to prey upon each other as they do in a state of nature. It is, however, perfectly possible to keep them in reasonable health and activity, and to present them to the public in con- ditions that are far more instructive than those which prevail in ordinary institutions of the same sort. One of the best tests of the salubrity of the conditions under which the animals are kept is the readiness with which they breed. The buffalo, elk, deer, panther, wild-cat, and even the black bear, beaver, and porcupine, have all brought forth young. In the case of the bear this result has rarely been attained in captivity. There is no reason to doubt that any of our native animals that can endure this climate will increase without difficulty if appropriately treated. The collection, though far from what it might be, is an ex- cellent beginning. As the enterprise was conceived mainly in the interest of preserving animals likely to become extinct, much more attention has been given to native than to exotic species. Herds of buffalo, of llamas, of elk, and of deer have been formed. Two teams of Esquimaux dogs, one presented by Mrs. Peary, and one loaned by Mr. Bruce, have bred The National Zoological Park 457 freely, and the animals appear to endure the heat of our sum- mers without serious inconvenience. A collection of domestic dogs, intended to show the great variation of that species by typical examples of well recognized breeds, has been com- menced. A few valuable exotic animals have been presented to the park. Besides the large elephant given by Mr. J. E. Cooper, there is a fine lion brought from the Matabele country of cen- tral Africa by Mr. H. C. Moore; a female leopard from the headwaters of the Congo by Mr. R. Dorsey Mohun, and a zebu presented by Mr. J. H. Starin. It is hoped that all the restrictions that impede the growth of the collection will in time be removed. Purchase of animals should be allowed, both because it is the only practicable way of properly keeping up the collection, and because it is desir- able that certain exotic species should be introduced for pur- poses of comparison. Unless this is done the park must necessarily be relegated to a low rank as compared with other zoological collections. A considerable amount of material for study is derived from the animals that die in the park. If suitable for museum specimens their skins and skeletons are preserved by the United States National Museum. It is hoped soon to estab- lish a suitable laboratory for the adequate anatomical and pathological investigations of this material, as is done in con- nection with all European collections of living animals. This promises much for the advancement of biological sciences, for the anatomy of many of the rarer American animals is im- perfectly known, and many of the diseases of animals in con- finement are obscure and but little understood. The future success of the park cannot be doubted. Popu- lar interest everywhere is being awakened upon the subject of the preservation of game and the care of animals in cap- 30 45 8 The Smithsonian Instihttion tivity. In New York City a zoological society has been formed which has recently had set aside for its use a tract of land in one of the public parks two hundred and sixty-one acres in extent. Upon this it is intended to erect buildings at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and to maintain a large collection of animals both native and foreign. It would seem proper that the National Park should have an establishment at least equal to this. A feeling of national pride should lead all public-spirited citizens to take an active interest in the increase and suitable maintenance of the col- lection. At present it is not as widely known as it should be. When United States officials in all parts of the world become interested in its advancement, it is believed that the scope of the enterprise will be vastly increased. EXPLORATION WORK OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION By Frederick William True ^\0 give a just conception of the work of the Institution in connection with explorations in the brief space which can be afforded in this volume, is a task of much difficulty. Its in- TT^^^^ fluence has been exerted in a thousand direc- tions, and the extent and manner of its cooperation have varied greatly in different instances. Furthermore, from its policy of aiding where aid seemed most needed, it has very naturally joined in enterprises from year to year which had no essential connection with one another. In a single year it assisted in explorations in Alaska, in Ecuador, and in Ohio. The character of the explorations in which the In- stitution has interested itself has varied no less than the field they cover. While it may perhaps be said that more aid has been rendered to zoological exploration than any other, re- searches in anthropology, botany, geology, and geography have also received a laree share of attention. Though frequently showing itself willing to bear the bur- den of expense, the funds of the Institution have never been sufficient to enable it to defray the whole cost of explorations 459 4^0 The Sinifhsonian Institution of great magnitude. Fortunately, so far as North America is concerned, the government of the United States, a few years after the founding of the Institution, inaugurated a great series of surveys for railroad routes across the conti- nent, and for the delimitation of boundary lines. These have been followed by general topographical and geological and biological surveys, and by explorations of the coasts and of the rivers and lakes in the interest of commerce and the fisheries. An extensive knowledge of the characteristics and natural resources of the continent has thus been obtained very largely at the expense of the general government. Yet in all these undertakings the influence of the Institution has been felt, and its aid has been of importance. Especially was this true in the earlier years of its history, when the par- ticipation of the government in scientific research was less extensive and less varied than at present. In many lines the Institution was a pioneer, and the government interested itself only after the importance and the practical bearings of the investigations had been demonstrated. In explorations, perhaps, more than in any other form of activities, the peculiar workings of the policy of the Institu- tion can be seen to advantage. Established "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge," its rule has nevertheless been that of "not expending the Smithson fund in doing with it what could be equally well done by other means"; but, on the other hand, it has endeavored to foster those worthy en- terprises which seemed likely to fail for want of proper sup- port. In explorations, as in other lines of work, it has not entered into competition with kindred organizations, but has endeavored to make their work broader and more successful, without the expectation of advantage to itself It has not sought the credit which attaches to the management of great explorations, but has found satisfaction in aiding other or- Exploration Work of the Institution 461 ganizations to bring their labors in the cause of science to fruition. In the plan of organization of the Institution, among ex- amples of objects for which appropriations may be made, the following are cited : "Explorations in descriptive natural history, and geologi- cal, magnetical, and topographical surveys, to collect mate- rials for the formation of a Physical Atlas of the United States. " Ethnological researches, particularly with reference to the different races of men in North America ; also explorations and accurate surveys of the mounds and other remains of the ancient people of our country. " 1 It so happened that the first scientific memoir submitted to the Institution for publication was one on American archaeol- ogy — the now famous work of Squier and Davis on the ** Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley ; comprising the results of Extensive Original Surveys and Explorations." This work was submitted to the Secretary of the Institution, May 15, 1847, and by him referred to the American Ethno- logical Society, of which Albert Gallatin was President. The committee which examined it reported it "worthy of the sub- ject and highly creditable to the authors," and its publication by the Institution was therefore undertaken. The Institution by this action expressed its recognition of the importance of scientific explorations, and has shown a continued interest in work of this character by publishing, year by year, in the "Contributions" or the "Report," the results of other field investigations in zoology, botany, geology, and ethnology. The publication of Squier and Davis's work awakened an interest in American archeeological investigation which has 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1846, pages 6 and 7. 30* 4^2 The SmitJisoiiian Institution ever since been kept alive. In 1849, ^ ^^^ years after the appearance of the first volume, the Institution evinced its con- tinued interest in this subject by publishing a work by Squier on the antiquities of New York, based on explorations made at the joint expense of the Institution and the Historical Society of New York. The same year the Institution lent its aid in the increase of the knowledge of the physical geography of the United States by publishing a treatise on the hydrography of the Ohio River "from actual surveys," written by Charles Ellet, the engineer of the first Niagara suspension-bridge. In the direction of botanical explorations, the first aid ren- dered by the Institution took the form of a small appropri- ation for the expense of an expedition to Texas, in 1849, by Charles Wright, under the direction of Asa Gray. The re- sults of this expedition were published in the "Contributions" in 1852 and 1853.^ Of the collections made at that time Professor Henry re- marked : " Specimens of all the plants obtained by Mr. Wright be- long to this Institution; and these, with sets collected by Fendler and Lindheimer, form the nucleus of an important and authentic North American herbarium."^ The sixth volume .of the " Contributions," published in 1854, contained a paper by Torrey on the botany of Cali- fornia, based on the explorations of Fremont. At this early day the Institution also rendered aid to ex- plorations of especial importance to paleontology. In the Report for 1850, Professor Henry remarked: " The programme of organization contemplates the insti- tution of researches in Natural History, Geology, etc.; and 1 Gray, Asa, " Plantse Wrightianse Texano-Neo-Mexicanre." Part I, 1852; part 2, 1853. 2 "Smithsonian Report," 1851, page 11. Exploration Work of the Institution 463 though the state of the funds would permit of Httle being- done in this line, yet we have made a beginning. Besides the assistance rendered to the exploration of the botany of New Mexico, by the purchase of sets of plants from Mr. Wright and Mr. Fendler, as mentioned in my last Report, a small sum was appropriated to defray the cost of transportation of the articles which might be collected by Mr. Thaddeus Culbert- son in the region of the Upper Missouri. This gentleman, a graduate of the institutions at Princeton, had purposed to visit the remote regions above mentioned for the benefit of his health, and was provided by Professor Baird with minute directions as to the preservation of specimens and the objects which should particularly engage his attention. "Mr. Culbertson first visited an interesting locality called the Mauvaises Terres, or Bad Lands, where his brother had pre- viously found the remains of the fossils sent to the Academy [of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia]. "He afterwards ascended the Missouri to a point several hundred miles above Fort Union. . . . Though he had withstood the privations and exposures of the wilderness, he sank under an attack of a prevalent disease, and died after a few weeks' illness. " He left a journal of all the important events of his tour, which is thought of sufficient importance to be appended to this report. " 1 While doinof what it could to make successful the memor- able journey of Culbertson, the Institution at the same time lent its aid to geological exploration by defraying a portion of the expense of researches of Professor E. Hitchcock, of Amherst College, on the subject of erosion by rivers, and also relative to ancient sea beaches and terraces. The results of this work were published later, at large expense, in the ninth volume of the "Contributions." Thus the Institution made a beginning in many lines of exploration. 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1850, page 19. 4^4 The Smithsonian Institntion In connection with the explorations of Culbertson, already mentioned, we first learn of the association of Professor Baird with this branch of the work of the Institution. His services had been recently engaged by the Institution, and he was des- tined to play a most important part. Himself an enthusiastic explorer in many lines of natural history, and withal a man of most engaging conversation and industrious habits, he was able greatly to aid the cause of exploration both by supply- ing thoroughly practical directions for observation and by im- pressing on those in authority the importance of investigations of natural phenomena. He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Institution in 1850, and only three years had passed when the great series of Pacific Railroad surveys and the Mexican boundary survey were undertaken by the government, while at the same time very numerous minor explorations, both under government and private auspices, were instituted. Of the two years 1853 and 1854 Professor Baird writes: "The number of important scientific explorations embraced in this period mark it conspicuously in the history of Ameri- can discovery. Most of these are due to the appropriation for the survey of the China seas and Behring's Straits, and that for a survey of the several routes for a railroad to the Pacific (although many more private expeditions were set on foot), in addition to the regular operations of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, whose labors during the past years were in continuation of those commenced before. Many reports of explorations, commenced or com- pleted prior to 1853, have been published during this period."^ He gives an account of twenty-six important explorations undertaken in these two years, including the six Pacific Rail- 1" Smithsonian Report," 1854, page 79. Exploration IVork of the Iiistitiition 465 road surveys, and of nineteen reports of explorations which were pubHshed during the same period. Of the participation of the Institution in these great activi- ties, he writes : " With scarcely an exception, every expedition of any mag- nitude has received more or less aid from the Smithsonian Institution. This has consisted in the supplying of instruc- tions for making observations and collections in meteorology and natural history, and of information as to particular desid- erata ; in the preparation, in part, of the meteorological, mag- netical, and natural history outfit, including the selection and purchase of the necessary apparatus and instruments ; in the nomination and training of persons to fill important positions in the scientific corps ; in the reception of the collections made, and their reference to individuals competent to report upon them ; and in employing skilful and trained artists to make accurate delineations of the new or unfigured species. Much of the apparatus supplied to the different parties was invented or adapted by the Institution for this special pur- pose, and used for the first time, with results surpassing the most sanguine expectations."^ A list of these government explorations, from the Report of 1856, may be of interest in this connection. It is as follows : A. GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 1. The survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and a por- tion of Nebraska, by Dr. David Dale Owen. 2. The survey of the Lake Superior district, by Dr. Charles T. Jackson. 3. The survey of the same region, by Messrs. Foster and Whitney. 4. The survey of Oregon, by Dr. John Evans. 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1854, page 79. 4^6 The Sniithsojiian Institution B. BOUNDARY SURVEYS. 5. The survey of the hne between the United States and Mexico, first organized under Honorable J. B. Weller, as commissioner, and Major W. H. Emory, as chief of the scien- tific department, then under John R. Bartlett, commissioner, and Colonel J. D. Graham, chief of the scientific corps, suc- ceeded subsequently by Major W. H. Emory, then under General R. B. Campbell, commissioner, and Major W. H. Emory, chief of the scientific corps, 6. The survey of the boundary line of the Gadsden pur- chase, under Major W. H. Emory, commissioner. C. SURVEYS OF A RAILROAD ROUTE TO THE PACIFIC. 7. Along the 47th parallel, under Governor I. I. Stevens. 8. Along the 38th and 39th parallel, under Captain J. W. Gunnison. 9. Along the 41st parallel, under Captain E. G. Beckwith. 10. Along the 35th parallel, under Lieutenant A. W. Whipple. 11. In California, under Lieutenant S. R. Williamson. 12. Along the 3 2d parallel, western division, under Lieu- tenant J. G. Parke. 13. Along the 3 2d parallel, eastern division, under Captain J. Pope. 14. In a portion of California, under Lieutenant J. G. Parke. 15. In northern California and Oregon, under Lieutenant R. S. Williamson. D. MISCELLANEOUS EXPEDITIONS UNDER THE WAR DEPARTMENT. 16. Expedition along the 3 2d parallel, eastern division, for experimenting upon artesian borings, under Captain Pope. 17. Exploration of Red River, under Captain R. B. Marcy. Exploration JVork of the Instihttion 467 18. Survey of Indian reservation in Texas, under Captain R. B. Marcy. 19. Exploration of the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone, under Lieutenant G. K. Warren. 20. Construction of a wagon-road from Fort Leavenworth to Bridger's Pass, under Lieutenant F. T. Bryan. E. NAVAL EXPEDITIONS UNDER THE NAVY DEPARTMENT. 21. The United States naval astronomical expedition in Chile, under Lieutenant J. M. Gilliss. 22. The Japan expedition, under Commodore M. C. Perry. 23. Exploration of the China seas and Behring's Straits, first under command of Captain C. Ringgold, then under Captain J. Rodgers. 24. Exploration of the La Plata and its tributaries, under Captain T. J. Page. 25. Exploration of the west coast of Greenland and Smith's Sound, under Dr. E. K. Kane.^ The participation of the Institution in explorations con- ducted by the government continued actively for many years, though the character of these explorations as a whole has varied in the course of time. The surveys for railroad routes and wagon-roads across the public lands of the West form the first important series of explorations in which the Institution was interested. Next after these interest centered in the extensive geological surveys of the same region. After these came the explorations of the sea-coast, rivers, and lakes of the United States by the Fish Commission, and in- vestigations of the North American Indians by the Bureau of Ethnology. In the case of the geological surveys, although the work done was more strictly scientific in character than that of 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1856, page 6i. 468 The Smithsonian Institiitioii many of the earlier surveys, the government supplied suffi- cient means both for equipment and for publication, and the Institution was seldom appealed to for aid. Its connection with these government organizations was therefore, on the whole, a more indirect one than in the case of the earlier surveys. It became the custodian, however, of large collections, chiefly zoological, made by naturalists and surgeons con- nected with the field parties. To these same naturalists, when they returned from the field, the Institution opened its great stores of natural history material, and supplied work- rooms ; and in many of the zoological treatises published by the geological and geographical surveys, by way of illustra- tion, we find acknowledgment of the assistance rendered. Thus, Doctor J. A. Allen, in his monographs of the North American hares published in the eleventh volume of the quarto reports of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, under the direction of Doctor F. V. Hayden, remarks : " The author has thus had access not only to the types of the species described by Professor S. F. Baird in his great work on the ' Mammals of North America,' published in 1857, but also to nearly all the material used by him in his excel- lent elaboration of this family in the above-named work, together with the vast amount of material that has since ac- cumulated at the Smithsonian Institution. This includes not only the collections made by the different government expe- ditions since 1857, but also the large collections made since that date, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, in Alaska, the British Possessions, Mexico, and Central America. By far the larger portion of the specimens ex- amined from localities within the United States received from any one source have been the collections made either by Doctor F. V. Hayden personally or under his immediate Exploration IVork of the histitution 469 direction, and especially during the prosecution of the geo- graphical and geological survey of the Territories, now [1876] in progress, under the auspices of the Department of the Interior."^ In the prefatory note by Doctor Hayden in Doctor Elliott Coues's work on " Fur-bearing Animals," which was pub- lished by the United States Geological Survey of the Terri- tories in 1877, we read : " The Memoir is based upon specimens secured by the Survey under my direction, together with all the material contained in the National Museum, for the opportunity of ex- amining which the Survey acknowledges, in this as in other instances, its indebtedness to the Smithsonian Institution."^ The interest which the Institution has had in the explora- tions of the United States Fish Commission has been of a special character, due to the fact that the first Commissioner, Professor Baird, was an Assistant Secretary of the Institu- tion, and afterward its Secretary. He served without compensation, and his status was, there- fore, that of an officer of the Institution engaged in impor- tant scientific explorations and investigations for the benefit of the government and the people. On this point Professor Henry remarked in 1877: " It will be seen from the report of Professor Baird that a large amount of his time has been expended in labor for the general government, in relation to American fisheries. "Almost from the first organization of the Institution until the present time the officers of the Institution have rendered 1 Volume XI, page 267, Washington, 1877. dae." United States Geological Survey of 2 Coues, Elliott, "Fur-bearing Animals: the Territories, Miscellaneous Publications, A Monograph of North American Musteli- No. 8, page 4, Washington, 1S77. 470 The SniitJisoniaii Institution service to the general government without additional salary."^ The operations of the Commission were reported upon briefly by the Secretary of the Institution, from year to year, and the manifold importance of the explorations was fre- quently insisted upon. In the Report just quoted from, Pro- fessor Henry remarked: "The labors of the United States Fish Commission can scarcely be too highly estimated."^ The history of the Commission cannot be more than lightly touched upon here. In his first report Professor Baird acknowledges the aid received from the Institution through the loan of nets, dredges, and other apparatus, whereby the Commission was saved "the considerable outlay which would otherwise have been necessary." An equipment was soon secured which was improved year by year, and at last received its most important addition in the form of a sea-going steamer, the Albatross, which enabled the Commission to carry on explo- rations of the highest scientific interest in the deep sea, off the coasts of the United States — a considerable portion of the results of which have been or are being published under the Institution. The Bureau of American Ethnology is the most recently organized bureau concerned in explorations with which the Institution has had intimate relations ; but the subjects dealt with, as I have already stated, were among the earliest which it lent its aid in elucidating. " It is well known," wrote Secretary Baird in his report for 1879, "that the natural history of primitive man, espe- cially in North America, has always been a special object of the attention of the Smithsonian Institution. The first vol- 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1877, page 51. "^Ibidem, page 50. Exploratmi IVork of the Institution 471 lime of its series of publications consisted of a work by Messrs, Squier and Davis, entitled 'The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,' which, appearing in 1848, gave a stimulus to archaeological research in America, and aided greatly in exciting that high degree of interest in the subject which now pervades the whole country. The work, although thirty years old [in 1878], is still a standard publication, and greatly sought after." ^ An account of the history of the Bureau of Ethnology will be found in another part of this volume, and it will suffice here to remark that it originated with the explorations of the Colorado River by Major J. W. Powell in 1867, 1868, and 1869, which were fostered by Professor Henry, and were ex- tended afterward into a survey of the Rocky Mountain region under the direction of the Institution. The ethnological investigations were finally separated from those relating to geography and geology, and in 1879 were placed in the hands of a special bureau, under the direction of the Institution. In 1875 Secretary Henry, taking cognizance of the work then being carried on by Major Powell, placed in his care, in accordance with the policy pursued in all similar cases, the linguistic manuscripts belonging to the Institution. The Secretary remarked : " For a number of years the Institution has been collect- ing, as a part of its work in the line of ethnology, Indian vo- cabularies, and of these the number amounts to 670. ... It was the intention of the Institution to publish these vocabu- laries as a part of the volumes of the Smithsonian Contribu- tions to Knowledge, and also in a separate form for more general distribution to philologists actually engaged in the comparative study of languages of savage tribes. An offer, however, was made by Major J. W. Powell, who had also 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1879, page 38. 472 The Smithsonian Institution collected a series of Indian vocabularies, to adopt those of the Institution, and to publish the whole in connection with his researches under government in regard to the ethnology of the Indian tribes inhabiting the country watered by the tributaries of the Great Colorado of the West. In accordance with the general policy of the Institution in not expending its funds on anything which can be as well done by other means, the proposition of Major Powell was accepted, the only conditions exacted on which the transfer was made be- ing that full credit should be given in the publication to the name of Smithson for collecting and arranging the articles, and also that extra copies be furnished the Institution for liberal distribution." ^ For eighteen years the Bureau of Ethnology has carried on important investigations of the distribution, languages, customs, and beliefs of the North American Indians, and has published a valuable series of works relating thereto. A de- tailed account of the labors of the bureau has been given by Mr. McGee in an earlier chapter of this volume, and need not be recounted here. The cooperation of the Institution in government explo- rations cannot be dwelt upon more at length, and it is necessary to return to the consideration of the explorations which were set on foot through its influence and encourage- ment and were sustained as far as possible by grants of money. The number of these explorations is very great, and the territory they cover is of vast extent. In importance also they have varied greatly, and some — a majority per- haps — are no more than collecting excursions. Yet, as no earnest collector of natural objects in the field can fail to make new observations of more or less value, even these col- lecting expeditions may perhaps fairly be regarded in the light of explorations. The policy adopted by the Secretaries 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1876, page 35. Exploration Work of the Institution 473 of showing by prompt and full correspondence the appreci- ation of the Institution of labors in the cause of science, how- ever small, has led to the formation of an army of zealous collaborators, scattered throughout the world, who are always willing to advance the work of the Institution and to add to the collections which have grown up in the National Mu- seum under its charge. Indeed, it seems to have become a fixed belief in many parts of the United States that all scien- tific explorations in the country are conducted by the Smith- sonian Institution, and that all explorers are its agents. The fruits of these hundreds of minor explorations are to be found in the collections of the National Museum, and the names of thousands of contributors are inscribed in its record-books, A simple list of these correspondents and their donations covers a score or more of pages in each annual Report, and it would be obviously impossible to do justice to such a roll in the space here available. It is desirable, however, to make mention of a few explo- rations which show the generous response of individuals and oreanizations to the endeavors of the Institution for the ad- vancement of science. One of the earliest of these was the exploration of the prehistoric mounds of Wisconsin by the American Antiquarian Society, in relation to which Secretary Henry made the following interesting statement in the Re- port for 1 851 : ^ "The most interesting circumstance connected with the study of the ancient remains of this country is a recent action of the American x'^ntiquarian Society of Worcester, Massa- chusetts, This Institution was founded in 181 2 by the zeal and liberality of Isaiah Thomas, for the purpose of collecting and preserving such manuscripts, pamphlets, and other articles as relate to the history of this country, and for the explora- 1 Page 18. 31 474 The SinitJisonian Institution tion and publication of its antiquities. It was at the expense of this society that the original researches of Mr. Atwater, on the mounds of the Ohio Valley, were first published ; and during the last two years the condition of its funds has again enabled it to take the field, and to direct its attention to the remarkable antiquities in the State of Wisconsin. "These antiquities, it is well known, consist of representa- tions, on a gigantic scale, of birds, beasts, and fishes; and though many of them have been surveyed, and accounts of them given in the memoir of Messrs. Squier and Davis, com- paratively few of those which are said to exist have been ex- plored or delineated. For this reason, the council of the society have engaged Mr. I. A. Lapham, an experienced en- gineer, to make the explorations and surveys and drawings of these mounds. He has been engaged in these operations for two seasons, and is now employed in making up an account of his labors. "To insure harmony of action in the cultivation of the wide field of research offered in the investigations of the ancient monuments of this country, the Antiquarian Society has agreed to present to the Smithsonian Institution the results of the explorations of Mr. Lapham for publication, and to re- serve its limited funds for further explorations. The me- moirs will be examined and revised by the society, and will be published under its auspices in the Smithsonian Con- tributions. "This arrangement is another pleasing evidence of the feeling with which the efforts of this Institution are regarded, and the willingness with which other Institutions cooperate with it in the important work of promoting original know- ledge." The results of this exploration were published in the seventh volume of the " Contributions to Knowledge." The exploration of California by E. Samuels in 1855 is another interesting example of friendly cooperation, not only on the part of scientific organizations, but of private business Exploration JVork of the Institution 475 corporations as well. Secretary Henry's statement in the Report of 1856 is as follows: " Brief mention was made in my last report of the fitting out of Mr. Samuels by the Boston Society of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution, aided by the liberality of the United States mail line to California, via Panama. Mr. Samuels returned in July last, having thoroughly explored the field of his labors, and gathered a rich collection of speci- mens, embracing many rare and new species. The liberal promises of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the Panama Railroad Company, and the United States Mail Steamship Company have been more than realized in the free passage home given to Mr. Samuels and all his large collections — an act of generosity which may well excite the attention and recognition of the lovers of science. Nor should less meed ot praise be awarded to Messrs. Wells, Fargo & Co. for their free transmission to San Francisco of Mr. Samuels' boxes, thus facilitating their semi-monthly despatch to Washington. " It may, perhaps, not be out of place here to state that the above-mentioned mail line still continues its kind offices by transporting, free of charge, all packages of the Smithso- nian Institution containing books of specimens of natural his- tory. The United States mail line, also, has furnished free freight of a similar character from Cuba and New Orleans to New York. "The results of Mr. Samuels' explorations will shortly be published in connected form in the journal of the Boston Society of Natural History, illustrated with the necessary plates and figures."^ The notable explorations of Robert Kennicott in British America and Alaska were made possible by the cooperation of several private individuals and scientific organizations and the Hudson Bay Company. This intrepid explorer, whose early death was a severe loss to American natural history, 1" Smithsonian Report," 1856, page 52. 47^ The S^nithsoniaii Institution spent four years In the North and made most extensive travels. " During the whole exploration he was the guest of the Hudson's Bay Company, the officers of which not only fur- nished him with free transportation for the materials he collected, but also extended to him in the most liberal manner the hospitalities of their several posts, and facilitated in every way in their power the objects of his perilous enterprise. "The principal object of the exploration was to collect materials for investigating the Zoology of the region visited. Mr. Kennicott, however, also collected specimens of plants and minerals, and gave considerable attention to the eth- nology of the country, in observing the peculiarities of the various Indian tribes, and forming vocabularies of the lan- guages. He carried with him a number of thermometers, and succeeded in enlisting a number of persons as meteorological observers, as well as in exciting an interest in natural history and in physical phenomena which cannot fail to be produc- tive of important information respecting a region of the globe but little known." ^ The interest aroused by these investigations has never completely died out, and the Institution received year by year for a long period the fruits of explorations carried on by officers of the Hudson Bay Company in many parts of the British territory. Following immediately upon Kennicott's explorations, an expedition was sent out under private auspices to Alaska and Siberia for the purpose of establishing an overland tele- graphic route between America and Europe. The enterprise failed as a financial venture on account of the success of the Atlantic cable, but large benefits accrued to science from the labors of the naturalists who accompanied the expedition." 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1862, pag;e 40. 2 For an extended account of this expedition, see Science, 1896, Volume ill, pages 37 and 87. MELVILLE AVESTO:X FULLEE. SIXTH CHANCELLOR OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, ELECTED IN 1S8S. (( Is iie er m every prise. The jct of the materials for investigating the gy of the ree jMr. Kennicott, however, also collected s s, and gave consi; !e attentic :^v, in observing the pet ind forminc^ vocabularies ■ '^rmnmcff^r?;. and •al n-y ;C- l.">e i out, and the Institution ro " ' ' any m many }- ■nee I the exp^ iTITaKI KAF/TOaPITIMa SHT ^Q) JTOJJaO^/lAHO HTZTR .8881 Ki aaToaja Exploratio7t Work of the Iiistihitioji 477 "The telegraph company not only afforded facilities for making the collections, but also contributed, as did the Chicago Academy of Sciences, to lessen the expense to the Smithsonian fund in the purchase of the necessary articles comprising the outfit of the naturalists of the expedition."^ After the disbanding of the telegraph expedition one of the naturalists, William H. Dall, remained in Alaska and made explorations particularly in the region of the Yukon River. The support of his labors is a notable instance of the cooperation which has existed between the Smithsonian In- stitution and other scientific and non-scientific organizations. Mr. Dall defrayed the first cost of his expedition from private funds ; the transportation of his collections from the west coast was undertaken by the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- pany; and the expense attending their elaboration was borne jointly by the Boston Society of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution, which latter furnished the necessary work-rooms. Mention has already been made of the services rendered to science by the medical officers attached to the various gov- ernment surveying parties. Hardly less important have been the activities of the army surgeons stationed at the military posts of the West. In the years when the Institution was paying special attention to the investigation of the abo- rigines of America, the pages of the annual reports are thickly dotted with the names of medical officers who ren- dered important service in this line of exploration. The great collections of the National Museum tell of their zeal, which even at the present day has suffered no abatement, though the spread of population and the cultivation of waste places have in large measure lessened opportunities. Other branches of the public service no less than the army 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1865, page 61. 47^ The Sinithsonian Institution have cooperated extensively with the Institution in explor- ing the national domain, and there is hardly a department or a bureau of the government whose operations include field work which has not at some time joined with the Institution in investigations. The good offices of the State Department, the Navy Department, the Weather Bureau, the Life-saving Service, the Lighthouse Board, the Land Office, the Indian Bureau, and the Bureau of Education, come at once to mind in this connection. In 1864, Professor Henry wrote in his Report : " In addition to the collections which have been received from explorations organized under the direction of the Insti- tution, large numbers of duplicate specimens have been pre- sented by the meteorological observers and other Smithso- nian collaborators, the whole forming a body of material for the illustration and study of the products of the American continent unequalled by any collection previously made. The explorations, however, as might be inferred, have not been confined to the collecting of specimens, but have also furnished information relative to the topography, geology, physical geography, ethnology, and the living fauna of the regions visited."^ Though the explorations in which the Institution has in- terested itself have centered chiefly in North America, its influence has also extended to other parts of the world. As an example may be cited the survey of Yucatan. This was undertaken by Governor Salazar y Ilarregui in 1865, who, upon the recommendation of the Institution, appointed Doctor Arthur Schott to take charge of natural history operations.^ The same year an exploration of British Honduras was undertaken by Doctor H. Berendt, under the auspices of the Institution. 1" Smithsonian Report," 1864, page 50. "^Ibidem, 1865, page 62. Exploration Work of the Institution 479 "The outfit of physical instruments and apparatus, and suppHes, for collections of natural history, were principally furnished from the Smithsonian fund, while the personal ex- penses were borne by a subscription of a number of gentlemen interested in the advance of science, and by the Academies of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and Chicago."^ In 1867 an exploration of the northern parts of South America was made by the Lyceum of Natural History of Williams College, Massachusetts, under Professor James Or- ton, and the Institution furnished instruments and a consid- erable part of the necessary outfit, and took charge of the transportation of the collections made.^ In 1882 an expedition to the Commander Islands in the North Pacific was arranged for by the Institution, and Doc- tor Leonhard Stejneger was selected for the work. One of the special tasks committed to him was to collect bones of the extinct Arctic sea-cow. His transportation was secured through the Alaska Commercial Company, a corporation which has always been ready to aid the Institution in scien- tific enterprises. Doctor Stejneger obtained large collections, including skulls and bones of the sea-cow, which were the special object of his quest. In 1883 Pierre L. Jouy, who has been in the ser\nce of the Institution for a number of years, accompanied Honorable Lucius H. Foote to Korea upon the occasion of the inaugu- ration of official intercourse with that country, and later con- nected himself with the civil service of the Korean govern- ment. He made valuable observations and collections while so engaged. Lieutenant J. B. Bernadou, U. S. N., also ex- plored Korea under the auspices of the Institution. Important explorations in the East, especially in Mongolia and Tibet, were conducted, pardy under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, by Honorable William W. Rockhill, 1 " Smithsonian Reporl," 1S65, page 62. 2 Ibidem, 1867, page 49. 4^0 The Sjnithsonian histitution in 1888-89 ^^<^ 1891-92. Mr. Rockhill was especially fitted for such work in view of his connection with the United States Consular Service in China during several previous years. At the time of revisiting the East he obtained much interesting information concerning the manners and customs of the people, and made extensive collections. An account of his last journey was published by the Institution under the title of " Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet in 1 89 1 and 1892." Another illustrated paper by Mr. Rockhill, on the "Ethnology of Tibet," in which his collections are de- scribed, was published in 1893/ In 1890 an expedition was sent to the west coast of Africa to observe an eclipse of the sun, and the Institution was af- forded an opportunity to send an assistant of the National Museum to make natural history observations. These are but a few examples from a large series of for- eign explorations in which the Institution has taken a more or less prominent part. The appreciation of its labors in foreign fields has been manifested in various ways, and per- haps in no more conspicuous manner than by the generous action of Doctor William L. Abbott, who has presented the fruits of his own extended explorations in Africa and Asia to the Institution. Thus it is manifest that the Smithsonian Institution has contributed to the work of exploring the domain of nature not only directly by setting on foot expeditions supported from its own funds, and indirectly by aiding and equipping numerous government and private expeditions, but more re- motely as well by influencing independent workers to explore in many lands, and to add new treasures to the national col- lections. 1 " Report of the United States National Museum," 1893, page 665. THE SMITHSONIAN PUBLICATIONS By Cyrus Adler It is chiefly by the publications of the Institution that its fame is to be spread through the world, and the monument most befitting the name of Smithson erected to his memory. —Henry. ^HAT a portion of the income arising from the Smithson bequest should be devoted to the pubHcation of scientific memoirs was an idea early advanced in the course of the discussion relating to its application. In the year 1840, Peter S. Duponceau, then president of the American Philo- sophical Society, described the benefit which that society had received from the publication of a bulletin containing its own proceedings. One of the favorite plans for the application of the Smith- son Fund was the establishment of an Astronomical Observa- tory. The bills which would have authorized this disposition of the fund were introduced into Congress in 1839, in 1841, and again in 1844. All of these bills directed that the sum of $30,000 be set aside, the income of which was to be used for the printing of a nautical almanac, to be known as the "Smithson Almanac." In a bill introduced into the House of Representatives February 28, 1846, by Mr. Robert Dale 481 482 The Smithsonian Institution Owen, for the establishment of the Institution, the following provision for publications was contained : Section 10. ''And be it further enacted, That it shall be competent for the board of managers to cause to be printed and published periodically or occasionally essays, pamphlets, magazines, or other brief works or productions for the dis- semination of information among the people, especially works in popular form on agriculture and its latest improvements, on the sciences and the aid they bring to labor, manuals ex- planatory of the best systems of common school instruction, and generally tracts illustrative of objects of elementary sci- ence and the rudiments of history, chemistry, astronomy, or any other department of useful knowledge ; also, they may prepare sets of illustrations, specimens, and apparatus, suited for primary schools." Another proposition was submitted by Mr. Giles of Mary- land, "providing for the publication and distribution of books for the instruction of the blind." The act establishinof the Smithsonian Institution did not directly specify that publications should be issued. The last sentence of the third section reads: "And the said Board [of Regents] shall submit to Congress, at each session thereof, a report of the operations, expenditures, and condition of the Institution." Upon the basis of this statement, the annual Reports, the series of the Institution's publications issued in the largest edition and most widely distributed, rest. The first Report of the Institution presented to Congress was printed as a Congressional document, and consisted of thirty-seven pages. It was devoted entirely to the business of the Board of Regents. This plan of report was followed for several years; but the importance of making this docu- ment something more than a mere record of receipts and expenditures was recognized at the outset, the committee on The Smithsonian Publicatioiis 483 organization recommending^ that "as an additional means of diffusing knowledge, your committee suggest the publication of a series of reports, to be published annually, or oftener, containing a concise record of progress in the different branches of knowledge, compiled from the journals of all languages, and the transactions of scientific and learned societies throughout the world." Great care was taken that these Reports should be properly distributed, the Board of Regents resolving, even before the actual publication of the first Report,^ "That of this Report, in such form as it may be ultimately adopted, five thousand copies be printed, under the direction of the Secretary ; and that he be required to transmit a copy of the same to each of the principal scientific and literary societies both in this and in other countries; and also to such individuals, of scientific or literary reputation, as he may judge likely to find interest in the proceedings of the Institution." The second Report was a very much larger document, consisting of 208 pages, and containing the program of organi- zation, correspondence, reports of committees, and a descrip- tion of the building. When this Report was laid before the Senate, Senator Davis of Mississippi moved that a thousand additional copies be printed for the use of the Senate. In the House, objection was made to it by Mr. Johnson of Tennessee as a "cumbrous document." In 1849, when the third Report was laid before the Senate, objection was again made to printing it, this time by Senator Rhett of South Carolina. The proposition, however, was defended by Sen- ator Davis of Mississippi. Opinion finally favored the pub- lication of the Report, and the edition was increased to 3000 copies. Of the Report of 1850, 5000 copies were printed; and the number from that time on fluctuated, rising some 1" Smithsonian Report," 1846, page 23. ^Ibidem, page 12. 4^4 The Smithsonian Institution years as high as 20,000 copies, being maintained for a num- ber of years at 15,500 copies, the standard edition of late years being 10,000 copies. As time went on, and the Institution had estabhshed itself in the regard of Congress and of the people, objection was rarely, if ever, raised against the printing of the Smithsonian Report. For the first thirty years, the volume was limited to 450 pages, and it never exceeded that size and often fell somewhat below it. All illustrations were furnished at the expense of the Institution ; but the entire cost of the type- setting and press-work was borne by the government. From the first Report of thirty-seven pages, published in 1846, these Reports have steadily increased in size; the last published, 1894, consists of two parts, the first a Report of the Institution containing 770 pages, and the second, that of the National Museum, consisting of 1030 pages. Thus over 1800 pages annually published, in an edition of 10,000 copies at the joint expense of the government and the Institution, freely distributed to libraries and scientific men, most worthily carry out the provision of the will of Smithson for the diffusion of knowledge among men. During the civil war, owing to the expense of paper, the general cost of labor, and the vast drain on the government's resources, the edition of the Reports was, for a few years, re- duced to five thousand copies ; but as stereotype plates had been made, it was provided in 1870, by act of Congress, that two thousand additional copies of the Reports for the years 1865, 1866, 1867, and 1868 should be printed. It was through the efforts of President James A. Garfield, then a representative from Ohio, that the edition of 1872 was raised to twenty thousand copies. After the financial crisis of 1873, economy in expenditure being felt necessary, a general resolution to limit the size of The Smithso7iian Publications 485 the editions of publications passed the Senate. When the usual resolution for the publication of the Smithsonian Re- port came up, it occasioned a debate, in which a number of distinguished senators participated. The proposition not to cut down the Smithsonian Report was championed by Sena- tor Hamlin of Maine as follows : " I may say in behalf of the Smithsonian Institution that I think this [report] is entirely distinct from the documents which we publish sent to us from the departments, or which emanate from our committees. This is purely a scientific work. ... I think no man can ever examine a single report of that institution without being impressed with its great value. These reports . . . are of immense value to the world, and they are transmitted all over the world, and we receive back in exchange the scientific reports of the different societies and different governments." Professor Henry explained the theory of the annual Re- ports in the following words : "The Report of the Regents to Congress for 1858, besides an exposition of the conditions and operations of the Institu- tion for that year, was, as usual, accompanied by an appendix containing the report of lectures, and other matter which has proved highly acceptable to a large number of intelligent persons in every part of the country. These Reports, copies of which are especially solicited by teachers, besides furnish- ing valuable knowledge not otherwise readily attainable, serve to diffuse information as to the operations of the Insti- tution which tends to increase the number of its friends and cooperators, and to elevate popular conceptions in reference to science, as well as to increase the number of its cultivators. "The number of copies ordered to be printed at the last session was less than that of the preceding year, yet the sup- ply to the Institution was the same. Indeed it is a gratifying "Smithsonian Report," 1859, page 32. 486 The Smithsonian Institution evidence of the public estimation in which the Institution is held, that Congress has been so favorably disposed, even during the depressed condition of the treasury, towards the distribution of this document." It is difficult to epitomize the contents of these Reports. During the early period of the Institution they were merely reports to Congress, although an extensive appendix to the Report of 1850 was printed. Beginning with the Report for 1854, the general appendix, so called, became a feature. In speaking of this appendix in 1856, Professor Henry said that its object was "to illustrate the operations of the Institution by the reports of lectures and extracts from correspondence, as well as to furnish information of a character suited espe- cially to the meteorological observers and other persons in- terested in the promotion of knowledge." Until 1865, many important lectures by distinguished scientific men were de- livered at the Institution, and their publication was a feature of the Reports. It was also the custom of the Secretary, in these Reports, to summarize the contents of the scientific papers published in the other series, which will be alluded to presently. There were added to the lectures, in each Report, translations of articles relating to science which appeared in foreign journals, descriptions of the organization of impor- tant academies abroad, lists of prize questions announced by various learned societies, reports of meteorological observers, biographical sketches of distinguished scientific men recently deceased, and a report of the progress of the science of physics in recent years. Gradually, as the meteorological work ceased to absorb so much of the attention of the Insti- tution, less space was given to that branch of knowledge, and more to North American ethnology and archaeology, con- cerning which there are many contributions in the earlier volumes of the Reports. The Smithsonian Pttblications 487 As early as 1849, Professor Henry designed that the annual Reports should "give an account of the progress of the differ- ent branches of knowledge in every part of the world." He called attention to the fact that the first reports of this sort were due to the Emperor Napoleon, who directed the French Academy " to present him with accounts of the pro- gress of the different branches of knowledge." Reports on special departments of science, which had already been pub- lished abroad, were translated into English and printed under this plan ; and reports on the state of knowledge in a few fields were especially prepared for the Institution. The plan, however, of having annual reports especially prepared for the Institution, covering nearly all the branches of science, was not carried out until Professor Baird became Secretary. He had edited for the firm of Harper & Brothers "The Annual Record of Science and Industry," from 1871 to 1878; and in the Report for 1880 there was begun a series entitled " Record of Scientific Progress." The object of the general appendix was there stated to be "To furnish sum- maries of scientific discovery in particular directions ; occa- sional reports of the investigations made by collaborators of the Institution ; memoirs of a general character, or on special topics, whether original and prepared expressly for the pur- pose, or selected from foreign journals and proceedings ; and briefly to present (as fully as space will permit) such papers not published in the 'Smithsonian Contributions' or in the * Miscellaneous Collections ' as may be supposed to be of interest or value to the numerous correspondents of the Institution." Under this plan, reports of the progress of science were given in astronomy, geology, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, zoology, anthropology, meteorology, vulcanology, seismology, North American invertebrate paleontology, and 488 The Smithsonian Institution oriental archaeology. It was the practice of Professor Baird, for many years, in his report as Assistant Secretary, to give an account of the natural history explorations of the United States. Since 1889, however, most of these reports of pro- gress have been omitted, though one or two continue to be published, anthropology especially. Secretary Langley stated in the advertisement to the gen- eral appendix of the Report for 1889 that, owing to "the in- completeness of the special record, the discouragement from the increasing delays encountered in the printing of these summaries, the recent multiplication by private enterprise of special books and periodicals devoted to critical summaries," he had decided to temporarily suspend the printing of the Reports, and would revert to what he believed the more ac- ceptable plan, " of publishing yearly papers selected with a principal view to their general scientific interest," rather than to continue these summaries, which were " chiefly of impor- tance to the professional student." This policy has been continued to the present time. Stress has been laid upon the Reports of the Institution, not because they are the most important publications issued, but for the reason that they are the only volumes the publica- tion of which is based on a direct statement in the organic law of the Institution, and because their lars^e edition has given them the widest circulation. The most important volumes issued in the name of the In- stitution, those which have contained the greatest additions to the sum of human knowledge and are most prized among scientific men, are the quarto volumes of " Smithsonian Con- tributions to Knowledge," thirty-two volumes of which have appeared. This series was foreshadowed in the resolutions appended to the report made January 25, 1847, ^^ ^^^ ^^st committee appointed by the Board of Regents for the prepar- The Smithsonian Ptiblications 489 ation of a plan ; it being proposed that the Institution procure "original papers containing positive additions to the sum of human knowledge ; and that these, together with other suit- able papers, be published in 'Transactions of the Institution,' to be entitled 'Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge,' and to be issued periodically or occasionally, in quarto form, as materials may be obtained." These " Contributions to Knowledge " combine the two features of the Smithson bequest : they both increase and dif- fuse knowledge. The program of organization, submitted by Professor Henry in 1847, "^^Y still be said to guide the issuing of these volumes. It was proposed to stimulate re- search by offering rewards for original memoirs on all sub- jects of investigation : " I. The memoirs thus obtained to be published in a series of volumes, in a quarto form, and entitled 'Smithsonian Con- tributions to Knowledge.' " 2. No memoir on subjects of physical science, to be ac- cepted for publication which does not furnish a positive ad- dition to human knowledge, resting on original research ; and all unverified speculations to be rejected. "3. Each memoir presented to the Institution to be sub- mitted for examination to a commission of persons of repu- tation for learning in the branch to which the memoir pertains, and to be accepted for publication only in case the report of this commission is favorable. "4. The commission to be chosen by the officers of the In- stitution, and the name of the author, as far as practicable, concealed, unless a favorable decision be made. " 5. The volumes of the memoirs to be exchanged for the transactions of literary and scientific societies, and copies to be given to all the colleges and principal libraries in this country. One part of the remaining copies may be oftered for sale and the other carefully preserved to form complete sets of the work to supply the demand from new institutions. 32 490 The Smithsonian Institution "6. An abstract, or popular account, of the contents of these memoirs to be given to the public through the annual Report of the Regents to Congress." In illustration of this portion of the program. Professor Henry wrote: " The publication of original memoirs and periodical re- ports, as contemplated by the program, will act as a power- ful stimulus on the latent talent of our country, by placing in bold relief the real laborers in the field of original research, while it will afford the best materials for the use of those engaged in the diffusion of knowledge. " The advantages which will accrue from the plan of publish- ine the volumes of the 'Smithsonian Contributions to Know- ledge,' are various. In the first place, it will serve to render the name of the founder favorably known wherever literature and science are cultivated, and to keep it in continual remem- brance with each succeeding volume, as long as knowledge is valued. A single new truth, first given to the world through these volumes, will forever stamp their character as a work of reference. The contributions will thus form the most be- fitting monument to perpetuate the name of one whose life was devoted to the increase of knowledge, and whose ruling passion, strong in death, prompted the noble bequest in- tended to facilitate the labors of others in the same pursuit. "Again, the publication of a series of volumes of original memoirs will afford to the Institution the most ready means of entering into friendly relations and correspondence with all the learned societies in the world, and of enriching its library with their current transactions and proceedings. But per- haps the most important effect of the plan will be that of giving to the world many valuable memoirs, which, on account of the expense of the illustrations, could not be otherwise published. Every one who adds new and important truths to the existing stock of knowledge, must be of necessity, to a certain decree, in advance of his as^e. Hence the number of readers and purchasers of a work is generally in the inverse The Smithsonian Publications 491 ratio of its intrinsic value ; and consequently authors of the highest rank of merit are frequently deterred from giving their productions to the world on account of the pecuniary loss to which the publication would subject them. " Besides the advantage to the author of having his mem- oir published in the 'Smithsonian Contributions' free of ex- pense, his labors will be given to the world with the stamp of approval of a commission of learned men ; and his merits will be generally made known through the Reports of the Institution. " There is one proposition of the program which has given rise to much discussion, and which, therefore, requires particular explanation : I allude to that which excludes from the contributions all papers consisting merely of unverified speculations on subjects of physical science. The object of this proposition is to obviate the endless difficulties which would occur in rejecting papers of an unphilosophical char- acter ; and though it may in some cases exclude an interest- ing communication, yet the strict observance of it will be found of so much practical importance that it cannot be dis- pensed with." ^ Some objection was made to the publishing of original memoirs by the Institution on the ground that in so doing it was merely performing the duties of a learned society, to which Professor Henry replied "that the learned societies in this country have not the means, except in a very limited degree, of publishing memoirs which require expensive illus- trations, much less of assisting to defray the cost of the in- vestigations by which the results have been obtained. The real workingmen in the line of original research hail this part of the plan as a new era in the history of American science. The assistance which the Institution will thus render to origi- nal research will occupy the place of the governmental patron- age of other countries, and will enable true genius, wherever 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1847, page 179. 492 The Sfuithsonian Institution found, to place its productions before the world, free of cost, and in a manner most favorable for securing due attention and proper appreciation."^ At the time of the publication of the first volume of the " Contributions to Knowledge " the question of the propriety of the Institution's securing a copyright was raised. Profes- sor Henry decided this question in the negative: " I had not an opportunity of conferring with the Execu- tive Committee on this point, and was therefore obliged to settle it on my own responsibility. I concluded that it would be in accordance with the spirit of the Institution to decide against the copyright. The knowledge which the Smith- sonian Institution may be instrumental in presenting to the world should be free to all who are capable of using it. The republication of our papers ought to be considered as an evi- dence of their importance, and should be encouraged rather than prohibited. " ^ This policy has always been followed, the only provision beingf that full credit should be griven to the name of Smith- son for any extract which is made from these publications. Professor Henry truly said: "What prouder monument could any man desire than the perpetual association of his name with a series of new truths ! This building and all its contents may be destroyed, but the volumes of the Smithsonian Contributions, distributed as they are among a thousand libraries, are as wide-spread and lasting" as civilization itself" ^ Professor C. C. Felton, after returning from Europe, wrote the following letter, which shows how as early as 1854 the publications were appreciated abroad : " It gave me pleasure to notice the high estimation in which the Smithsonian Institution, under its present manage- 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1849, page 26. '^Ibidem, page 24. 3 Jbidan, 185 1, page 10. The Smithsonian Publications 493 ment, is held everywhere in Europe, The volumes pub- lished under its auspices have done the highest honor to American science and are considered most valuable contribu- tions to the stock of knowledge among men. They are shown to visitors as among the most creditable publications of the age, and as highly interesting illustrations of the prog- ress of science and the arts in the United States ; and the eagerness to possess them is very great among the savants of the Old World. They were shown to me wherever I went, and the commendations bestowed on the civilization of America, as evinced by the excellence of these works, both in matter and form, was deeply gratifying to me." In the course of the debate in Congress on Senator Choate's resignation as a Regent, Mr. William H. English of Indiana said, in the House of Representatives : " Original researches have been stimulated, and many valu- able memoirs upon scientific subjects published and distrib- uted to all the principal libraries and learned societies in the world. To show conclusively what has already been done in this direction, I will give a list of some of the publications, premising in the language of the secretary of the board, that 'the institution up to this time has scarcely published a single paper the production of which has not been stimulated and assisted, or whose character has not been improved, by the agency of the institution, and, as a whole, they are such as could not have been given to the world without the aid of the Smithsonian bequest.' They are the product of American genius, and have reflected the highest honor on American science. "These works are distributed gratuitously to most of the incorporated colleges and libraries in the United States, and to the leading literary institutions of other countries. They are not copyrighted, and are sold by the trade at a low rate. " It may be contended that researches and publications of a character so purely scientific are not calculated directly to diffuse knowledge among the great mass of mankind. 494 The Smithsonian Institution "This is, no doubt, to a certain extent, true, and I shall be glad to see the operations of the institution made as plain and practical as the nature of the subjects will admit; but it should not be forgotten that the grand object of the institu- tion is to add to the sum total of the knowledge now existing in the world, and to diffuse it among men, rather than to scatter that more widely which is already accessible in a greater or less degree to all." While the distinguished naturalist, Professor Louis Agas- siz wrote : " If I am allowed to state, in conclusion, my personal im- pression respecting the management of the Institution thus far, I would only express my concurrence with the plan of active operations adopted by the Regents, which has led to the publication of a series of volumes equal, in scientific value, to any productions of the same kind issued by learned socie- ties anywhere. The distribution of the * Smithsonian Con- tributions to Knowledge ' has already carried the name of the Institution to all parts of the civilized world, and con- veyed with them such evidence of the intellectual activity of America as challenges everywhere admiration; a result which could hardly be obtained by applying a large part of the resources of the Institution to other purposes." Of the contents of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," it would be impossible to speak here, but it is not too much to say that from the valuable contribution to North American archaeology by Squier and Davis, to the con- tribution on Oceanic Ichthyology, by Goode and Bean, every paper in each volume of this series has carried out the purpose of the organizers of the Institution, to publish only such con- tributions as would add to the sum of human knowledge. Many of these publications are printed in so expensive a man- ner, with plates and illustrations, that it is safe to say that their appearance would have been greatly delayed, if not altogether prevented, had not the Smithsonian bequest been The Smithsonian PMblications 495 made. A summary of the contents of these memoirs is made annually by the Secretary in his Report to Congress ; and an "appreciation" of their importance for the advancement of knowledge and of the new truths they contain is found in the various chapters of the second part of this work. All of the volumes of this series have been issued at the expense of the Smithson bequest, without any assistance from Congress, or from any other fund. The same statement applies to the third Smithsonian series, which is an octavo series, known as the " Smithsonian Mis- cellaneous Collections," now consisting of thirty-five com- plete volumes with three others in course of publication, making in all thirty-eight. This series, which "is intended to embrace all the publications issued directly in octavo form," was " designed to contain reports on the present state of our knowledge of particular branches of science ; instructions for collecting and digesting facts and materials for research ; lists and synopses of species of the organic and inorganic world ; museum catalogues ; reports of explorations ; aids to bibliographical investigations, etc., generally prepared at the express request of the Institution and at its expense." In the " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," as well as in the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," each article is separately paged and indexed, and the actual date of its pub- lication is given on the special title-page. A considerable proportion of this series is devoted to scien- tific bibliography. When separate publications for the Mu- seum were first established, it was the practice to reprint the "Proceedingfs" and "Bulletin" in the "Smithsonian Miscellan- eous Collections." It was also the custom, when the scientific societies of Washington were in their infancy, for the Institution to publish the proceedings of these societies, more especially the Philosophical, Anthropological, and Biological, the estab- lishment of all of which societies, it may be said, was directly 49^ The Smithsonian Instihttion due to the initiative and encouragement of the members of the staff of the Smithsonian Institution. A very interesting suggestion was made in Congress in 1 85 1, by Mr. Thompson, of Mississippi. When the bill con- taining the appropriation of money to purchase books for the Library of Congress was under consideration, he proposed an amendment requiring that the plates and engravings of the report of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition, which had been made at the expense of the United States, should be delivered to the Smithsonian Institution for the issuing of a new edition. All students of science will deplore the fact that this important amendment was lost. In addition to these three series, and excepting the pub- lications of the bureaus under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, it has issued certain other publications which may be, for want of any particular designation, called "Spe- cial Publications." One of these is a quarto volume of almost twelve hundred pages, entitled "The Results of Meteoro- logical Observations made under the Direction of the United States Patent Office and the Smithsonian Institution," and published by the government in 1861 as a general report of the Commissioner of Patents and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The memoirs of Professor James P. Espy on Meteorology, one of which was embodied in a message to the President of the United States, the others being reports made to the Secretary of the Navy, were all prepared as a part of the Smithsonian meteorological work, the staff being the observers attached to the Institution. The first publication of the Institution was entitled " Hints on Public Architecture," being really a careful description of the proposed building of the Institution, by Robert Dale Owen, chairman of the building committee. A half dozen detached papers which have never been included in any of The Sinithsonian Publications 497 the regular series were also issued. The volume containing the report on the exploration of the Colorado River of the West and its tributaries, by Major J. \V. Powell, was pre- pared under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution and printed by order of Congress upon being submitted to that body by the Secretary. Recently the Institution issued, as a separate volume, not to be placed in any of its series, the " Diary of a Journey through IVIongolia and Tibet," by William Woodville Rockhill, First Assistant Secretary of State, who undertook an expedition through these countries with the aid of the Institution. The Institution has also, in several cases, indirectly aided the publication of valuable scientific memoirs. The most notable of these was the series known as "The Library of American Linguistics," now extremely rare and costly, edited by John G. Shea. The manuscript of some of this series had actually been in the possession of the Institution with a view to publication. Mr. Shea, however, presented a memoir to the Secretary, expressing a desire to publish them all in one series, and asking for the aid of the Institution. They were referred to a commission, of whom E. B. O'Callahan, the well known bibliographer, Jared Sparks, George Gibbs, and Peter Force were members. This commission recom- mended to the Smithsonian Institution that "a subscription which will insure the continuance of these series will be emi- nently within the scope of the foundation, by preserving a number of rapidly perishing monuments of human knowledge, and securing to posterity, in the languages of the native tribes, the surest clue to their ori" "'""-♦^ '■■■■' made islik ^ ' " ■ ' ' ' d maintaini I vibr ■ c- )3.\ researches ith his first determinatior J, his modified Foiicault i. ,-,,.. .wv,, c,^ ll.v. ^^cvai y auout 1878. ^ -■ .- ' ■ ' accoi' eison's ■lelivery), 1 examination and preser the mos. ^ experiments looking- to the cK of Hght-velocity, either in a ledium, t' ' :;r with a statemt ially as ; - solar para iie refer- ei: ories of light. It is a and useful conti '^h':- lie v,i Volume . .lI.w. Ionian ^^v^,.- .T^8I- 8:^81 Physics 537 Interference Methods to Spectroscopic Measurements," pub- lished in 1892, an investigation which had been aided by a grant from the Institution. In this work Professor Michel- son made use of his well-known interference method, which proved to be very powerful in attacking problems usually given to the grating and prism. He found it "easy to sepa- rate lines whose distance apart is only a thousandth of that between D^ Dg, and even to determine the distribution of light in the separate components," and whenever the width of the lines themselves is less than their distance apart there is no limit to their resolvability. The Smithsonian Report for 1893 includes a short, but thoughtful, paper on the " Luminiferous Ether," by Sir George G. Stokes, in which the difficulties of the problem are well put and some hints given as to their possible solution. No account of the relation of the Smithsonian Institution to the increase and diffusion of our knowledge of radiant energy would be approximately complete without reference to the splendid investigations of the present Secretary, Doctor S. P. Langley. Begun originally by him in the Allegheny Ob- servatory, he has not allowed the burden of administrative duties to prevent their being continued in the new Astro- physical Observatory, where they are still in progress. The remarkable results of his use of the bolometer in the study of the infra-red end of the solar spectrum hav^e revolutionized our ideas of the radiations from the sun. A more complete account of this work will be found elsewhere in this volume. SOUND Although the number of papers published on acoustics is not large, some of them represent extremely important work. 35 53^ The Smithsonian Instittition One of these is a paper read by Henry before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1856. Its title was " On Acoustics AppHed to PubHc Buildings." He had been required by act of Congress to build a lecture hall in the building: which was erected for the home of the Smith- sonian Institution, and he desired to make it acoustically perfect if possible. He had also been consulted, along with Professor Bache, of the Coast Survey, as to the hall of the House of Representatives, which was about to be constructed in the new wing of the Capitol building. With characteristic thoroughness he took hold of the problem, and in its study combined both observation and experiment. He visited the principal halls and churches of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and also made an extensive series of experiments upon reflection, resonance, and refraction of sound in rooms and halls of various forms and sizes. The results of these investigations were utilized in the con- struction of the Smithsonian hall, which proved to be entirely satisfactory. The paper in which they are embodied is one of the few important and valuable contributions toward the solution of a problem which is still perplexing. The Report for 1875 contains a very interesting discussion of the laws of refraction of sound, by Doctor William B. Taylor. It is first shown that the velocity of a sound-wave in passing through a gaseous medium may be disturbed by variation in the density of the medium, or in its elasticity or temperattire, and also by relative motion of the parts of the medium ; that is, by the existence of currents. Whatever produces variations of velocity in different parts of the wave- front will cause refj^actioii, as the direction of a sound at any point is perpendicular to the wave-front at that point. Refraction due to variations of density is explained, and the experiments by which Sondhauss demonstrated the existence Physics 539 of this refraction in 1852 are described. There is a clear presentation of Stokes's theory of sound-refraction due to wind, abstracted for the most part from his paper in the re- port of the British Association for 1857. He was tlie first to show that on the side of the source of sound toward the point from which the wind was blowing, the sound-waves would be flattened and the sound "ray" reflected upward, so that sounds would not be heard at distances as great as on the other side, where the effect is to make the wave more con- vex and to deflect the "ray" downward. This explanation is in harmony with many observed facts, and especially one noticed by Henry in 1865 — namely, that a sound moving against the wind, and inaudible to the ear on the deck of a schooner, became audible on ascending to the mast-head. This observation had suggested the idea that sound was more readily conveyed by the upper current of air than by the lower. Some very important practical conclusions came from this principle of wind refraction, one being that a continuous sound, as from a horn or whistle, would be less likel)- to be lost by refraction due to adverse winds than sounds of prac- tically a single impulse, as from a bell or gun ; also that it is more probable that sounds of a high pitch will be more inter- fered with by refraction than those of medium tones or lower pitch. Refraction from inequality of the temperature of horizontal layers is also explained at length. This may be of a nature to deflect sound rays up or down, according as the lower or upper stratum of air involved is at the highest temperature. Variations of temperature in the atmosphere along vertical lines are shown to be sufficient to account for many acoustic phenomena with which all observing people are more or less familiar. Among them may be mentioned the extraordinary distance at which sounds may be sometimes heard, especially 540 The Smithsonian Institntion at night, and also the remarkable observations made by Arctic explorers, notably Captain Parry, who was able to carry on a conversation with a man a mile and a quarter away. The clearness of sound " over water," which is so generally recog- nized, is accounted for on the same principles. This interesting paper is a fitting prelude to the extended and elaborate summary in the Report for 1878 of Henry's re- searches in sound, conducted in the service of the United States Lighthouse Board during the years 1865 to 1877. Henry's long service as chairman of the Lighthouse Board consti- tutes by no means the least important of his labors in the interests of the general public. In this service he found opportunity to utilize and apply his knowledge of physical principles and the universally recognized high efficiency of the Lighthouse establishment is due more to his intelligent administration of its affairs than to any other single cause. His researches in sound were among the most valuable of his contributions toward the betterment of the service. As every one knows, the presence of fog along the coast renders the use of sound signals necessary; and for this purpose bells, horns, trumpets, guns, etc., have long been in use. Many curious and often contradictory phenomena have been noted, especially in regard to variations in audibility under different conditions, and the subject is one that has received much attention among maritime nations. Generally under the direc- tion of Professor Henry, the Lighthouse Board conducted an extensive series of experiments during the years mentioned above, the results of which were submitted as reports to the Board and published by it, or, in some instances, read before the Washington Philosophical Society, of which Henry was President. On one of these occasions Professor Tyndall, who was then in the country engaged in lecturing in the principal cities, was present, being interested through his Physics 54 1 connection with the Lighthouse service in England and by reason of his own experiments on the absorption of sound. A very decided difference of opinion was developed at a later date between these two distinguished physicists, Professor Henry disagreeing with Tyndall in the matter of the influ- ence of fog, rain, snow, hail, etc., on the audibility of sounds. Tyndall attributed many of the observed abnormal phenomena "to the existence of acoustic clouds, consisting of portions of the atmosphere in a flocculent or mottled condition, due to the unequal distribution of heat and moisture which, absorb- ing and reflecting the sound, produce an atmosphere of acoustic opacity." Henry, on the contrary, while not deny- ing the possible existence of such a condition, was inclined to attribute such phenomena to the effect of the wind, in accord with the hypothesis of Stokes, referred to in the remarks on the paper by Doctor Taylor. The discussion growing out of this difference of views was of such a nature, unfortunately, as to give rise to some irritation, at least among the friends of the two distinguished physicists, but it is generally believed that subsequent observations have tended rather to confirm the position taken by Henry. Among the valuable practical results of these researches in sound the development of the use of the siren as an instru- ment for producing sounds of great intensity must be men- tioned. In his last report to the Lighthouse Board, not long before his death, Henry summarized the results of all experi- ments conducted by the Board up to that time, a few of the more important conclusions being as follows : The audibility of a sound at a distance (the state of the atmosphere being- constant) depends on the character of the sound : to secure audibility at a distance, the pitch of the sound should be "medium"; the loudness, depending on the amplitude of vibra- 542 TJie Sniithsojiiau Institution tion of the sounding body, should be as great as possible; and the "quantity" of sound, depending on the magnitude of the vibrating surface, should also be great. The audibility also depends on the state of the atmosphere, the best condition being that of perfect stillness and uniformity of density and temperature. The most efficient cause of the loss of audibility is the direct effect produced by the wind. While, as a general rule, the audibility of a sound is greater on the side toward which the wind "blows," this is due to downward refraction, rather than to the simple " carrying effect " of the wind, which would hardly be sensible. Further- more, there are instances of a greater audibility on the wind- ward side, which is to be explained by reference to a domi- nant upper wind, opposite in direction to that near the earth's surface. There is not much utility in concave reflectors or other de- vices for "directing" the sound along certain lines, for the tendency of the wave is to spread with great rapidity, so that within a distance of three or four miles of the source it fills the whole space of air within the circuit of the horizon and is heard nearly, if not quite, as well behind the trumpet as before it. Neither fog, snow, rain, nor hail materially inter- feres with the transmission of loud sounds, the siren having been heard at a greater distance during the prevalence of a dense and widely- extended fog than during any other condi- tion of the atmosphere. Projecting portions of the land or buildings may produce sound shadows, so that a sound easily heard at a distance may be inaudible on nearer approach. The existence of an " aerial echo " was established, the ex- planation of which was not easy to see, although it is probably due to reflection from the surface of the sea. Investigations of a similar character have been prosecuted in a more or less irregular fashion by the Lighthouse Board Physics 543 since the death of Henry, but their importance would appear to justify a more vigorous treatment of the subject. Of a less technical and more strictly scientific character is the reprint in the Report for 1890 of Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson's presentation of Koenig's researches on "The Physical Basis of Musical Harmony and Timbre." This is the address made by Professor Thompson on the occasion of Doctor Rudolph Koenig's exhibition before the London Phys- ical Society of the experimental demonstration and illustration of his theory of harmony. Professor Thompson proved him- self to be a charming interpreter and exponent of one of the most accomplished experimentalists and profound students of acoustics of the present generation. Few have done as much as he to advance the science of acoustics, ard this paper, which embodies his advance beyond, and departure from, the theory of Von Helmholtz, is a most valuable contribution to science. METROLOGICAL A NUMBER of the publications of the Institution are purely metrological in their character. Among these might, indeed, be included the extensive " reduction tables," begun under the direction of Professor A. Guyot, and continued in various revisions and additions, under other editors, up to the pres- ent time. They are mostly 7neteorological in character, and doubtless will receive more extensive consideration under that head. They have been of inestimable value to physi- cists, however, and in their original issue and maintenance the Institution aptly illustrated one of its most important functions. The early interest felt in systems of measurement is shown in a paper by Professor Guyot, in the third annual Report 544 The Smithsonian Institution of the Smithsonian Institution, now quite inaccessible. It was on the "Advantages of the Metric System in Scientific In- vestigation," and it doubtless did efficient duty in bringing the system to the attention of Americans at that early day, a half century ago. The Smithsonian Report for 1863 contains two pages of "Tables of Weights and Measures," and there is nothing to show by whom they were prepared. They are mostly de- voted to showing the English equivalents of the various units and denominations of the metric system, although there is also a partial table of English measures. While the Report for 1865 was passing through the press, Congress passed the "metric law " of 1866, the conversion tables in which had been prepared by Professor H. A. Newton, of New Haven. This law and these tables were added to the Report for 1865 as an appendix. As is well known, the fundamental metric value of the yard as then adopted is now the recognized best approximation. It is worthy of note that in the print- ing of these tables, as well as those of 1863, the spelling of "metre," "litre," etc., and their derivatives is that of the French, and also that in universal use among the English ; and it is to be regretted that the Institution has in later years departed from an orthography which has everything to recommend it, in order to adopt one to which there are many serious objections. Two brief papers, metrological in character, will be found in the Reports for 1889 and 1891. They refer to time meas- urement, the first being on " Time-Keeping in Greece and Rome," by F. A. Seely ; and the second, " Modes of Keeping Time Known Among the Chinese," by Doctor D. J. Magowan. Mr. Seely traces the origin of time keeping apparatus, of which the sun-dial and water-clock, or clepsydra, are among the earlier forms, and both probably originated in the Orient. Physics 545 Doctor Magowan shows that at a very early period the Chinese possessed time-keeping devices of considerable complexity, and that the subject of time division and measurement re- ceived much attention at their hands many centuries before the Christian Era. Professor Harkness, in his presidential address before the Philosophical Society of Washington, has given an interesting study of the " Progress of Science as Exemplified in the Art of Weighing and Measuring," and a reprint of it appears in the Report for 1888. It contains much matter of historical value, especially the carefully prepared appendixes showing the principal comparisons of early English and other impor- tant standards of lenorth and mass. The Smithsonian Report for 1893 contains an article on "Fundamental Units of Measure," by T. C. Mendenhall, be- ing a reprint from the Transaciiojis of the American Society of Civil Engi7teers, of a paper read before the International Engineering Congress of the Columbian Exposition. This is a brief sketch of the general principles of metrology, followed by an account of the origin of the English system of weights and measures, and a statement in some detail of the actual con- dition of the question of " standards " in the United States. The official announcement by the Secretary of the Treasury is there given of the adoption of the national prototype meter No, 27 and kilogram No. 20 as fundamental standards of length and mass, the yard and pound to be defined in the future in terms of these units. The article concludes with the formal announcement of the Superintendent of Standard Weights and Measures, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, of the adoption of the units of electrical measure, with their definitions as formulated and agreed upon by the International Electrical Congress held in Chi- cago in 1S93. 54^ The Smithsonian Institntion It is a matter of interest to all metrologists to know that through the generosity of Doctor Henry Morton, President of the Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, the Ramsden dividing engine has recently been deposited in the National Museum. The engine was built about 1775, and for its construction Ramsden received a reward from the English Board of Longitude. In an extremely interesting paper printed in the Smithsonian Report for 1890, Mr. J. Elfreth Watkins gives an account of this valuable relic, to which he has added much important information regarding the early history of the division of the circle. There are also some details of the methods of circle graduation by lead- ing artists of a century ago, and the whole forms an impor- tant contribution to the literature of the subject. Under this head should also be mentioned the recent publication (1896) of a set of physical tables prepared by Professor Thomas Gray. These give evidence of great care in preparation, excellent judgment in selection, and a broad knowledge of authorities and literature. Their ap- pearance is very welcome to physicists and all students of exact science. TERRESTRIAL, DYNAMICAL, AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS It has already been intimated, and, in fact, every one familiar with its work knows — that the Smithsonian Institution was, especially during the first quarter of a century of its exist- ence, very active in the promotion of terrestrial physics. It originated, cultivated, and maintained a wide- spread interest in the subject of meteorology, organizing a remarkably large and enthusiastic corps of volunteer observers and collecting and discussing data from all reliable sources. In the first Physics 547 Smithsonian Report were papers by Professors Espy and Loomis, two of the great pioneers in meteorological investiga- tion in this country. Much attention was given to the study and description of American storms, and also to the devis- ing of suitable instruments for meteorological observers. In accordance with its traditional policy, however, the whole me- teorological system, which had been developed with so much care, was turned over to the War Department on the organi- zation of the Signal Corps as a weather service, about twenty- five years ago. The work of the Institution in furthering the interests of meteorological science during the first quarter of a century of its existence will be considered in another part of this volume, and further reference to it here is unnecessary. In the Report of 1855 is printed a " Circular Relative to Earthquakes," which Professor Henry had drawn up for dis- tribution after the occurrence of a shock. He submitted nine questions to be answered by any one who had been disturbed by it, none of them requiring any special technical knowledge. He makes a single suggestion as to a " seismoscope " in ob- serving that the direction of the impulse may be ascertained by noting the direction in which molasses, or any viscid liquid, was upthrown against the side of a bowl. Frequent commu- nications descriptive of earthquake phenomena were received and mostly published in the Reports, from time to time. In that for 1859, one of Mallet's important papers, " On the Ob- servation of Earthquake Phenomena," was published. This is a well-known treatment of the subject, adniirable in its day, but in large measure obsolete now, especially that part of it which treats of instrumental seismology. An advance along that line is shown in the publication in the Report of i8;o of Palmieri's description of his electro-magnetic seismograph, and the rapid growth of this science is again reflected in the appearance for three years, beginning in 1884, of special Re- 548 The Sniithsonian Institutiojt ports on the progress of vulcanology and seismology, prepared by Professor C. G. Rockwood, Jr., of Princeton University. Modern seismology is now represented in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution by a very complete suite of seis- mological apparatus, devised by Milne, Gray, Ewing, and others, and mostly used in the investigation of seismic phe- nomena in Japan. Other phases of terrestrial physics are represented in a paper published in i860 in the "Contributions," on the " Fluctuations in the Level of North American Lakes," by Whittlesey, and one on " Tidal OBservations in the Arctic Seas," published at the same time, in the same place. To these should be added a very valuable paper, which appeared in the Report for 1874, on "Tides and Tidal Action in Har- bors," by J. E. Hilgard. Closely related to these are the monographs by General J. G. Barnard, of the United States Engineers, the earliest being on the " Problems of Rotary Motion presented by the Gyroscope, the Precession of the Equinoxes and the Pendulum," which was published in the "Contributions" in 1871. It consists, properly, of three papers, which were separately read before the National Academy of Sciences. The object of the first was to deduce the analytical expression of the precession of the equinoxes directly from the theory of the gyroscope, a suggestion of which the author had made as early as 1857 in an article in the American Jotirnal of Science. The second part was a mathematical examination and analysis of the " Motions of Freely Suspended and Gyroscopic Pendulums," and " On the Pendulum and Gyroscope as Exhibiting the Rotation of the Earth," and is an elaborate discussion of the very interesting methods of proving the earth's rotation first suggested by Foucault. The third part is " On the Internal Structure of the Earth as Affecting the Phenomena of Precession and Physics 549 Nutation." In this General Barnard attacked mathematically one of the most important problems of recent years, and his conclusion was, essentially in his own words, as follows : " Regarding the crust as rigid, I incline to the opinion of M. Delaunay, that the consideration of the phenomena of preces- sion and nutation can furnish no datum for estimating the greater or less thickness of the solid crust of the earth." The second monograph referred to above, published among the "Smithsonian Contributions" six years later, is, in fact, only supplementary to the third part of the first. In the mean time, much had been said upon the subject, especially by Sir William Thomson, and General Barnard very carefully and conscientiously reviews his own work, and in his conclusion says that " the correction of grave errors of conclusion in papers of mine published under the sanction of the Smith- sonian Institution, and ostensibly deserving the ascription of * Contributions to Knowledge,' is a peremptory motive for this memoir." But he further desires to show that in these papers are to be found essential elements of the correct solu- tion of the " full problem of precession and nutation, and what is now necessarily included in it, the tides, for a contin- uous revolving, liquid spheroid, whether heterogeneous or homogeneous." The question is again taken up in a reprint from the Philosophical Magazine, of an article by Henry Hennessy, who had, in 1878, published a paper on the same subject in the same journal. His attitude in the controversy may be suspected from the statement that " geologists are the ultimate judges of the matter, and not mathematicians." In his final sentence he says that the earth cannot consist of an entirely solid mass composed of equi-elliptic strata, and that it is, therefore, partly composed of a solid shell . . . with an in- terior mass of viscid lic^uid, such as is seen flowing from the 550 The Sniithsonian Institution volcanic openings of the shell, arranged in strata conforming to the laws of hydrostatics ; or, in other words, with strata of equal density decreasing in ellipticity toward the earth's center." The same Report contains Professor R. S. Wood- ward's vice-presidential address before the Section of Mathe- matics and Astronomy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Toronto meeting in 1889. This is a historical summary, under the title of " Mathematical Theories of the Earth," of the principal propositions which have been from time to time advanced in reference to the same subject, and is an extremely satisfactory performance. Closely related to these papers are Clarence King's "Age of the Earth," reprinted in the Smithsonian Report for 1893; and Sir Robert Ball's article on "The Wanderino-s of the North Pole," in the same volume. The former is a valuable contribution to physical geology, the author being, for the most part, in harmony with Kelvin, Von Helmholtz, New- comb, and other mathematical physicists, who have insisted on a much shorter period of past life for the earth, in any- thing like its present condition, than is usually claimed by geological writers. The article of Sir Robert Ball, reprinted from the Fortnightly Review, is a popular exposition of the recent investigations regarding variation of latitude, in which Doctor S. C. Chandler has been the leader. At an early period in its history the Smithsonian Institu- tion recognized the importance of the art and science of aeronautics. In the Report for i860 is an interesting letter from "distinguished citizens of Philadelphia," requesting the Institution to interest itself in a projected passage across the Atlantic "by aeronautic machinery," evidently meaning a balloon as the principal, if not sole, feature. To this Profes- sor Henry replied, giving information regarding some winds which might be depended upon for steadiness, and expressing Physics :)D a lack of confidence in the feasibility of extensive aerial navi- gation by any of the methods then proposed, except by float- ing with the air current in a balloon of sufficient size and of sufficient impermeability to gas to enable it to maintain a high elevation for some time. As might be expected, he counseled more extensive experimentation on land before crossing the ocean was attempted. The Report for 1863 contains an elaborate account by Arago of several balloon ascensions made in the interest of the advancement of science, and also a brief sketch of some of Mr. Glaisher's ascents. The subject is continued in subse- quent Reports, one paper, " On the Various Modes of Flight," in 1867, deserving especial mention, on account of the great amount of information it contains and its clear enunciation of fundamental principles. It is a reprint from the Proceedings of the Royal Institution of a lecture given by Doctor James Bell Pettigrew. A careful study of the flight of birds, bats, and insects is followed by a discussion of the possibility of human flight, and the importance of a "screw" in aerial navi- gation is enlarged upon. In the Report for 1869 the matter of flight in the animal kingdom receives attention in the publication of Marey's celebrated lectures on that subject. In the Report for 18S9 there is a reprint of a very able discussion of the subject of aerial locomotion by Y . H. Wenham, first read before the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, and published in the annual report of that society for the year 1866. In the mean time the study of the whole question of aerial navigation, whether by animals or by men. was destined shortly to receive a new impulse through the labors of a small number of scientific investigators who, undismayed by the prevailing belief in the absurdity of the thought of practical flying machines, had attacked the problem in a manner in 552 The Sniithsonimi Institution keeping with the present knowledge of physics and en- gineering. Of these none has pursued the subject more assiduously, or made more valuable contributions toward the solution of the problem, than the distinguished Secretary of the Institution, Doctor Langley. The work is still in active progress, but it is proper to say here that the foundation for it was laid, in a large measure, in a series of experiments in aerodynamics, principally carried on in the grounds of the Allegheny Observatory, Allegheny, Pennsylvania. They are to a great extent a study of the aeroplane, and Doctor Langley's report of the work was published among the " Con- tributions" of 1 89 1. A portion of the work done in Alle- gheny, supplemented by additional studies made later at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, gave rise to another very important memoir by the same author, published in the same series in 1893. Its title is "The Internal Work of the Wind." The principal conclusions reached in the investigation are as follows: "That the wind is not even an approximately uniform moving mass of air, but consists of a succession of very brief pulsations of varying amplitude, and that, relatively to the mean movement of the wind, these are of varying direction." From this fundamental proposition, established by experiment, it is inferred that there is a potentiality of "in- ternal work " in the wind which is probably large ; that it is no contradiction to known principles of dynamics to declare that an inclined plane or properly-curved surface, heavier than the air and immersed in it, may be supported, or even rise, indefinitely without expenditure of energy other than that necessary to change the aspect of its inclination at each pulsation ; also that the possibility of such a surface making advance against the direction of the wind follows not only relatively to the wind, but absolutely in reference to a fixed point. It is hardly necessary to say that these conclusions Physics 553 are of the utmost importance in the development of practical aeronautics. In the same year the Smithsonian Report con- tains a paper on " Problems in Flying," by Otto Lilienthal, and another on " Practical Experiments in Soaring," by the same author. The interesting performances of this indefatig- able experimenter are well known, and these short papers, taken in connection with the monographs of Langley, consti- tute a striking illustration of the tremendous advances made in this subject during the past few years. In studies of molecular physics nothing has appeared in re- cent years more interesting than the work of Plateau on " Liquid Films and Figures of Equilibrium in Liquid Masses," the first of which appeared in the Smithsonian Report for 1863. Few investigations have exhibited more experimental skill than these, and the exquisite illustrations of the laws that determine the equilibrium of liquid films which Plateau de- vised and described render his work classical. The wide publications of these important papers, which were continued from year to year in Smithsonian Reports up to that for 1866, constitute almost an era in the development of our knowledge of surface tension, liquid equilibrium, and capillarity. Among other papers on molecular physics which are to be found in the publications of the Institution, one on " Boscovich's Theory," by Lord Kelvin, in the Report for 1887; another on the " Molecular Structure of Matter," by William Anderson, and still another on " Phenomena Connected with Cloud Condensation," by John Aitken, should have special mention. In the volume for 1893 there is a reprint from the Fort- iiightly Review of Sir Robert Ball's article on " Atoms and Sunbeams," which is a popular presentation of the molecular theory of gases, with an application to the maintenance of the sun's heat. The Report for 1892 reproduces two papers on " Solution," one by Professor Ramsay, and the other by Pro- 36 554 The Smithsonian Institution tessor Orme Masson; and that for 1891 contains an interesting paper by Professor Hallock, on the "Flow of Solids," orig- inally published as a bulletin by the United States Geological Survey. Under the same general class is the memoir by Professor Edward W. Morley on " The Densities of Oxygen and Hydrogen and the Ratio of their Atomic Weights," which appeared as one of the " Smithsonian Contributions" in 1895. In this elaborate research Professor Morley was assisted by grants from the Smithsonian Institution, and he was thus en- abled to make by far the most exhaustive study of the subject that has yet appeared, and his results are everywhere acknow- ledged to possess a degree of accuracy hitherto unapproached. Reference must not be omitted to a few papers of no great length, but of extreme interest and value, more fully related to dynamical problems, and especially to the theory and measurement of the force of o-ravitation. Among: them is one on the " Nature and Origin of Force," by Doctor William B. Taylor, printed in the Smithsonian Report for 1870, and another by the same author, on " Kinetic Theories of Gravi- tation," published in 1876. The last is a particularly valuable critical history of the most important theories regarding gravitation from Newton to Clerk Maxwell. In the Report for 1888 there is a somewhat condensed account of Wilsing's determination of the density of the earth by his ingenious "pendulum balance" method. It is worth while remarking, in reference to this, that the Smithsonian Institution has for many years rendered cooperative assistance to scientific men engaged in the determination of the value of the force of gravity. A special room in the basement of the building, particularly adapted to this work, was long ago set aside for use as a pendulum room, and it was for many years regarded as the "base station" for the extensive gravity work of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Physics 555 MISCELLANEOUS AND TECHNICAL The publications of the Smithsonian Institution include a large number of papers more closely related to physics than to any other science, but yet of a miscellaneous or technical nature. Brief reference to a few of these will be desirable. One of the earliest is a " Syllabus of a Course of Lectures in Physics," prepared by Joseph Henry and published in the Smithson- ian Report for 1856. It was originally intended to continue this syllabus in subsequent reports, but this was not done. As published, it is restricted to a general outline of the course, with an abstract of the general properties of matter and a beginning in mechanics. Although prepared forty years ago, any instructor in physics will do well to examine it carefully. In the same volume there is a paper on the "Mode of Testing Building Material," also by Henry, originally read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It is essentially a report of the most important results obtained by a commission appointed by the President of the United States for the purpose of examining the marble used in the extension of the United States Capitol, of which commission Henry was a member. The paper contains a number of interesting con- clusions based on the experimental work of the commission, notably those relating to the use of lead plates in crushing cubes of stone ; the composition of the marbles used in the wings of the Capitol is given, and there are some thoughtful remarks on the general subject of molecular cohesion, as illus- trated in the use of the testing-machine. In the Reports for i860 and 1 86 1 will be found a course of five lectures on " Roads and Bridges," by Fairman Rogers, then professor of civil engineering in the University of Pennsylvania. They contain much extremely valuable material for a people among 556 The Sinithsoiiian Institution whom even now, a generation later, road-building has hardly passed the temporary stage. Important technical papers are printed in the Smithsonian Report for 1864, including an extract from the memoir on the ** Preservation of Copper and Iron in Salt Water," by Becquerel, the translation of which was furnished by Admiral C. H. Davis, then Chief of the Bureau of Navigation of the Navy Department. This is followed by an equally impor- tant paper on the preservation of wood, in which the principal mechanical and chemical methods of treatment are discussed. There is also an interesting paper on " Caoutchouc and Gutta- percha," and also one on the " Products of the Combustion of Gun-cotton and Gun-powder," thus illustrating the mar- velous parallel growth of the arts of peace and of war in the United States during these years. In the Report for 1870 there is an almost prophetic letter by Henry, to an unknown correspondent, in reference to the character and importance of a "physical observatory." He refers to his interest in the examination of several European institutions of this class during a recent visit abroad, of the very interesting and im- portant work which they may accomplish, and gives some excellent advice as to their organization and management. There is one sentence which cannot be too frequently quoted, in which he says, " It is, therefore, in the highest degree in- judicious in the founding of an establishment to exhaust the source of its power by architectural display not absolutely required, and which may forever involve a continual expense from the remaining funds to keep them in repair." He speaks of findinor in Encjland " observations which have challenged the admiration of the world," carried on in a temporary structure made of rough boards, unplastered, and hardly more than fifteen feet square. This condition of things the Institu- tion has itself practically repeated after a score of years. Physics 557 In 1873 there was issued among the "Miscellaneous Con- tributions " the beginning of a very important series of statis- tical publications, under the general title of " The Constants of Nature," by Professor F. W. Clarke. Part i of the series con- sists of a table of specific gravities, boiling and melting points for solids and liquids, and chemical formula;. It has been supplemented and revised from time to time, the latest addi- tion bearing date of 1888. Other volumes contained tables of specific heats, coefficients of expansion, etc., and that con- taining atomic weights was compiled by Mr. G. F. Becker. The whole series, to which additions are being continually made, has hardly a rival in any language, and its issue well illustrates the usefulness of the publication feature of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian Reports for 1873 and 1874 contain a technical paper of considerable length and great value " On Warming and Ventilating Occupied Build- ings," by the well-known French engineer and technologist, Morin. Its reproduction was most timely, for little consider- ation was given this important matter by architects and builders a quarter of a century ago. The Report for 1880 contains a reprint from the report of the United States Light- house Board for 1875 of Henry's "Investigations Relative to Illuminating Material," made in the interest of the Lighthouse establishment. This is a detailed account of the earlier stages of the study of illuminants carried on by the Board during the past thirty years, which has resulted in the exclu- sive use of petroleum oils in the Lighthouse service. Pro- fessor Henry's report brings the work down to the begiiiniiig of this use. With the Report for 1880 there was begun a series of an- nual " Reports of Progress " in the various branches of sci- ence, prepared by well-known specialists. This series was discontinued in 1888, for reasons given in the Smithsonian 36* 55^ The Smithsonian Instittition Report for that year. The editing of the " Progress in Phys- ics " was during these years assigned to Professor George F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, and no one else so well fitted for the work could have been found. The series of " Reports of Progress," which appeared from 1880 to 1887, as far as it relates to the science of physics leaves nothing to be desired ; the references to original sources are very com- plete, and both the busy specialist and the intelligent student of general physics willingly acknowledge their indebtedness to Professor Barker and the Institution. It is not yet certain that any other publication exactly fills the place of this. A few other publications of a miscellaneous or technical character remain to be noticed, one of the most important being Professor Huxley's famous "Jubilee Year Address" on the "Advance in Science in the Last Half Century," which will always stand as a classical contribution to the scientific history of a remarkable period. Emblematic of the growth of engineering skill during the same period are the carefully- prepared papers on the Eiffel Tower in the same volume. A technical paper of much interest " On the Absolute Measure- ment of Hardness," by F. Auerbach, is published in the Re- port for 1 89 1, the English translation of which was furnished by Professor Carl Barus ; while the volumes for 1890 and 1893 contain examples of splendid experimental skill, in two papers by Professor Boys, the first being the celebrated Royal Insti- tution lecture on " Ouartz Fibers," and the second that on " Electric Spark Photographs of Flying Bullets," delivered in 1892 at the Edinburgh meeting of the British Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science. The " Ouartz P"ibers " lecture was almost epoch-making in character, for it intro- duced to general use a simple and elegant device for the sus- pension of light bodies, which has enormously increased the accuracy of a large and important class of physical measure- Physics 559 ments, a remarkable example of which is to be seen in the work of Professor Boys himself in his classical determination of the constant of gravitation. By no means the least important publications of the Smith- sonian Institution have been the series of memoirs, eulogies, biographies, and autobiographies of distinguished scientific men which have been printed in the Smithsonian Reports from the earlier to the later issues. Great interest attaches to the personality and private life and character of men of distinction, and this is no less true in science than elsewhere. Besides, these memoirs and eulogies often furnish the most complete and concise account of the scientific work of their subjects, and furnish information of this kind not elsewhere available. The Smithsonian Reports have put into the hands of physicists biographical memoirs of such men as Priestley, Delambre, Faraday, Eaton Hodgkinson» Thomas Young, Herschel, Laplace, De la Rive, \ olta, and Kirchhoff, among others, and four of these came from Arago, whose own auto- biography, entitled "The History of My Youth," published in the Report for 1870, is one of the most charming sketches to be found in any language. The memoir of Kirchhoff, by Von Helmholtz, is full of interest to every physicist, and the " Historical Sketch of Henry's Relation to the Telegraph," by Doctor W. B. Taylor, published in the Report for 1879, is a document of great scientific value. Another interesting and valuable feature of the Smithsonian Reports is the publication from time to time of reports on the transactions of various European societies, especially the Society of Physics and Natural History of Geneva, abstracts of whose transactions were published annually for nearly a quarter of a century. The publication of prize problems and of medals and prizes offered by various scientific societies, including the In- 560 The Smithsonian Institution stitute of Bologna, the Holland Society of Science, the Impe- rial Academies of Science in Bordeaux and Vienna, the Lon- don Institution of Civil Engineers, the Royal Academy of Science in Brussels, the Royal Prussian Academy of Science, and others, was a matter of interest to men of science in America, and was greatly helpful in directing their efforts. In the above review of the work of the Institution along the line of physics, it has been impossible to look much beyond what is reflected in its numerous publications. Throughout its fifty years of existence there has been some- thing besides this, however, — less tangible, it is true, but often more effective, — in the ready disposition of its authorities to render assistance to every man engaged in original inves- tigation which was likely to prove of value, and for which support was not easily obtained from other sources. Many physicists, in America and elsewhere, can testify to the valu- able cooperation of the Institution, To the general public it has been easy of access, and its resources in the way of obtaining information have always been at their command. The Smithsonian Reports have been especially valuable as a means of diffusing a knowledge of the more important advances in physical sciente, for there is hardly a discovery of moment, or a notable expression of opinion on the part of a man of distinction, that has not found a place in this most valuable annual. All scholars note with pleasure its increase in size from year to year, and physicists welcome the increasing recognition of their science. Under the wise direction of one of the first physicists of the present time, it is natural to indulge in the hope and expectation that in the years to come the Smithsonian Institution will be, even more than in the past, the center of intellectual activity of the Western Continent, and the friendly patron of original re- search everywhere. MATHEMATICS By Robert Simpson Woodward, Professor of Mechanics, Columbia University L'idee du progr^s, dii developpement, me parait etre I'idee fondamentale contenue sous le mot de civilisation. — GuizOT. M ON GST the causes which have made for civiUzation during the past half-century, the progress of science, it would seem, must be given a very prominent, if not the first place. Governmental, commercial, social, ethical, and religious institutions and influences have each played an important role in the general advance of humanity ; but the pervading thought, the points of view, and the intellectual activities have been predominantly scientific. To the world at large the most striking results of this progress of science are found in material benefits. The ease of intercommunication by telegraph and telephone ; the facility of transportation by railway and steamship ; the prevention of disease by ra- tional sanitation, and the mitigation of pain by rational surgery, along with a multitude of other benefits, appeal directly and forcibly to the popular sense. To the student of civilization, on the other hand, the most important results of that progress are found in the development of a dis- 56. 562 The Smithsonian Institution tinctively scientific method of investigation, and in the dis- covery of two far-reaching laws of nature, namely, the law of conservation of energy and the law of evolution of organic forms. The scientific method is not new. It has been followed more or less closely throughout the history of modern science. From Galileo to Newton, from Newton to Laplace, from Laplace to Darwin, the same method of patient observation, of measuring, of weighing, of correlating, is discernible. But it has now reached such a degree of definiteness, and its effi- ciency in the search for truth is now so generally recognized, that it has come to be known by common consent as the scientific method. Subjects as diverse as philology and cos- mogony, substances as different as zinc and protoplasm, media as distinct as the air and the ether, systems as widely separated as those of Sirius and Jupiter, have each been sub- jected to the observation, the experiment, and the reasoning which are characteristic of this method. By its aid, indeed, almost every field of inquiry has been cultivated, and few fields have failed to yield fresh accessions to knowledge. In the domain of the mathematico-physical sciences no generalization of the period in question is comparable in importance with that of the doctrine of energy. In this doc- trine the earlier conception of the impossibility of perpetual motion is replaced by the clearer and broader conception of the impossibility of creating or destroying energy. All me- chanical systems, and all of the varied mechanical phenomena presented by the universe, are thus held to exhibit the com- mon property of conservation of energy. It is to the recog- nition of this law that are due in a large degree the recent remarkable developments in the useful applications of ther- modynamics, electricity, and magnetism; while the exigencies of those developments have stimulated in a noteworthy man- Mathematics s 6 ^ 0^0 ner numerous researches in pure mathematics. As a corollary, almost, has resulted also a more or less complete correlation of the sciences of heat, light, electricity, and magnetism ; and a still further correlation, if not a complete unification, is con- fidently expected. In the rational investigation of physical phenomena the question of the energy involved is everywhere uppermost; and no such investigation meets the requirements of the present day unless the source, the transformations, and the resultant form of the energy are accounted for. Along with the rapid growth and multiplication of the sci- ences which have been such prominent characteristics of the civilization of the past half-century, there is noticeable also a rapid growth in the interrelations of those sciences. Chemis- try, for example, has come to be closely allied to physics ; physics is largely applied mechanics ; geology shades off by easy gradations into physical geodesy ; physical geodesy is only a branch of dynamical astronomy ; while mathematics is an indispensable instrument for all of them, and biology must evidently in the near future draw heavily on most of them for the solution of its problems. It is in this growth of interrelations that one may discern the beginnings of cor- relations and generalizations which will simplify and unify the appalling aggregate of knowledge now presented by the sciences. And it is thus that the evils of specialization, which have been somewhat deplored of late, evils necessary to the fact-gathering stage of the sciences, will find their proper correction. If such have been the characteristic features of the progress of science in general during the past fifty years, what role is to be assigned to the mathematical work which has been pro- moted directly or indirectly by the Smithsonian Institution in the fields of American science ? To the casual reader of the bulky catalogue of the "Contributions to Knowledge," "Mis- 564 TJie Smithsonian Institnfion cellaneous Collections," and "Annual Reports," issued in 1886, it might appear that the Institution has done little toward the increase and diffusion of mathematical knowledge. But no such conclusion can be justly reached in the light of anything like a comprehensive view of the work of the Smithsonian Institution in the advancement of science. It is, indeed, essential, first, to understand this work as a whole be- fore any of its parts can be duly appreciated. Relatively, it is clear that mathematics, the oldest and most perfect of the sci- ences, has been much less in need of encouragement during the period in question than the physical and natural sciences. Moreover, the necessities of American life have called, until very recently, for the applications rather than for the abstract theories of mathematics. It is a natural and logical outcome, therefore, of the conditions of science and of American life that the bulk of the work of the Institution should be found in the physical and natural sciences. But these, in the aggre- gate, require for their interpretation the whole range of mathematics ; and since it is through the concrete that the abstract is approached, the diffusion of mathematical know- ledge has doubtless been greater by this indirect process than it could have been by any direct means. Thus the en- couragement and aid given by the Smithsonian Institution to astronomy, geodesy, meteorology, and physics, especially, must be rated as of great importance ; for mathematical studies in this country have been cultivated hitherto chiefly as a means to the attainment of the objects of those other sciences. The history of the Smithsonian Institution is practically coextensive with the history of the Naval Observatory, or- ganized in 1842, and with that of the Coast and Geodetic Survey as reorganized in 1843. ^^ these governmental bureaus which make extensive use of pure and applied Mathematics :; 6 ^ 0^0 mathematics the Institution has always shown a Hvely inter- est, and much of the success of their earher work seems to be directly traceable to the wise counsel and warm support of Joseph Henry. The more recent governmental organiza- tions, the Weather Bureau and the Geological Survey, whose work is also largely dependent on mathematical science, have drawn their inspiration, as well as a great part of their working data, directly from the Smithsonian Institution. The interest taken by Joseph Henry in the progress of the more abstruse mathematical theories of astronomy and geod- esy forms a noteworthy feature of his annual reports. These reports show that the Institution was in touch with the ablest mathematicians of the country, and that no branch of their science was so abstract as to be beyond the recognition and aid of the Secretary. It seems strange in the present day of open avenues to the publication of meritorious works that at a time less than fifty years ago there could have been diffi- culty in finding a publisher for so great a treatise as Pro- fessor Benjamin Peirce's " Analytical Mechanics." Still more strange does it appear that the cooperation of the Smithsonian Institution with the Navy Department should have been es- sential to secure the publication of so important a work as Davis's translation of Gauss's "Theoria Motus Corporum Coelestium." But publishers in those days found little demand for, and less profit in, contributions to knowledge. Science as such had not yet been recognized by the colleges, and there were only a few men, mostly in the Eastern States, who found in their surroundings any encouragement of their devotion to abstract studies. Even the orovernment bureaus, like the Naval Observatory, the Nautical Almanac Office, and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, had not yet reached an indepen- dent footing in regard to the publication of researches indis- pensable to the progress of their work. It is only in the light 566 The Smithsonian Institution of these circumstances that one can appreciate the value of the services rendered by the Smithsonian Institution in the encouragement of mathematical research in this country during the fifteen years preceding the outbreak of the Civil War. At the time of the publication of Peirce's "Analytical Mechanics," in 1855, as appears from the list of subscribers, there were in the United States only nine institutions or libraries whose authorities or patrons evinced any desire for such a work. Of these institutions the Smithsonian was the leading subscriber, undertaking the distribution of twenty- five copies of the treatise, while its merits were the subject of special remark by the Secretary in his annual report of the time. A little later, in 1857, through the good offices of Joseph Henry, was brought out Davis's translation of the master-work of Gauss already referred to. It was in this period, likewise, that the Smithsonian Institution extended its aid to the mathematical monthly founded by Professor J. D. Runkle in 1858, which promised to give an important stimulus to mathematical work in this country, but which failed to secure adequate support with the advent of the ab- sorbing questions of the Civil War. During these ante- bellum days, also, were begun, largely through the influence of Joseph Henry and the aid of the Smithsonian Institution, those invaluable researches in terrestrial magnetism which have since been so widely extended by the Coast and Geo- detic Survey through the indefatigable labors of Mr. Charles A. Schott. In the laborious and refined calculations required by such researches Henry evinced, as shown by his annual reports, the warmest interest, even going so far as to call conspicuous attention to the application of Peirce's criterion for the rejection of doubtful observations in the discussion of magnetic and meteorological data. In later years, also, he did much to stimulate mathematical research in dynamical Mathematics 567 astronomy, physical geodesy, and mechanical meteorology, some of the most important papers of the century on these subjects being directly due to his suggestions and encourage- ment. Throughout his career as Secretary he was in close contact with the most profound mathematical thought of the day, and although not a professed mathematician, few men of his time could have been more fertile in suggesting sub- jects for mathematical research. Science knows no nation- ality, but the pride of Americans may be excused for enter- taining a regret that Henry did not have his mathematician as Faraday had his Maxwell. Of the various mathematical, geographical, magnetic, me- teorological, and physical tables giving numerical data and rules for their application, published by the Smithsonian In- stitution, little need be written here. Suffice it to remark that these tables have been widely used, and are of great utility ; while their educational value has doubtless been of equal importance with their practical usefulness. Intimately related to these tables, and in many cases incorporated with them, is the information which the Institution has dissem- inated with regard to the simplicity and advantages of the metric system, whose adoption by our country seems now near realization. Since the legalization of the use of the metric system in the United States by act of Congress in 1866, the Institution has published many tables facilitating the interconversion of English and metric weights and mea- sures. The most elaborate of these were prepared by Pro- fessor H. A. Newton in 1866. The importance of this in- formation, freely disseminated by the Institution, can hardl\- be overestimated by one who looks beyond his own day and generation. As an indirect means for promoting the cultivation of mathematics, the numerous memoirs on mathematico-physical 568 The Smithsonian Institution subjects published by the Smithsonian Institution must be rated as of great importance. Among these may be cited the astronomical papers of Walker, Gould, Runkle, Newcomb, and Stockwell ; the papers on heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, by Meech, Bache, Barnard, Miiller, De La Rive, Helmholtz, Maxwell, and others ; the papers on meteorology of Henry, Schott, Coffin, and Abbe ; the remarkable re- searches of Plateau ; and the more recent elaborate summa- ries of current progress in astronomy, geology, meteorology, and physics. Falling, as these papers have, under the eyes of a great many readers, they cannot have failed to produce a wide-spread interest in the one science which is a common necessity to all sciences that have to deal with quantitative relations. To this general diffusion of mathematico-physical knowledge by the Smithsonian Institution must be ascribed, in a large measure, the noteworthy impulse which mathemati- cal study and research have acquired in the United States during the past two decades. Another indirect means, no less potent than that just mentioned, in stimulating mathematical inquiry is found in the numerous memoirs on, and biographies of, distinguished devotees to the mathematico-physical sciences published in the annual Reports of the Smithsonian Institution. Nothing is more interesting and inspiring, for example, than Arago's admirable biographical notices of Laplace, Young, Herschel, Ampere, and others, which have been translated by the Insti- tution and given wide publicity through those annual Reports. In this connection, also, mention should be made of the semi- popular addresses on various subjects in the physical sciences, which have likewise reached the reading public through the annual Reports. The seeds of knowledge and inspiration sown broadcast in this manner have taken root in many minds ; and it is doubtless due in no small degree to the Mathematics 569 general enlightenment thus disseminated that something like adequate provision has been recently attained in our colleges and universities for the pursuit of the higher branches of mathematical science. A summary comparison of the status of mathematical science in our country at the time of the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution with the present status shows that great progress has been made during the half-century which has since elapsed. At the beginning of this period a few only of our educational institutions afforded opportunities for the pursuit of studies in mathematics beyond the elements of algebra and geometry. Now almost every State in the Union has a college or technological school whose curriculum em- braces the calculus, with its applications to mechanics, astron- omy, geodesy, etc. ; and not a few of our institutions of learn- ing are provided with the libraries and the teaching staff essential to the prosecution of research in the most advanced fields of pure and applied mathematics. At the beginning of this period there was no journal in the country devoted to purely mathematical work. Now there are three such jour- nals, while many others offer ready publication to the physi- cal and technological applications of mathematics. During the past two decades, particularly, there has been a note- worthy development throughout the country of interest in all branches of pure mathematics. Quite recently our mathe- maticians have organized an association, under the name of the American Mathematical Society, for the special purpose of advancing their favorite science ; and the reproach of Eu- ropeans that we have hitherto shown little capacity for cul- tivating the more abstract domains of mathematics seems destined to be removed in the near future by the formation of a distinctively American school of mathematicians. Not less striking and gratifying than these advances in a theo- Z1 570 The Smithsonian Institution retical and educational way are the advances made in the way of appHcations in the mathematico-physical sciences. Observational and dynamical astronomy, geophysics, meteor- ology, thermodynamics, and engineering in all its branches have nowhere been cultivated more diligently and success- fully during the past fifty years than in the United States. Many individuals and many institutions, of course, have con- tributed to bring about this progress ; but all have been ani- mated by the same desire that has been so effectively carried out by the founder and the administrators of the Smithsonian Institution, a desire to increase knowledge and to diffuse knowledge among men. ASTRONOMY By Edward Singleton Holden Director of the Lick Observatory [T is the object of the present chapter to set forth, with such fullness as is permitted by the neces- sary limitations of space, the services of the Smithsonian Institution to astronomy during the half-century of its existence, from 1846 to 1896, In this department of science, as in others, the Institution has steadily kept in view the two high ideals formulated by its founder — namely, the increase of natural knowledge and its wide diffusion amonof men. In the prosecution of these ideals it has engaged in the most diverse investigations, either directly or indirectly. Directly — by the individual researches of its Secretaries and other officers: indirectly — in varied ways; by personal in- fluence upon scientific societies and individuals and with Con- gress ; by service upon scientific boards and councils ; by advice in the formation of scientific programs ; by subsidies freely granted in aid of research ; by the loan of its halls or apparatus for special investigations ; by opening the pages of its publications to the printing of scientific memoirs and of popular summaries and bibliographies; and by distributing 571 5/2 The Smithsonian Institution these and other pubHcations, without cost, to thousands of its correspondents all over the civilized globe. It is by these and like services to the world at large that the Institution is known and valued among the wide commu- nity of scientific men. But this enumeration does not in itself exhibit the im- mense influence which it has exerted in its own country. Up to the beginning of the war of the Revolution American science was in leading-strings as the child of British learn- ing. It was not until the first third of the present century had elapsed that any considerable part of the energies of our young country could be turned from pressing material needs and devoted to scientific ends. It was of the first im- portance that the beginnings of independent investigation among Americans should be directed toward right ends, and by high and unselfish aims. In the formation of a scientific standard among us, a few names will ever be remembered, and among them that of Professor Henry, the first Secre- tary of the Smithsonian Institution, stands preeminent. The ardent spirit of his early manhood excited his contemporar- ies to a generous emulation, and it ripened with time to a broad, grave, and kind wisdom, which profoundly influenced a younger generation of scholars, his successors and his scien- tific children. It is not unlikely that the greatest service of the Smith- sonian Institution to the country has been the constant ex- hibition, in its general policy and in its daily relations for half a century, of a high and generous ideal. Its influence in this direction cannot be over-estimated ; and the source of this influence was in the character of its organizer. Any sketch of its services would be most inadequate which failed to em- phasize this fundamental point. A complete list of all the publications of the Smithsonian Astronomy 573 Institution during the fifty years of its existence is given elsewhere. By consuking this Hst the chronological order of its contributions to astronomy can be seen. I have chosen to arrange the present chapter not chronologically, but by subjects, so as to bring out more prominently the very varied activities of the Institution and its unfailing and impartial sympathy with any research likely to increase the sum of knowledge. SOLAR ECLIPSES The Institution has taken an active part in researches con- nected with solar eclipses by preparing and distributing in- formation concerning them, and by subsidizing expeditions to observe their phenomena. In 1 85 1, Doctor Busch, of Konigsberg, had made a da- guerreotype of an eclipse. The annular eclipse of May 26, 1854, was observed in the United States, according to instruc- tions sent out by the Institution, and was photographed by Professor W. H. C. Bartlett in West Point, and by Professor S. Alexander in Princeton. The expense of these experi- ments was borne by the Smithsonian Institution. The eclipse of September 7, 1858, was observed by Lieu- tenant J. M. Gilliss at Olmos, in Peru, by the aid of a subsidy from the Institution, and his report is printed in \'olume xi of the "Contributions to Knowledo-e" The eclipse of July 18, i860, also was observed by expe- ditions sent from the Smithsonian Institution under Professor Alexander (to Labrador) and Lieutenant Gilliss (to Washing- ton Territory). Among the collections of the Institution is a map con- structed by Professor J. H. Coffin, "on which are delineated the paths of all the great solar eclipses of the nineteenth cen- -.7* 574 The Smithsonian Institution tury which traverse the United States. These are nine in number. Seven of them have passed ; the first of the remain- ing two will occur in October, 1865, and the other in August, 1869." The foregoing quotation, from the Report for 1854, is interesting as showing, incidentally, how the distribution of the population in the United States has changed since 1854, for besides those named there were two other great eclipses visible within our territory — namely, that of July, 1878, from Wyoming to Texas; and that of January, 1889, in northern California and Nevada; but in making his map of 1854 Professor Coffin did not think it worth his while to chart these tracks which passed through unknown wildernesses. They were both well observed, however, by parties who traveled by railway from the Atlantic seaboard, bringing complete equipments in photography and spectroscopy. The Reports of 1878 and of 1879 refer to a work by Pro- fessor D. P. Todd, undertaken under the auspices of the In- stitution, relating to the interpretation of the observations of ancient eclipses of the sun, with special reference to the de- termination of the moon's secular acceleration. This work has not yet been published. A series of photographic prints of the corona as seen at the total solar eclipse of January, 1889, was issued by the Institution under the editorship of Professor D. P. Todd, as a separate quarto, but was not included in the regular series of "Contributions to Knowledge." It consisted of nine pages of text, with two photographic plates, showing nine different views of the solar corona during the total eclipse. This comprises all of the active work pertaining to solar eclipses that has been accomplished by the Smithsonian Insti- tution, although the United States National Museum has profited greatly by collections that have been gathered by the different parties sent out. Astronomy 575 THE SOLAR CORONA DISCUSSED BY SPHERICAL HAR- MONICS, BY PROFESSOR FRANK H. BIGELOW The structure of the solar corona, as exhibited on photo- graphs, consists of polar rays, four "wings" symmetrically dis- posed on two axes, and extensive equatorial wings. These appearances seen in the meridian section must be translated into corresponding zones and sectors on the figure of revolu- tion of the sun. The paper of Professor Bigelow proposes to make this interpretation by the theory of spherical harmonics, on the supposition that we see a phenomenon similar to that of free electricity, the rays being lines of force and the coronal matter being discharged from the body of the sun, or arranged and controlled by these forces. The first business of the paper is to put these pre-suppositions into mathematical form, and to construct the theoretical lines of equipotential and of force. This theory once formulated, the next step is to test it by the corona, and for this purpose the corona of January, 1889, is chosen, as exhibited on the photographs made by the par- ties of the Lick Observatory and of the Harvard College Observatory. The test has been applied by the author to the two photographs, and his conclusion is that the phenomena displayed on the photographs are explained by the theory. The paper is admittedly a provisional one. and it forms part of a much wider research now in progress on the problem of the transference of energy from the sun to the earth. This paper comprises twenty-two pages and is illustrated with four diagrams, and one phototype plate. It was published in quarto form in the same style as that of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," but was not included in the volumes of that series. It was given to the public in 1889. 576 The Smithsoniaii Institution LIST OF OCCULTATIONS VISIBLE IN THE UNITED STATES, AND ELSEWHERE At the date of the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution (1846) the vast territory west of the Mississippi River was unmapped, and, in a large measure, unknown. One of the first practical duties of astronomers was to take scientific possession of it — to determine the latitude and longitude of points within it which would serve as origins for detailed surveys.^ The great precision of longitudes determined by obser- vations of occultations was early recognized by American astronomers,^ and from the year 1848 onwards, lists of such phenomena were printed and distributed by the Smithsonian Institution. The calculations and tables were made by Mr. John Downes, and his results were of great service to the officers of the United States Coast Survey, to the topograph- ical engineers of the Army, and to other explorers and sur- veyors. They were especially useful in the newly-acquired territory on the Pacific Coast. Faithful to its general and wise policy, the Institution carried on the preparation and publication of these tables until the establishment^ of the ** American Ephemeris" enabled a transfer of this responsibility to be made to other competent hands. 1 " When we consider the character and 2 Occultations were regularly observed at condition of the vast Continent of North Harvard College Observatory during the America, which it belongs to us chiefly to years 1846 to 1850. See " Memoirs of Anier- reduce to a habitable and civilized state, ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, Second we shall perceive that the practical scien- series," Volume iii, 1848. tific explorer has no higher duty than to 3 The preparation of the " American Ephe- settle the geography, the magnetism, the meris " was begun in 1849, and the theoreti- natural history, and the climate of these cal portion of the work w.as placed under the regions." — "Smithsonian Report," 1852, direction of Benjamin Peirce, of Harvard page 237. University. JAMES ABEAM GARFIELD. REGENT OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1865-1873, 1878-1879. uized by ^\n t l-l C »_1 L :S pitjpciraLioii acu puuiiCc^iiuii oi uic- :.ablishrnen ' ' ' " merican Ephemeris" enai nsibility to be mad. her c- ■..it, ddSf^^^^ .^At OTP, r_PTP. t rinp, r >w': Astronomy 577 LUNAR PHOTOGRAPHY The Report for 1893 contains the following paragraph on this subject, written by Doctor Langley, explaining the plans of the Institution : " I have been interested for a considerable time in the possibility of preparing a chart of the moon by photography^ which would enable geologists and selenographers to study its surface in their cabinets with all the details before them which astronomers have at command in the use of the most powerful telescopes. Such a plan would have seemed chimer- ical a few years ago, and it is still surrounded with difficulties; but it is probable that within a few years it ma)- be success- fully carried out. " No definite scale has been adopted, but it is desirable that the disk thus presented should approximate in size one two- millionth of the lunar diameter ; but while photographs have been made on this scale, I do not think any of them show detail which may not be given on a smaller one. I have been favored with the cooperation and interest in this work of the director of the Harvard College Observatory, of the Lick Observatory, and others, who, in response to a letter addressed to them on February 10, 1893, have obliged me with many valuable suggestions. This important work is still under advisement." In aid of experiments in lunar photography at the Lick Observatory, several small and timely grants of money have been made. The present state of the research at Mount Hamilton is that its focal negatives (about five and one quarter inches in diameter) are being enlarged by photography to a scale of ten feet to the diameter by Professor L. Weineck. Director of the Observatory in Prague, and it is expected that a complete 578 The Smithsonian Institution atlas of the whole moon will soon be published on this scale from Lick Observatory negatives chiefly (a few sheets from the excellent Paris negatives) by the aid of a grant from the Vienna Academy of Sciences. An enlarging lens provided by the Smithsonian Institution allows direct enlargements in the telescope (5 diameters) to be made, and the resulting grain of the plate is proportionally finer. It is the hope of the Lick Observatory to prepare the plates for two complete maps of the moon from these direct enlargements, First : To a scale of three Paris feet to the diameter (the scale of Madler's map) ; Second : To a scale of six Paris feet to the diameter (the scale of Schmidt's map). The first of these will serve for most observatory purposes, and for a general portrayal of the lunar features. Several sheets of this map have already been published. The second will be especially fitted for a more detailed exhibition of the geologic and topographic features in the manner referred to by Doctor Langley. Nothing but the great expense of the plates prevents the immediate prosecu- tion of these plans. THE ORBIT OF NEPTUNE Neptune was discovered in 1846 by Professor Galle in Berlin from predictions by Leverrier, and the announcement of this brilliant achievement was received with enthusiasm in Europe and in America. It was essential to calculate its orbit as soon and as com- pletely as possible from the short arc of its path traversed since the first observation of Galle. If, by chance, the planet Astrono7ny 5 79 had been previously observed as a fixed star, it would be of f-reat importance to recover such an observation, and thus to make a longer arc of the planet's orbit available. Professor Sears C. Walker, at that time one of the astron- omers of the United States Naval Observatory, undertook the investigation, utilizing the first four months during which the planet had been under observation. He first computed a preliminary orbit, and traced the motion of the planet backwards to determine in what portion of the sky and at what time it might possibly have fallen among the fixed stars of some catalogue and have been observed as one of them. His methodical manner of procedure was sure to detect such an observation if it had been made, so that it was by no accident that he discovered an ancient determination of the position of the planet among the zone observations of Lalande in 1795. In this way a position of the planet was obtained fifty years earlier than the date of its discovery, and a long arc of its orbit was determined by observation instead of a very short one. With the data thus available Walker calculated new elements of the planet and prepared ephemerides of its positions each year from 1846 onwards. Much of this computation was done at the expense of the Smithsonian Institution, and the results were duly printed in the "Con- tributions to Knowledge " and they constitute a work of sterling value. The orbit of Neptune was also investigated by Professor Peirce, of Harvard College, and the principal perturbations calculated, so that the pure elliptic orbit of Walker could be corrected for the action of the disturbing planets, and the ephemeris correspondingly improved. The discovery of Lalande's early observation, and the prompt utilization of it 580 The Smithsonian Institution by Walker, was a genuine service to science by American astronomy. A perusal of this and other works of Walker — and of those of Coffin, Gould, Gilliss, Hubbard, Peirce, and others, his col- leagues and contemporaries — will go far to exhibit to students of the present generation how thoroughly American astron- omy of fifty years ago was grounded in the classic methods of Gauss, Bessel, and Struve. A very complete history of the discovery of Neptune, writ- ten by Doctor B. A. Gould, was printed and distributed by the Institution in 1850 as an octavo pamphlet. The "Contributions to Knowledge"^ in 1866 contains an investigation of the orbit of Neptune and tables of its motion, being the first publication of the long series of such researches which are owed to Professor Newcomb. The theory of Neptune had previously been investigated by Peirce and Walker in America, and by Kowalski and Wackerbarth in Europe. But in 1863 the difference between observation and calculation had risen to ^2!' ^^^ 22" in the two coordinates, and the theory evidently required revision in order to perfect the tables, on the one hand, to see if the discrepancies might arise from a trans- Neptunian planet. This is one of the four main problems proposed for solution by the author, the others being a new determination of the elements from the 40° already traversed by the planet in its orbit ; a new determination of the mass of Uranus ; and the construction of tables covering the dates from a. d. 1600 to 2000. The formuLne for perturbations are developed in chapter II, and seven normal places from 1846 to 1863 are formed. Lalande's observation of i 795 receives a new and careful re- duction, which shows it to differ from the adopted theory by 1 Volume x\% first paper. Astronomy 581 only 2" . 3 in longitude, o". 7 in latitude. The normals formed from modern observations differ about o". 3, which gives no support to the suspicion of a trans-Neptunian planet, although nothing is definitely settled, as a planet exterior to Neptune might exist and yet give small evidence of its attractions dur- ing the years i 795-1 863. The standard system of star-places adopted is that of Gould. The mass of Uranus resulting from the discussion is 21000 - Observations with the great telescope in Washington (made by Newcomb in 1874 and later) give 2^0- New elements of the planet are deduced, two of which may well be quoted here, viz. : Mean distance, 30.07055 ; periodic time, 164.782 Julian years. THE ORBIT OF URANUS Professor Newcomb's " Investigation of the Orbit of Uranus," with tables of its motion, was published as No. 262 of the "Contributions to Knowledge" in 1873. The work was undertaken as early as 1859, and the orbit of Neptune, just referred to, was a part of the general re- search. The first chapter of the work is devoted to a method of development of the perturbations which is novel in many respects, and is especially suited to the particular problem in hand. With improved elements and methods the research was again begun in 1868, and carried to its termination in 1873, by the aid of the Smithsonian Institution and of the "American Ephemeris." In the Report for 1872 Professor Newcomb presents some considerations on the scope of his researches, from which the following is taken. 582 The Sniithsoiiimi Instihition " The first chapter of the work gives an exposition of the method employed in calculating the action of the disturb- ing planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune on the motion of Uranus. In the second chapter this method is illustrated by quite a detailed calculation of the perturbations of Uranus produced by Saturn, including, however, only those which are of the first order with respect to the disturbing force. In the third, the perturbations produced by Jupiter and Neptune are given, but the computations are not presented with the same detail. The fourth chapter opens with a preliminary investigation of the orbit of Saturn, using Hansen's per- turbations and the Greenwich observations, the object being the accurate determination of the terms of the second order. This is followed by the computation of the terms of the second order produced by Saturn, which includes those containing as a factor either the square of the mass of that planet or the product of its mass by that of Jupiter or by that of Uranus. The most remarkable of these terms is one of very long pe- riod, in which the results differ materially from those of other authorities, including Leverrier, Delaunay, Adams, and Han- sen, who all agree among themselves. I cannot find any error in my work, and so must, of course, retain my own re- sult, leaving it to future investigators to find the cause of the discrepancy. The difference is of such a nature that it cannot affect the computed position of the planet until after the lapse of more than a century. " The sixth chapter gives a discussion of all the observations of Uranus which have been published and reduced in such manner as to be made use of The entire number is 3763. The correction to a provisional theory given by each series of observations is deduced. The object of the seventh chap- ter is to apply such corrections to the elements of Uranus and the mass of Neptune that the observations shall be repre- sented with the smallest possible outstanding errors. The mass of Neptune comes out Y9TF0' almost exactly the same as that found by Professor Peirce more than twenty years ago.^ 1 The mass of Neptune determined by Professor Newcomb's observations with the great telescope in Washington in 1874 and subsequently is r^i?^. E. S. H. Astronomy 583 The representation of the observations by tne concluded theory will probably be regarded as good. The mean out- standing difference during each five years since the discovery of the planet only exceeds a second of arc in a single in- stance — namely, during the years 1822-26, when it amounts to i". \} "This agreement is very much better than any obtained before. Still, the vast number of observations used, and the care taken to reduce them to a uniform standard, led me to believe a better representation possible ; and the outstand- ing differences, minute though they be, follow a regular law, thus showing that they do not arise from the purely accidental errors of observation. How far they arise from errors in my own theoretical computations, how far from the reductions of the observations themselves, and how far from the unavoid- able errors of the instruments, I am unable to say without further investigation. It would be desirable to learn whether they may be due to the action of a trans- Neptunian planet, but to do this would require an entire re- reduction of all the older observations. Such a work is on many accounts an astronomical desideratum ; but it could not be undertaken except under the auspices of the government. " In the eighth chapter the general formulae and elements are collected and expressed in the form most convenient for permanent use. "The ninth, and concluding, chapter gives the tables by which the position of the planet may be computed for any time between the Christian era and the year 2300."^ Professor Newcomb's later works on planetary theory are mostly printed in the volumes of Memoirs printed by the "American Ephemeris."^ 1 The angular diameter of Uranus is about and Nautical Almanac " from 1857 till 1897. 4". E. S. H. He entered the United States Xa\-j' in the - "Smithsonian Report," 1872, page 25. first named year as computer on the Alma- 3 It is interesting to mention in this connec- nac, and became its Superintendent in 1877, tion that Professor Newcomb was connected in which capacity he continued until his re- with the office of the " American Ephemeris lirement. 584 The Sniitksoman Institution VARIATIONS OF THE ORBITS OF EIGHT PLANETS The following summaries from the paper ^ itself will give an idea of its scope and of some of its principal results. The reciprocal gravitation of matter produces disturbances in the motion of the heavenly bodies, causing them to deviate from the elliptic paths they would follow if they were attracted only by the sun. The inequalities in the motions of the heavenly bodies are produced in two distinct ways. The first is a direct disturb- ance in the elliptic motion of the body, and the second is produced by reason of a variation of the elements of its elliptic motion. The elements of the elliptic motion of a planet are six in number — viz., the mean motion of the planet and its mean distance from the sun, the eccentricity and inclination of its orbit, and the longitude of the node and perihelion. The first two are invariable ; the other four are subject to both periodic and secular variations. The periodic inequali- ties pass through a complete cycle of values in a compara- tively short period of time ; while the secular inequalities are produced with extreme slowness. The general theory of all the planetary inequalities was completely developed by Lagrange and Laplace nearly a century ago. Owing to the immediate requirements of astronomy, more attention has been bestowed upon the periodic than on the secular inequali- 1 Stockwell, John N.,"The Secular Vari- and right ascension," 1872, in Volume xviii aliens of the Elements of the Orbits of tlie of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Know- Eight Principal Planets, Mercury, Venus, the ledge." The expense of printing this paper Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and was met by the gift of $1200 from Mr. Leon- Neptune, with tables of the same ; together hard Case of Cleveland, Ohio, who preferred with the obliquity of the ecliptic and the pre- at that time that his name should not be cession of the equinoxes in both longitude mentioned. Astronomy 585 ties, and in most researches it is sufficient to suppose that the latter sort vary uniformly with the time. The demonstration that the secular inequalities of the planets are not indefinitely progressive, but are, in fact, themselves periodic, is due to Laplace, who showed that the elements of the planets will perpetually oscillate about their mean values, provided only that all the planets revolve round the sun in the same direction — as they do. In order to calculate the limits of the variations of the elements with precision, it is necessary to know the correct values of the masses of all the planets. The calculations of Lagrange (on the six planets known to him) were based on erroneous values of their masses. Ponte- coulant's investigations (1834) did not improve our knowledge in this respect. Leverrier's researches (1839) on the seven planets then known are far from being exhaustive. The ob- ject of the present paper is to make as complete a determina- tion of the variations of the elements of the eight planets of the system as is possible. By the introduction of new methods of research the author has solved the problem in hand, and has obtained formulae which will determine the secular variations of the planetary elements with less labor than would be necessary for the accurate determination of a comet's orbit. Some of the conclusions derived may be briefly alluded to. The object of the investigation is to determine the numerical values of the secular orbits — namely, of the eccentricities and inclinations, and the longitudes of the nodes and perihelia, their values at any epoch, their rates of change, etc. A table at the Tend of the volume covering thirteen quarto pages gives these data, so far as they may be required by the astronomer in the prosecution of his work. A similar tabulation of the elements of the earth's orbit of .;8 586 The Smithsonian Institution sufficient extent to be useful in extended geological investi- gations does not come within the scope of the work. The nature of the results arrived at may be illustrated by quoting a paragraph regarding the planet Mercury. " For the planet Mercury, we find that the eccentricity is always included between the limits 0.124923 and 0.231 7185. The mean motion of its perihelion is 5". 463803 ; and it per- forms a complete revolution in the heavens in 237,197 years. The maximum inclination of its orbit to the fixed ecliptic of 1850 is 10° 36' 20", and its minimum inclination is 3^ 47' 8" ; while with respect to the invariable plane of the planetary system, the limits of inclination are 9° 10' 41" and 4° 44' 27". The mean motion of the node of Mercury's orbit on the ecliptic of 1850 and on the invariable plane is in both cases the same, and equal to 5". 126 172, making a complete revolu- tion in the interval of 252,823 years. The amount by which the true place of the node can differ from its mean place on the ecliptic of 1850 is equal to 30° 8', while on the invariable plane this limit is only 18° 31'." A knowledge of the elements of the earth's orbit is espe- cially interesting and important on account of the recent attempts to establish a connection between geological phe- nomena and terrestrial temperature, in so far as the latter is modified by the variable eccentricity of her orbit. The amount of light and heat received from the sun in the course of a year depends to an important extent on the eccentricity of the earth's orbit; but the distribution of the same over the surface of the earth depends on the relative position of the perihelion of the orbit with respect to the equinoxes, and on the obliquity of the ecliptic to the equator. These ele- ments are subject to great and irregular variations ; but their laws can now be determined with as much precision as the exigencies of science may require. A table of the eccentricity Astronomy 587 of the earth's orbit for every 10,000 years during a period of 2,000,000 years is given. The equinoxes perform a revolution in the average interval of 25,694.8 years. The maximum variation of the tropical year is now shorter than in the time of Hipparchus by 11.30 seconds. The mean value of the obliquity is 23° 1 7' i 7'', and the limits are 24° 35' 58" and 21° 58' 36". A paragraph on the advantages we derive from a spheroidal earth contains highly interesting conclu- sions too long to be quoted here. The duration of the different seasons is also greatly modi- fied by the eccentricities of the earth's orbit. At present the sun is north of the equator scarcely i86>^ days, and south of it 178^ days. In the past history of the earth these periods have been changed so as to give a summer, in one hemisphere, of 198% days, and a winter of only i66>^ days. The variations of the sun's distance from the earth in the course of a year, at such times, are also enormous, amounting to almost one- seventh part of its mean distance — a quantity scarcely less than 13,000,000 miles. The foregoing illustration of a few of the results of this memoir will show the far-reaching nature of the problems with which it deals, and perhaps of others, of no less im- portance, which it suggests. Its introduction of eighteen pages presents these problems in a clear light. HARMONIES OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM In this paper,^ which is printed in the "Contributions," Pro- fessor Stephen Alexander seeks to set forth certain numer- ical relations between the distances of the planets and 1 " Statement and Exposition of Certain Harmonies of the Solar System," 1875 ; in Volume XXI of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," first paper. 588 The Smithsonian Institution satellites, and devotes special sections to a modification of the nebular hypothesis of Laplace, and to a modifica- tion of Jones's theory of the zodiacal light. The memoir con- cludes with a summary of the coincidences between theory and fact. COMETS In the early years of the activity of the Institution the dis- covery of comets was rewarded, or, as it is better to say, com- memorated, by the award of a gold medal founded by the King of Denmark. Miss Maria Mitchell, of Nantucket,^ discovered a comet on October i, 1847, which was independently discovered in Europe by Da Vico (October 3), Dawes (October 7,) Madame Rumker (October 1 1), and which was known as Da Vico's comet for some time, owing to the slow mails of those days. To mark the fact of her discovery, the Institution gallantly awarded a premium to Miss Mitchell, but the precedent so set was not followed in subsequent discoveries by her male rivals — Bond, Van Arsdale, Tuttle, and others. Miss Mit- chell subsequently became a computer for the "American Ephemeris," and the gallantry was continued by assigning to her all the calculations relating to the planet Venus. The account of Miss Mitchell's discovery is given in the second volume of the "Contributions." COMET-ORBITS In the Report for 1862 is a most interesting letter from Professor Hubbard, of the Naval Observatory, describing his 1 Miss Mitchell was professor of astronomy in Vassar College from 1865 till 1889. Astrono7ny 589 researches on the orbit of Biela's comet for its six recorded appearances from 1772 to 1852, and asking for the aid of the Institution in calculating the perturbations over the whole interval from 1772 to 1865 (the next appearance), so as to unite, in a single theory, all the observed places of the comet. Professor Henry's printed note on this letter highly com- mends the project of Professor Hubbard, but indicates that the assistance desired could not be given at that time. Some assistance was, I believe, subsequently given. At any rate, astronomers have fully appreciated Hubbard's work on this comet, which was printed in the early volumes of the Astro- nomical Journal. The Report for 1874 contains a notice of a work of the same sort on the periodic comet of Tuttle (period 13.7 years), which was done by Professor Ormond Stone and assistants at the cost of the Smithsonian Institution. A careful compu- tation of the perturbations from 1871 to 1885 served as the basis for an ephemeris of the comet during its appearance in 1885 (published in Circular No. i of the McCormick Observatory), and the orbit is now in charge of Doctor Rahts, of the Observatory of Konigsberg. ORBIT AND PHENOMENA OF A METEORIC FIRE-BALL The "Contributions to Knowledge" contain a paper ^ by Professor James H. Coffin with the title given above. This great fire-ball was visible about 10 r. m. from Lake Mich- igan to a point at sea southeast of the island of Nan- tucket, — a distance of 1300 miles. The observed path of the meteor was its orbit with respect to the earth as a center of l"Tlie Orbit and Phenomena of a Meteoric Fire-Bali seen July 20. i860," in Volume XVI of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 1869.'" 590 The Sinithsoniaii Institution attraction. The velocity in the (hyperbolic) orbit was 9^ miles a second, approximately. As the meteor moved in its path, successive explosions took place, and it was found to be necessary to divide the orbit into three parts and to de- termine three sets of elements corresponding to the parts. The perigeal distances in the three sections were, for exam- ple : 40,007 miles, 3974 miles, 3995 miles, respectively. The meteor's nearest approach to the earth's surface was about 39 miles, which point corresponds to the end of the second sec- tion of its path. From this point onwards its height above sea increased. One of the employees of the United States Lake Survey describes the meteor (near Lake Huron) to have been nearly as large as the moon, at first. In a moment it had burst and a piece " fell directly to the ground near the place of observation, setting fire to the vegetable matter around it ; the fire was put out, but the piece could not be found." In Washington City the meteor was observed as two bodies near together, "each as bright as Venus when close to the earth." Its rate of motion was comparatively slow, so that one observer in New Jersey wrote: "The movement of the meteor appeared to be not much more rapid than the flight of an eagle I think I could have kept sight on it with a gun throughout its course." In reading the various reports from persons scattered over the Middle and Western States, it is remarkable to note the names of the observers. An extraordinarily large proportion of these names are well known to all Americans. All the astronomers — Young, Bond, Peters, Bartlett, Mitchel, Lyman, Newton, Swift, and others — appear to have seen it; there are reports from many professors in colleges; and a great number of the remainino- observers are well known in one way or another. It is seldom that the data for such an orbit are derived from reporters of such trained intelligence. Astronomy 591 METEORITES The Institution has paid great attention to the formation of a collection of meteorites and to the gathering of accurate information regarding the circumstances of their fall. It is an instructive proof of the wide influence of the Insti- tution to note that all phenomena of this kind are promptly reported to its Secretary. The first thought of observers of all classes is to communicate with the Smithsonian Institution, and this is also an excellent witness to the general intelligence of the country, as has been remarked by all who have had occasion to observe how widely this desire is spread and in what unexpected places it is found. STAR- MAPS A COMMITTEE of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, Pro- fessor H. A. Newton, Chairman, prepared a large and very convenient star-map of the north polar regions to aid in the observations of the August meteors, which was widel)- circu- lated at the expense of the Smithsonian Institution ; as well as a copy of the smaller map, from the Toronto observations, designed for observations of the aurora. Many observers took part in the charting of meteors, and their results have been discussed and published by Professor Newton and others in various journals. TRANSLATION OF GAUSS'S "THEORIA MOTUS" Gauss's monumental work, "Theoria Motus Corporum Ccelestium," was printed, in Latin, in the year 1809. The first German translation of it was not published until 1865. In the hope of familiarizing American students with the new 592 The Smithsonian Institution methods, Admiral C. H. Davis, then Superintendent of the "American Ephemeris," undertook an EngHsh translation, which was finally published by the firm of Little & Brown, publishers, of Boston, in 1857. The expense of the publication was shared by the Institu- tion, and a number of copies were subscribed for as exchanges and distributed in exchange for other books among foreign correspondents. Without this aid, the work, so essential to the advance of practical astronomy, could not have been issued. TABLES FOR DETERMINING PERTURBATIONS OF PLANETS In determining the mutual action of any two planets in the solar system, there are certain quantities depending upon the ratio of the mean distances of these bodies from the sun, which must first be computed. The number of these quantities, and the labor necessary to compute each one of them, make this first step in the reduction of the mutual action of the two plan- ets to numbers a serious work. The tables^ published by the Institution and calculated by Professor J. D. Runkle, accom- plish in a very satisfactory way the desired end of shortening the calculations referred to. Their use gives practically the same advantage in the computations to which they are applied that is afforded in arithmetical operations by a table of logarithms. The tables and the supplements contain the quantities which relate to the major planets and to the asteroids also. It is proper to add that the general theory, thus reduced to numbers, is due to Leverrier ; and that Walker had pre- viously printed (in an appendix to the "American Ephemeris" for 1857) a tabulation of the Leverrier coefficients. 1 " New Tables for Determining the Values the ratio of the mean distances," 1856, in Vol- of the Coefficients in the Perturbative Func- ume ix of the " Smithsonian Contributions tion of Planetary Motion, which depend upon to Knowledge," lifiii paper. Astronomy 59; ON THE GENERAL INTEGRALS OF PLANETARY MOTION This paper,^ on mathematical astronomy, is, in part, an ex- tension and generalization of two former papers by Profes- sor Newcomb, and is too strictly technical to allow of any short account of its thesis in this place. ASTRONOMICAL EXPEDITION TO CHILE In the years 1849- 1852 an expedition under Lieutenant Gilliss, of the United States Navy, was resident in Chile, engaged in various researches which required the cooperation of Northern and Southern observatories. The Congress of the United States appropriated the sum of $5000 to its use, but this amount was not sufficient to pro- vide all the necessary instruments. Accordingly, the Smith- sonian Institution stepped forward in 1849 to supply the need with the gift of $2000 to purchase an equatorial tele- scope, and in 1850 with a gift to supply an astronomical clock and chronograph. Congress subsequently appropriated funds to cover their cost, but the prompt action of the Institution saved a year to the observers. It is interesting" to remark that the in- struments were subsequently purchased by Chile, and set up in Santiago in a National Observatory, the first in South America. The National Observatory of the Argentine Re- public in Cordoba was also founded by an American, Doctor 13. A. Gould, in 1870. This is not the place to write the history of the astronom- ical expedition to Chile, honorable as it was to the country and to Gilliss himself. It may be found in the report of the 1 " On the General Integrals of Planetary Motion," 1S74. It forms the second paper in Volume xxi of the" Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." 594 • The Smithsonian Institution expedition, and, in a briefer form, in the eloge of Gilliss pre- pared by Gould for the National Academy of Sciences." Doctor Gould remarks that this expedition of Lieutenant Gilliss is noteworthy in the history of the country as the first instance of deference by the legislative and executive authorities of the nation to the views of the organized repre- sentatives of science within its borders. The appropriation by Congress was made because Gilliss's plans were approved by the American Philosophical Society and by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Again, the first refracting telescope of any considerable size made in America was constructed for use in Chile — namely, a six-inch telescope by Mr. Henry Fitz. The cost of the objective was $500. Gilliss's assistants were officers of the Navy — Messrs. Mac- Rae and Hunter, and subsequently Mr. Phelps. A summary of the work accomplished may fittingly termin- ate this brief notice. "Between the 6th of December, 1849, ^-^^^ the 13th of September, 1852, series of micrometric comparisons of Mars were made on forty-six days during the first and ninety-three days during the second apposition, and micrometric compari- sons of Venus on fifty-one days during the first and twenty- seven days during the second inferior conjunctions ; the observations on each day being continued through several hours, whenever the sky permitted." By a woeful lack of cooperation on the part of Northern observatories, this work of Gilliss's was rendered useless. Fortunately for science, and happily for Gilliss, his obser- vations were not limited to those which it was his special duty to make. Even these on Mars and Venus, which failed of their deserved fruit in affording those data they were in- 1 " Biographical Memoirs," Washington, 1877, Volume i, page 162. Astro) 10 my 595 stituted to obtain, are yet of priceless value in the means they afford for improving our knowledge of the orbits of our two neighboring planets. Among other astronomical fruits of the expedition to Chile I may mention the following : 7000 meridian observations of 2000 stars. These, with their instrumental and tabular re- ductions and a resultant catalogue, form a part of Volume iv of the series of the results of the expedition. Equal, if indeed not superior, in value to these are the 33,000 observations of about 23,000 stars within 2\\'^ of the South Pole. These comprise stars to the loth magnitude in- clusive, more than 20,000 of which had not been previously observed. Observations of earthquakes (124 shocks in three years), a very extended series of meteorological observations, and systematic observations of magnetism make another chapter of results to the credit of the expedition. ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS IN THE ARCTIC SEAS The famous expeditions of Doctor Kane to the Arctic, in the years 1853-54-55, yielded astronomical results of value, which were discussed by Charles A. Schott and printed by the care of the Institution. The observations are chiefly useful in fixing geographical positions on the chart of the expedition up to latitudes 81° and 82°. Meteorological, magnetic, and tidal observations of great value were also secured, and similarly discussed and published ; and the scientific results of the expedition are most satisfactory when the immense difficulty of work under such abnormal conditions is kept in view. The Arctic expeditions of Hall and Hayes were aided, in many respects, by the Smithsonian Institution, and the astro- 596 The Smithsonian Instittttion nomical observations of the former expedition made by Doctor Emil Bessels, were all reduced in Washington. TRANSATLANTIC LONGITUDE The determination of longitude ^ by telegraph was, as is well known, first practised by American astronomers. The differ- ence of longitude between Baltimore and Washington was fixed, in 1844, by Captain Wilkes, who compared his chro- nometer at Baltimore with signals received from Washington. Professor Sears C. Walker in 1845, "^^^ subsequently, put the telegraphic methods into practical form, and they were soon adopted as the work of a regular department of the Coast Survey, with the cordial support of Professor A. D. Bache, the Superintendent. Professor Loomis was a coadjutor of Walker in this work ; and subsequently the longitude ser- vice of the Survey was under the direction of Doctor B. A. Gould, who improved it in many respects. By the efforts of these astronomers, aided by the chronographs lately invented by Bond and Mitchel, and by devices due to Saxton and others, the methods of observation were brought to a high degree of accuracy. The observations themselves were re- duced by rigorous methods. From 1846 to 1861, the date of the beginning of the Civil War, the telegraphic determinations of longitude had followed the extension of the commercial lines of wire until, in the lat- ter year, they extended from the northeastern boundary of the United States to New Orleans, covering 2>< hours of longitude and 15° of latitude. The problem of the connec- tion of American with European longitude was on a different footinof. Until the Atlantic cable was available the ocean Ion- 1 Gould, Benjamin A., "The Transatlantic published in 1869 and forms the sixth pajier Longitude as determined by the Coast Sur- in Volume xvi of the "Smithsonian Contri- vey Expedition of 1866." This memoir was butions to Knowledge." Astrono7ny 597 gitude depended on less exact methods. The following table, abridged from Doctor Gould's memoir, gives the differences of longitude : GREENWICH OBSERVATORY — WASHINGTON OBSERVATORY, AS DETERMINED BEFORE 1866. From Occtdtatio7is and Eclipses. n. M. Walker: From his observations before 1843 5 8 11. 14 Peirce : From the eclipse of 185 1 ii-S7 Peirce : From emersions of the Pleiades, 1839. ... ii-45 Peirce: From emersions of the Pleiades, 1856-61 . , 'i^Z-'^Z From Lunar Culminations. Walker: From Cambridge observations, 1843-45. . Loomis : From Hudson observations, 1838-44 . . . Gilliss : From Capitol Hill observations, 1838-42 . Newcomb : From Washington observations, 1846-60 . Newcomb : From Washington observations, 1862-63 . s. 10.01 9-03 10.04 1 1.06 9.08 From Transportation of Chronometers betiveen Boston and Liverpool. s. Mean from 373 chronometers previous to 1849 12.52 Bond: From 175 chronometers, 1849 11.20 Walker: From 175 " 1849 12.06 Bond: From 175 " 1849 12.26 Bond: From 52 " 1855 1349 The Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Professor A. D. Bache, determined to take advantage of the Atlantic cable as soon as practicable, and plans for a longitude campaign were made by Doctor Gould. The methods employed on land lines required serious mod- ifications in the transatlantic work, and even the Canadian land-lines (Calais, Maine, to Heart's Content, in Newfound- land), could not be worked according to the methods usual in the Survey. The Astronomer- Royal, Professor Airy, had in- tended to make a transatlantic longitude campaign in June, 1867; but with his characteristic devotion to science, he en- 59^ The Smithsonian Institution tered into the Coast Survey campaign as if it were his own. The steps of the program determined the longitudes. H. M. S. I. Greenwich-Foilhommerum (Ireland) o 41 33.29 II. Foilhommerum-Heart's Content (cable) .... 2 51 56.54 III. Heart's Content-Calais (Maine) o 55 37.72 Greenwich-Calais 4 29 7.55 or, after correcting for a sHght error first pointed out by Dr. A. Wagner/ the result is — H. M. S. Greenwich-Calais 4 29 7.62 The numbers given above are the result of observations at five stations, and by the observers Dunkin and others (at Greenwich), Gould and Morgan (Foilhommerum), Dean and Goodfellow (Heart's Content), Davidson and Chandler (Ca- lais), Boutelle (Calais), It was not possible to eliminate the personal equations of these observers by interchanging sta- tions, and the observations for determining the corrections on this account lead to quite anomalous results, entirely at variance with the past experience of the observers. The personal equations actually employed in the reductions were obtained by assuming them to have such values as bring the various steps of the program into the best accordance. In the table below, column A gives the personal equations as determined by observation, while column B gives the values actually employed in the reductions : A B Observed. Adopted. s. S. Gould-Mosman 4-0-45 -I-0.02 Dean-Mosman -(-0.12 -|-o.ii Goodfellow-Dean -I-0.03 -I-0.02 Boutelle-Goodfellow —0-13 — 0.14 Boutelle-Chandler —0.22 — 0.04 Dunkin-Gould unknown. unknown. 1 Vierteljahrschrift der Astronomischen Gesellschaft, 1871, page 136. Astronomy 599 The longitude Calais-Washington depended upon the steps Calais- Bangor, Bangor- Cambridge, Cambridge- New York, New York-Washington, and the final result of the campaign gives Greenwich-Washington 5 h. 8 m. 12.39 ^•' c»r, corrected by Wagner, 5 h. 8 m. 1 2.46 s. It appears that the chronometer expeditions by Bond gave the result nearest to the determi- nation by cable. A second campaign was made by Mr. Dean in 1866 over the French cable from Brest to Duxbury, Massachusetts, and a third campaign in 1872, which connected the observatories of both Greenwich and Paris with the United States, and therefore incidentally gave the earlier telegraphic difference of longitude between these observatories. The resulting lon- gitude Greenwich-Washington was 5 h. 8 m. 12.09 s., which is the value now adopted (1896). The expedition of 1866 was conducted under unfavorable circumstances, and was not entirely satisfactory in all its parts. It was, however, the first attempt of this sort, and the first demonstration that such determinations could be success- fully carried out in the face of new and peculiar difficulties. The expeditions of 1870 and of 1872 followed the path traced out by Doctor Gould and his associates in i866, and the re- sults of the three expeditions taken together are a substantial addition to geodesy and astronomy. SURVEYS WEST OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH MERIDIAN The geographical and geological surveys of the region of the United States west of the one hundreth meridian, under Major Powell, Doctor Hayden, and Lieutenant Wheeler, re- spectively, were necessarily forced to pay much attention to the determination of geographical positions. In one way or an- other the Smithsonian Institution has forwarded their work 6oo The Smithsonian Institution in this respect and in others, and at least a passing record of its service should be made in this place. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES In 1 87 1, Doctor C. H. F. Peters, Director of the Hamilton College Observatory, addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, asking that the Institution should act as a central office for communicating by telegraph dis- coveries of planets and comets. Steps were immediately taken by Professor Henry to arrange for such service, and from 1873 to 1883 it was carried out under the auspices of the Institution. Great pains were taken by Professor Henry and Professor Baird to obtain the opinions of astronomers as to the best form of message. These telegrams were useful to American science, in spite of many errors which arose mainly from the fact that the Institu- tion had no astronomer to serve as critic and editor. The telegrams received by the Institution from discoverers were very often wrongly worded, and there was no control. These telegrams were widely disseminated by Associated Press despatches ; and in a more detailed and scientific form by the circulars of the Boston Scientific Society, edited by Mr. John Ritchie, from 1879 onwards. Mr. Ritchie and Doctor S. C. Chandler, in 1881, devised a special cipher-code for transmitting such telegrams, which was submitted to, but not accepted by, the Smithsonian Institution. During 1882- 1883 arrangements were concluded which resulted in the trans- fer of this service to the Harvard College Observatory.^ 1 See the "Smithsonian Report," 1883, page The Astronotnical Journal, Vohime VI, page 33, and The Science Observer, Volume iv, 189 (1888), and The Publieations of the page 33 (1883), for the contemporary and Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1896, official records of this transfer. See also Volume VI 1 1, pages 109 and 179. Astrono7ny 60 1 Mr. Ritchie was appointed to take charge of this depart- ment of the Observatory work, and Doctor Chandler cal- culated comet orbits, ephemerides, etc., for quick transmission to other observatories. The transfer of the Bureau of Astro- nomical Telegraphy from the Smithsonian Institution to the Harvard College Observatory was in exact conformity to the settled policy of the former establishment, which is to relinquish its own work to other responsible institutions so soon as the latter are willing and competent to undertake it. Under the new arrangement astronomers are sure of re- ceiving early warnings of the appearance of a new comet, etc., and orbits and ephemerides can now be quickly com- puted and distributed. To any one who recollects the state of such matters previous to 1873, ^'^^ improvement is most striking. It is due to the original suggestion of Doctor Peters, to its prompt adoption by the Smithsonian Institution, to the subsequent devices and editorship of Messrs. Chandler and Ritchie, and to the assumption of the necessary expenses by the Harvard College Observatory. The present astronomical service of Europe, under Pro- fessors Kriiger and Kreutz, of the Observatory of Kiel, is exceedingly prompt, able, and useful.^ EQUATORIAL OF HAMILTON COLLEGE OBSERVATORY This telescope, which in 1856 was the largest ever constructed in America — now the land of large telescopes — was made for Hamilton College by Charles A. Spencer. The trustees of the College officially requested the regents of the Smith- sonian Institution to appoint a committee of experts to re- port upon the instrument ; and the reasons alleged by the 1 Similar European telegrams were for- Professor Karlinski, of Cracow, in 1865. merly distributed by the Vienna Academy {Asfrouomischc-u Xiuhrichteti, Volume LXVi, of Sciences, according to a code devised by column 31 ; Volume LXXV, column 141.) 39 6o2 The Smithsonian Institution trustees for the request are interesting as showing the uni- versal confidence which the Institution had already con- quered. The following quotations will make this point clear. ''Again, the funds for the construction of this instrument, and the Observatory to which it is attached, were contributed by many persons interested in the advancement of science, and scattered throughout the State of New York. To these persons our Institution pledged itself to secure a first-class in- strument. The college corporation desires to satisfy them by an announcement from an authoritative quarter that it has faithfully fulfilled the trust, etc. •' Furthermore, . . . the undersigned, in behalf of the College, would be glad to establish a precedent, which might lead the purchasers of other astronomical instruments to sub- mit the question of their proper construction to your body, as being an institution central in its position and national in its character." The appointment of the Committee called for was one of the early precedents for the service of officers of the Smith- sonian Institution on boards and councils, in which their work has been of very wide usefulness. CORRECTION OF SEXTANTS FOR ERRORS A PAPER ^ on the above subject was published in 1890. It represents the results of thirty years' experience on the part of its author, Mr. Joseph A. Rogers. The paper has two main objects, the first being to set forth simple and practical methods by which an observer may determine the errors of any particular sextant ; the second, and perhaps more im- portant, object being to point out to observers generally how 1 "Tlie Correction of Sextants for Krrors of I'kcentricity and Gradation." It was published in 1890, in Volume xxxiv of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." Astronomy 603 observations with any sextant may be made exceedingly accurate by careful handling, and by the application of the corrections named above, and thus to create among ob- servers and instrument makers a higher standard of work and a consequent improvement in processes of manufacture. CONSTRUCTION OF A SILVERED-GLASS TELESCOPE Doctor Henry Draper published in 1864, through the me- dium of the Smithsonian Institution, a description of his con- struction of a telescope that has become a text-book for those engaged in the making of silver-on-glass reflectors.^ The reflector has in some special researches, as in photog- raphy and in some parts of celestial spectroscopy, a distinct advantage over the refractor ; and as the aperture increases, the difference in cost between a reflector and a refractor of the same size is very marked. There is somewhere a limit to the size of a refractor due to the fact that the incident light increases only as the square of the aperture, while the absorption of the light in passing through the glass increases in a far higher ratio. The ratio of focus to aperture in large refractors must be relatively large (in the Lick refractor it is 19 to i). On the other hand, large reflectors can be built of relativel)- short focus (in the Crossley reflector of the Lick Observatory the ratio of focus to aperture is about 6 to i), and they can be constructed at small cost, and mounted, — since they are comparatively short, — in relatively small domes. They are very sensitive to changes of temperature and to mechanical flexures, and for these and other reasons lar^e reflectors are often inferior in definition to refractors of equal aperture. But where, as 1 " On the Construction of a Silvered-Glass lished in 1S64, and is the third paper in Vol- Telescope, 15^ Inches in Aperture, and Its ume xiv of the "Smithsonian Contributions Use in Celestial Photography." It was pub- to Knowledge." 6o4 The Smithsonian Institution in spectroscopy, the definition is the secondary and the amount of Hght collected the primary consideration, large re- flectors will have the advantage. If the difficulties due to temperature, flexure, etc., are overcome, the reflector has another advantage in that the rays of all wave-lengths are brought to a single focus, which is not the case for the re- fractor. This constitutes a marked advance in certain fields of celestial photography. In 1857 Doctor Draper visited Lord Rosse's observatory at Parsonstown, and was privileged to see the operations of grinding and polishing mirrors of speculum metal. In 1858 he began the construction of a 15-inch speculum in America. In i860 speculum-metal was abandoned for silver-on-glass. During 1861 three mirrors were constructed of i5>^ inches aperture, and others smaller. In 1862 Doctor Draper was with his regiment in the Virginia campaign; but in the winter of that year two 1 5^2 -inch and two 9-inch mirrors were completed. The greater part of the year 1863 was devoted to lunar and planetary photography and to the enlargement of focal negatives. The various practical processes required for the manufac- ture of a perfect mirror are described in detail and at length. These descriptions are of the highest value, for they embody the results of long practical experience described by an ob- server of adequate theoretical knowledge. The first of these sections relates to experiments on a metal speculum. The next section refers to silvering the glass, and contains many practical hints. It is interesting to note that the film of sil- ver is about 2 0^) ^^ ^-^^ \\\q\\ in thickness, and of the same optical figure, therefore, as the glass surface. Its thinness can be expressed in a striking form by remarking that the value of the silver on a 15^ -inch mirror is not above one cent. The durability of these films (when kept free from Astronomy 605 sulphuretted hydrogen) is much greater than one might think. Grinding and poHshing glass are treated in several sections also. Rolled glass, such as was used for speculums, has axes of rigidity, which must be considered in mounting the mirrors. The effects of heat in deforming the image formed by a reflecting surface are next studied. The grind- ing-tools and the emery used with them are described, and, again, many points of practical value are brought out. The method of testing the optical surface is fully explained in de- tail. A section of the paper is devoted to the description of grinding-machines of various kinds. This is followed by sec- tions relating to eyepieces, plane mirrors, telescope-mounting (altazimuth), moving plate-holders for photographs, driving- clocks, cameras, the construction of an observatory, observing chair, the photographic laboratory, enlarging apparatus, mic- roscopic photography, and the like. In each and all of these sections, it is clear to the reader that he is obtaining the results of first-hand experience ac- quired not by one but by many trials. After completing the i5>^-inch mirror, Doctor Draper con- structed a 28-inch Cassigranian reflector, which he mounted equatorially (on a stand constructed by himself) alongside of an 1 1 -inch photographic refractor by Alvan Clark & Sons. The reflectors were at first employed in producing a large number of excellent photographs of the moon, and later in researches in stellar spectroscopy. Since Doctor Draper's too early death these and other in- struments have been presented by Mrs. Draper to the Harvard College Observatory. A large annual grant of money is made by Mrs. Draper for the continuation and extension of the researches begun by her husband, and under the skilful direction of Professor Pickering, the publications of the Draper Memorial have already been of high value to science. The 39* 6o6 TJie Smithsonian Institution sound theoretical knowledge of Doctor Draper, and his very extended experience in certain fields, are nowhere better ex- emplified than in the memoir, of which only a brief summary can be given. PENDULUM OBSERVATIONS The building of the Smithsonian Institution was early chosen as a suitable station for the determination of the force of gravity, and it has been used by the officers of the Coast Survey (Charles S. Peirce, Erasmus D. Preston, Edwin Smith, and others) and by foreign scientists for this purpose. AID TO "THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL" In the year 1849, Doctor B. A. Gould began the publication of The Astrono7nicaL Jour^ial, a periodical devoted solely to the interests of astronomy, and issued always at a loss. From the first the Institution has subscribed for a number of copies, which are regularly distributed to foreign corre- spondents, and this original subscription is still continued. BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE The following bibliographies relating to astronomy and astro- physics have been published by the Institution. " Index Catalogue of Books and Memoirs relating to Neb- ulae and Clusters, etc.," by Edward S. Holden (1877), in "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," Volume xiv. " A Synopsis of the Scientific Writings of Sir William Herschel," prepared by Edward S. Holden and Charles S. Hastings, in the Smithsonian Report for 1880. " Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope," by Alfred Tuckerman (1888), In the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Col- lections," Volume xxxii. Astronomy 607 " Bibliography of the Chemical Influence of Light," by Alfred Tuckerman (1891), in "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," Volume xxxiv. "Bibliography of Astronomy for 1887," by William C. Winlock, in "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," Volume XXXIV. " The Index Catalogue of Nebulce, etc.," includes papers, memoirs, and books on nebulae and clusters alphabetically arranofed accordimj to authors, with a brief note to each entry expressing its contents. The works of the elder Her- schel on these subjects are analyzed at considerable length, in order to partly supply the great want of an edition of his col- lected works. The index is practically complete to 1877, and comprises 1 10 octavo pages. The astronomical life of Sir William Herschel covered forty-tw^o years. During this period he published no less than sixty-nine different memoirs, which are scattered through the annual volumes of the Phil- osophical Tra7isactions of the Royal Society of London from 1780 to 1818. In the absence of an edition of Her- schel's collected w^orks. Doctors Holden and Hastings have carried out the idea of making a full synopsis of every one of his memoirs according to a model which he himself made for one of his most important papers.^ Accordingl)- his me- moirs on astronomical subjects have been analyzed, page by page, by Professor Holden, and those on physics have been treated in the same manner by Doctor Hastings. The w'ork (of 114 octavo pages) supplies, in some measure, the crying- need for a complete edition of his waitings. Doctor Tuckerman's "Index to Spectroscopic Literature" is a stout volume of 424 octavo pages, comprising references to 3829 papers by 799 authors. The astronomical portion '^Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, iSll, Volume CI, part i, page 269. 6o8 The Smithsonian Institntion of the bibliography is given in pages 66 to 133, and is sub- divided into 45 sections, as comets, stars, meteors, ecHpses, etc. An author-index, pages 363 to 394, is an admirable complement to the index by subjects. "The Bibliography of the Chemical Influence of Light," by Doctor Tuckerman (22 octavo pages) should be men- tioned among astronomical bibliographies, as it gives the scientific bases of photography. An index to the literature of photography is (1891) in preparation by the same author. The two works, taken to- gether, will be of the greatest use in connection with the application of the art of photography to astronomical re- searches. SHORT PAPERS ON ASTRONOMICAL SUBJECTS In the early years of the Institution it was part of the plan to provide for popular lectures on scientific subjects during the sessions of Congress by distinguished specialists. Among these lectures we may mention six on the " Prog- ress of Astronomy," by Doctor B. A. Gould, and one by Pro- fessor S. Alexander, on the "Relations of Space and Time" (both referred to, but not printed, in the Smithsonian Re- port, 1854); one by Professor E. S, Snell, on "Planetary Disturbances" (Smithsonian Report, 1855); and lectures on "Astronomy," by Professor Alexis Caswell (Smithsonian Report, 1858). The plan of regular lectures was not systematically main- tained in subsequent years. They were replaced by pop- ular papers on scientific topics, either original or transferred from other periodicals. In looking over the Reports in the Library of the Lick Observatory (not quite a complete set) I have found the following references to papers of the sort. This list may not be exhaustive : Astronomy 609 AUTHOR. SHORT TITLE. YEAR. PAGE. Charles Small wood .... Description of His Observatory . . 1856, 311 L. W. Meech Heat and Light of the Sun .... 1856, 321 Auguste Laugel On the Sun 1861, 175 John Lee On Astronomical Photography . . 1861, igi Charles Dufour Scintillation of the Stars 1861, 220 R. Gautier On the Nebulae 1863, 299 J. Fourier filoge of Delambre 1864, 125 Charles Delaunay The Velocity of Light 1864, 135 J. Lamont Solar Eclipse of i860 1864, 240 William Huggins Spectrum Analysis 1866, 195 Appearance of the Sun's Disk . . . 1866, 209 filie De Beaumont .... Memoir of Legendre 1867, 137 Cleveland Abbe Dorpat and Poulkowa 1867, 370 G. Hagen Memoir of Encke 1868, 193 Joseph Henry Eulogy on Bache 1870, 91 Frangois Arago Biography of W. Herschel . . . 1870, 197 ^, ^ .^ , ( Memoir of John Frederick William ) _ N- S- Dodge \ jj^^^^J \ .87., .09 , , ^, ^ , ,, ( On Secular Variations of the ) „ John N. Stockwell . . . ^ Planetary Orbits \ ^^^^ ^^x .^ . . . _ , . ( The Cordoba Astronomical Ob- ) o n Benjamm A. Gould . . . \ \ 1873, 265 ' ( servatory ) Fran9ois Arago Eulogy of Laplace 1874, 129 Ed. Mailly Eulogy on Quetelet 1874, 166 WiUiam B. Taylor Kinetic Theories of Gravitation . . 1876, 205 _ . , -^. , , ( The Asteroids between Mars and ) o ^r o Daniel Kirkwood . . . . } ^ . ^1876, 358 I Jupiter ) r, r 1 ^ T-, • ( Time- Reckoning for the Twcn- > 00^ Sanford C. Fleming ...}., ^ ^ } 1886, 345 ^ I tieth Century ) ^^ R. Radau Astronomical Photography .... 1889, 469 Robert Simpson Woodward . Mathematical Theories of the Earth 1890, 183 Hubert A. Newton .... Memoir of Loomis 1890, 742 Wilham Huggins Celestial Spectroscopy 1891, 69 Agnes M. Gierke Stellar Numbers and Distances . . 1 891, 103 The Sun's Motion in Space . . . . 1 891, 109 A Southern Observatory 1 891, 115 Charles S. Hastings . . . . History of the Telescope 1892, 95 Sir Robert S. Ball Wanderings of the North Pole . . 1893, 75 A. C. Ranyard The Lunar Crater Tycho .... 1893, 89 Charles A. Young Variable Stars 1893, 107 Sir George G. Stokes . . . The Luminiferous /Ether .... 1893, 113 William Harkness Magnitude of the Solar System . . 1894, 93 William H. Pickering . . . Schiaparelli's Views on Mars . . . 1894, 113 J. Janssen Photographic Photometry .... 1894, 191 John K. Rees Variation of Latitude 1894, 271 6io The Smithsonian Institution ANNUAL REPORTS ON THE PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY Under the editorship of Professor S, F. Baird the firm of Harper & Brothers, of New York, pubHshed a " Record of Science and Industry" from month to month in "Harper's Magazine," and as an annual vohrnie from 1871 to 1878. The articles relating to the progress of astronomy were written by Professor Cleveland Abbe till 1875, and for the years 1876, 1877, and 1878 by Doctor Edward S. Holden. From the year 1879 onwards this record of the progress of astronomy was printed in the annual Report of the Smithson- ian Institution, the articles for the years 1879 to 1885 being written by Doctor Holden, and from 1885 to 1892 by Mr, William C. Winlock, of the Institution. In 1879 a circular was prepared by Doctor Holden and sent by the Smithsonian Institution to different observatories. The answers to this circular gave valuable information as to the instrumental equipment of the different establishments, as to their past work and that proposed for the future, etc., and were printed in the Reports for 1879 (edited by Doctor Holden) and for 1886 (edited by Mr. George H. Boehmer). The inevitable limitations of space and the necessary omis- sion of technical considerations made all these annual reviews very unsatisfactory to their compilers ; but, after taking much pains to be correctly informed, it is my opinion that they have been of considerable value to unscientific readers, and of some slight, though real, convenience to astronomers. The "Bibliography of Astronomy" for the year 1888 (printed in the Report for 1888), by Mr. Winlock, was an attempt to vary the form in which astronomical information should be given. In this case the essential benefit was to professional astronomers and librarians. CHEMISTRY By Marcus Ben7amin Fellow of the Chemical Society of London l^'HAT James Smithson was an analytical chemist of no mean abilit)- has been shown elsewhere in this volume, but it is eminently proper to emphasize that fact in connection with this summary of chemistry, by the repetition of the statements that while a student in Oxford he had "the repu- tation of excellinor all other resident members of the Univer- sity in the knowledge of chemistry," and that later he ac- quired the well-deserved fame of being one of the " most ex- pert chemists in elegant analysis." In the preliminary legislation that resulted in the estab- lishment of the Smithsonian Institution the practice of chem- istry by James Smithson seems to have been borne in mind, for not only in the act to establish the Smithsonian Institu- tion, but also in the subsequent report of the organizing com- mittee "a chemical laboratory" was provided for. Later, when Professor Henry had been given the direction of the Institution, he refers in his " Protrram of Oroj-anization " to the "chemical analysis of soil and plants" as a means by which "to increase knowledge,"* and in his first report dis- tinctly avows his appreciation of the value of chemistry in the 6ii 6i2 The Smithsonian Institution following words: "Agriculture would have forever remained an empirical art had it not been for the light shed upon it by the atomic theory of chemistry." The first mention of any chemical activity in the history of the Smithsonian Institution was in 1848, when an announce- ment was made of an arrangement (among others) for "a report on the present state of chemistry as applied to agri- culture." A year later "a report on the application of chem- istry to agriculture," prepared by Lewis C. Beck, of Rutgers College, is announced as " nearly ready for the press," but it does not appear to have been published, and it is probable that the matter was given to the public in 1850 in a course of lectures on the " Chemical Operations of Nature," delivered by Professor Beck in the Smithsonian hall. The failure to publish this report may be accounted for by the statement so often made by Henry that "it is the policy of the Smithsonian Institution, in order to employ its funds most effectually in the way of increasing and diffusing know- ledge, not to engage in any operation which could be as well, if not better, carried on under the direction, and with the funds of another institution," and as an appropriation was made by Congress in 1848 to the Commissioner of Patents for the purpose of investigating the relations of chemistry to agriculture, it is more than likely that Henry deemed it undesirable to encroach on that domain. The first published contribution to chemistry was the "Memoir on the Explosiveness of Niter," by Robert Hare. It comprised twenty pages and formed the seventh memoir in the second volume of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." Its history is interesting. A fire occurred in New York City on July 19, 1845, during which two hundred and thirty houses were destroyed, containing merchandise valued at over two millions of dollars. A peculiar feature of Chemistry 6 1 3 this catastrophe was a series of detonations successively in- creasing in loudness, and followed by a final explosion which tore in pieces the building where it occurred, threw down several houses in the vicinity and forced in the fronts of the houses on the opposite side of the street. These effects were attributed to gunpowder, but the owner of the building de- clared that he had none of that explosive, although a large quantity of niter was stored in the house. Doctor Hare showed by numerous experiments that explosions of a violent character could be produced by forcibly bringing in contact at a high temperature niter and substances of an inflammable character. This memoir was referred to John Torrey and Colonel John J. Abert, and on their recommendation accepted for publication by the Smithsonian Institution in October, 1849. ^^ ^^^^ published in 1850. It is interesting to mention that on the title-page of Doctor Hare's memoir he refers to himself as an "associate of the Smithsonian Institution." Among the six honorary members created by the Establishment the names of Robert Hare and Benjamin Silliman — both among the foremost chemists of their time — are conspicuous; they were elected in 1849, "^^^ continued in that relation until their death. The publication of periodic reports summarizing all the dis- coveries of science and giving a well-digested account of important additions to knowledge was an idea that Henry de- rived from Berzelius, a Swedish chemist of high reputation. A practical expression of the value of this scheme was demon- strated in 1851 by the publication of a report "On Recent Improvements in the Chemical Arts," compiled by James C. Booth, Assayer of the United States Mint in Philadelphia, and his associate, Campbell Morfit. It consisted of a digest of articles that had appeared during the ten years previous in the various journals of science and the arts in the English, 6i4 The Smithsonian Institution French, and German languages. The great vahie of this work is beyond dispute and its appreciation evidenced by the fact that the first edition was soon exhausted and a second one was issued. This is worthy of special note when it is re- membered that chemistry was at that time just beginning to receive recognition among colleges in the United States. The diffusion of knowledge by means of public lectures, especially during the sessions of Congress, had become part of the recognized policy of the Institution, and during the winter of 1852 the younger Silliman delivered a course of six lectures on the four ancient elements : " Earth, Air, Fire, and Water." In the Report for 1853 the announcement was made that J. Lawrence Smith had been engaged to give a full course of lectures on chemistry ; and, accordingly, during the winter of 1853-54 a series of twenty-live lectures was given by Professor Smith. The general character of the course may be inferred from the title of the first. It was: " The improvement of the study of chemistry and its close connection with the progress of the arts and manufactures of the present age ; also general notice of the nature of bodies, more especially gaseous bodies." Although the establishment of a chemical laboratory was provided for in the law incorporating the Institution, it does not appear to have come into existence until its organization by Professor Smith. In the Report for 1854 Henry says : " The laboratory of the Institution during the past year has been used by Professor J. Lawrence Smith in the examination of American minerals ; and on behalf of the Treasury Depart- ment in investigations relative to the different kinds of mo- lasses imported into this country. He also made a series of analyses of meteorites, among which were fourteen speci- mens belonging to the cabinet of James Smithson, the founder of the Institution." Chemistry 615 It was about this time that Smith was finishing his elab- orate memoir on the " Reexamination of American Minerals," which, according to the younger Silliman, was " the most important contribution yet made by any American chemist." It is not improbable, therefore, that the work begun while he was in the University of Virginia was completed at the Smith- sonian Institution. A year later it appears that a commodious room had been fitted up with the necessary appliances for original research in chemistry and other physical sciences ; still no regular chemist was employed by the Institution, although Doctor John D. Easter, who had studied chemistry for three years in Germany, was allowed the use of the laboratory. For the facilities afforded him he was required to keep the apparatus in working order and to make such examinations of specimens as would not require much labor. In the domain of chemistry investigations were conducted on the application of some newly-discovered substances to practical purposes in the arts, and numerous examinations were made of minerals obtained from the Pacific railroad and other expeditions. During the winter of 1855-56 George J. Chace, of Brown University, delivered a course of six lectures on " Chemistry Applied to the Arts." No lectures on subjects pertaining to chemistry were delivered for the next two winters, but dur- ing 1858-59 Thomas Clemson lectured on "Water" and on " Nitrogen," and during the same season Josiah P. Cooke, of Harvard College, delivered lectures on " Atmospheric Air." "Oxygen and Zinc," "Nitrogen," "Water," " Carbon," etc. These were followed, during 1859-60, by a course of six lec- tures on "Agricultural Chemistry," by Samuel W. Johnson, of Yale College, and later by five lectures treating of the relation of chemistry to geology, by T. Sterry Hunt, then of the Geological Survey of Canada. 6i6 The Smithsonian Institution Meanwhile the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge " had been enriched by the publication of the results of a most important series of " Researches on the Ammonia- Cobalt Bases," conducted by Wolcott Gibbs and Frederick A. Genth. Henry describes it as " a laborious series of investigations relative to a very interesting part of chemistry." It still con- tinues to rank high as a model investigation, and Doctor Gibbs, now the foremost of American chemists, honored at home and abroad, continues, in the honorable leisure of his well-spent life, to devote part of his time, in his private labora- tory in Newport, Rhode Island, to the development of certain portions of this classic research. This memoir was referred to John F. Frazer and John Torrey, and, on their recommen- dation, accepted for publication in July, 1856, and issued in separate form in December of that year. It is the fifth article in the ninth volume of the " Contributions." In returning to a consideration of the chemical laboratory, it is desirable to recall those significant words of Henry, already quoted in this article — that it was not the policy of the Smithsonian Institution "to engage in any operation which could be as well, if not better, carried on under the direction and with the funds of another institution." For this reason, perhaps, more than any other the chemical laboratory has never been continuously occupied. During 1857 it was used by Eugene W. Hilgard, who conducted a series of ex- periments relative to the vapor from a modification of carbon disulphide as a substitute for steam applied to mechanical purposes. His results were unfavorable to the substitution. Also a series of investigations relating to the prevention of counterfeiting bank-notes was carried on. Soon after Pro- fessor Hilgard accepted the appointment of State Geologist of Mississippi, and George C. Schaeffer and Doctor Benja- min F. Craig occupied the laboratory. During 1858 they Chemistry 6 1 7 investigated a large number of specimens of guano. Pro- fessor Schaeffer soon withdrew and accepted the more con- genial post of librarian of the United States Patent Office, where he remained until his death, always honored and esteemed as a man of varied and exact learning. During the first decade of the second series of the "American Journal of Science," he prepared the chemical abstracts that appeared over the initials of " G. C. S." Doctor Craig remained in charge of the Smithsonian Laboratory, and continued to re- port on various minerals sent to the Institution, also making such private investigations as came to him from persons desiring the services of a chemist. During 1862 a large quantity of disinfecting fluid was made for the use of hos- pitals, and during 1863 experiments on the properties of different kinds of oil intended for lighthouse purposes were carried on. In 1864 Doctor Charles M. Wetherill, already well known as the author of "The Manufacture of Vinegar, its Theory and Practice, with Special Reference to the Quick Process" (i860), was given charge of the laboratory, and he continued the examination of materials for lighthouse illumin- ation. Also during 1864 Doctor Wetherill studied the condi- tion of the air and the mode of ventilatimjf the United States Capitol. On this subject he submitted a very elaborate re- port to the Secretary of the Interior. In the laboratory he was occupied in investigations on the nature of the so-called ammonium amalgam, the crystallization of sulphur, and the crystalline nature of glass. Chemistry and physics arc allied sciences and the appH- ances used in one science are frequently employed in the other. Elsewhere mention is made of the early gift of physical apparatus to the Institution by Doctor Robert Hare, much of which was of interest on account of its association with the history of the advancement of science in this coun- 40 6i8 The Smithsonian Institution try, notably those pieces which had been used by Doctor Hare in his isolation of calcium without the aid of galvanism. To this collection were added in 1859, by the gift of J. R. Priestley (a grandson of the discoverer of oxygen), a burning lens and a condensing air-pump. It was with these instru- ments that Joseph Priestley discovered the gas which is now called oxygen. With this discovery, made on August i, 1774, begins the history of modern chemistry. From the greatest of the early American chemists we return to the first of living American chemists for the purpose of mentioning the grant, in 1859, of a small appropriation to Wolcott Gibbs in order to defray the expenses of the neces- sary material and apparatus for an investigation relative to the ores of platinum, in which Doctor Gibbs successfully sep- arated the different platinum metals and discovered a series of compounds containing osmium, ruthenium, and iridium. The results of this investigation were permitted by the Smithsonian Institution to appear in the "American Journal of Science," and four papers bearing the general title of " Re- searches on the Platinum Metals " were published through that medium in the years 1861, 1862, and 1864. During the winter of 1862-63, Eben N. Horsford, of the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, delivered a course of five lectures on "Munitions of War," and during the same season Doctor Henry Wurtz, of New York, gave a series of four lectures on " Gunpowder." Thereafter no lec- tures on chemistry were delivered before the Smithsonian Institution, and subsequent to 1865, owing to a fire that oc- curred in the building on January 24 of that year, public lec- ture courses were entirely abandoned. The appendix to the Report for 1856 contains a paper "On Tables of the Constants of Nature and Art," by Charles Bab- bage, in which it is said that these constants should include Chemistry 619 (among other things) : " The atomic weights of bodies, the proportions of the elements of various compounds; acids with bases ; metals with oxygen, etc. A list of metals, with col- umns containing specific gravity, elasticity, tenacity, specific heat, conductive power of heat, conductive power of electric- ity, melting point, refraction power, proportion of rays re- flected out of 1000 at an incident of go'^. List of specific gravities of all bodies." Frank \V. Clarke, then of Boston, had for his own purpose compiled certain information of the above character, and in 1873 submitted to the Smithsonian Institution his results, consisting of a table, exclusive of its supplement, which, in his own words, " contains the specific gravities of 2263 substances and over 5000 determinations in all. There are over 2000 determinations of boiling point, representing 1 205 different substances, and nearly 500 of melting point for 326 substances. In all, the names of 2572 distinct bodies will be found in this table." This work, en- titled "The Constants of Nature. Part i. Specific Gravities; Boiling and Melting Points and Chemical Formula," was sub- mitted for critical examination to Charles A. Joy, and Charles F". Chandler, of Columbia College ; and on their recommen- dation published in December, 1873. It consisted of 263 octavo pages, and was numbered 255 of the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections." In April, 1876, the Smithsonian Institution issued the " First Supplement to Part i " of " The Constants of Nature " as an octavo pamphlet of sixty-one pages, which contained, "in addition to determinations published during the past two years, some materials which were overlooked in com- piling the original work." At the same time there were is- sued Part II of "The Constants of Nature," consisting of "A Table of Specific Heats for Solids and Liquids" (58 pages), and also Part in, " Tables of Expansion by Heat 620 The Smithsonian Institution for Solids and Liquids" (57 pages), both prepared by Pro- fessor Clarke. They are all contained in Volume xiv of the " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections." The chemical laboratory, concerning which mention has already been made, was occupied during 1873-76 by Doctor Oscar Loew, the chemist and mineralogist of the Geograph- ical Survey under Lieutenant George M. Wheeler. Besides his work for the Survey, he made analyses of minerals, min- eral waters, and other substances that were referred to the Smithsonian Institution for examination. He was succeeded by Doctor Frederic M. Endlich, the mineralogist of the Institution, who in turn gave way to Frederick W. Taylor. The latter took charge of the laboratory in the autumn of 1877, and continued in charge until June, 1884. During his administration many improvements were introduced, espe- cially in 1 88 1, when the entire second floor of the southwest pavilion of the Museum building was assigned to Mr. Taylor for a chemical laboratory, which was then equipped with much new apparatus. The work continued to consist chiefly of the identification of minerals, both for the collections and for persons who sent specimens to the Institution for exam- ination. Still, from time to time questions involving chem- ical research from other departments of the government came to the laboratory for decision. Among those worthy of men- tion was the controversy between the Custom House authori- ties in New York and the importers of Apollinaris water, as to whether the article imported under that name really came uncharged from the springs, or was artificially charged with other substances, especially carbon dioxide. A report on this matter was prepared at the request of the Secretary of the Treasury. During this period the Institution was fre- quently called upon to act as advisor to the departments in securing specialists for investigations too extensive for the WILLIAM TECUMSEII SHEEMAX. REOEXT OF THE SMITHSOXIAX INSTITUTIOX, 1871-187-1:, 1878-1884. as : or aph- sides iiiiiuraii, min- leferred to the e was succeeded minerci ^v-V.r. -■ 'iprick lylor. nn of 'y his ^.^, or .ly he Institution for exam- 1"^ involving cheni- overnment came worthy of men- hori- ,'. on of rtmr Copyright, 1884-1888, by The Century Co. W Chemistry 621 time and apparatus of its chemist, or which for other reasons could not be undertaken by him. With the resignation of Mr. Taylor the place of official chemist to the Institution ceased to exist. An arraneement was then made between the Secretary of the Institution and the Director of the United States Geological Survey, by means of which the laboratory in the Institution was placed in charge of Professor Clarke, chief chemist of the Survey, with the understanding that Professor Clarke should perform such chemical work as might be called for by the Institution. This procedure was in accordance with the policy of relin- quishing such lines of work as could be satisfactorily carried on by other departments of the government, and of fostering only such branches of investigation as were not provided for elsewhere. For nine years nearly all of the chemical work of the Survey was done in the rooms assigned to that work in the Museum building, but in 1892 the analytical work was transferred to the new offices of the Survey. In addition to the foregoing, considerable chemical work pertaining to me- tallurgy and economic geology was performed during these years in the departments of metallurgy and economic geology and of lithology and physical geology by their respective curators, Frederic P. Dewey and George P. Merrill. Since 1892 such chemical work as has been required by the Insti- tution has been conducted in the laboratory now in the De- partment of Geology under the direction of the curator, Doctor George P. Merrill. Soon after the publication of the three parts of the " Con- stants of Nature," Professor Clarke began collecting data relative to the determinations of atomic weights for the pur- pose of preparing a complete digest of the entire subject, and of recalculatinor all the estimations. Much material had been collected and partly discussed when a manuscript entitled 40* 62 2 The Smithsonian Institution "Atomic Weight Determinations: A Digest of the Investi- gations PubHshed since 1814," by George F. Becker, was received by the Smithsonian Institution. According to Pro- fessor Clarke, to whom it was submitted, '• it brought together all the evidence, presenting it clearly and thoroughly in com- pact form." It was accordingly issued as Part iv of the "Constants of Nature," in August, 1880, forming a pamphlet of 149 pages in the octavo series. Two years later Part v of the "Constants of Nature," consisting of " A Recalculation of the Atomic Weights," by Professor Clarke, was published. It discussed all existing data on the subject, and gave the most probable value to each of the elements. Its publication gained for Professor Clarke the reputation of being a high authority in computing the atomic weights of the chemical elements, and his values are now quoted in most chemical text-books. His results were included in 271 octavo pages, and, together with Mr. Becker's paper, formed the greater part of Volume xxvii of the " Miscellaneous Collections." In 1 88 1 Secretary Baird began, in the Report, the pub- lication of a series of records of " Scientific Progress." That on "Chemistry," published in 1881, was by George F. Barker; those for i882-'83-'84-'85 and '86 were by H. Carrington Bolton, and that for 1887-88 by Professor Clarke. Subse- quent to 1888 the series was discontinued, because it was found "impracticable to obtain all the desired reports in each department within the time prescribed." Mention has already been made of the gift of certain scien- tific apparatus of a historical character to the Smithsonian Institution, and in 1883 application was made by Baird to Mrs, Priestley, of Northumberland, Pa., for the collection of apparatus used by her husband's ancestor, Joseph Priestley, which had been exhibited at the celebration of the centennial of oxygen in August, 1874. It is gratifying to say that the Chemistry 623 collection was subsequently presented by Mrs. Priestley to the Institution for the Museum. In 1884 the Committee on the Indexing of Chemical Literature of the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced that the Smithsonian Institution had consented to publish indexes to chemical literature that had been indorsed by the Committee. In accordance with this agreement, the Smithsonian Institution has published " Index to the Literature of Uranium, i 789-1885," by H. Carrington Bolton (octavo, 32 pages) ; " Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope, from the Beginning of our Knowledge of the Subject until July, 1887," by Alfred Tuckerman (423 pages); "Index to the Literature of Columbium, 1801-1887," by Frank W. Traphagen (27 pages); "Index to the Literature of Thermodynamics," down to the middle of the year 1889, by Alfred Tuckerman (239 pages); "Bibliography of the Chemical Influences of Light," 1891 (22 pages); "Bibliog- raphy of Aceto- Acetic Ester," 1 840-1 892, by Paul H. Sey- mour (148 pages) ; " Index of the Literature of Didymium " (1842-1893), by A. C. Langmuir (20 pages), and "Indexes to the Literature of Cerium and Lanthanum," 1751 — 1894, by W. H. Magee (43 pages). Much new material pertaining to density of various sub- stances had accumulated since Professor Clarke submitted his original compilation of the "Constants of Nature" to the Smithsonian Institution. Therefore, in 1888 he presented a new edition (revised and enlarged) of Part i, " A Table of Specific Gravity for Solids and Liquids," that contained "the specific gravities of 5227 distinct substances and 14,465 sep- arate determinations." This table contained 409 pages, and formed about one-half of Volume xxxii of the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections." The announcement of the Hodgkins Fund prizes in 1893 624 The Smithsonian Institution was not without value to chemistry. It created at once an interest in the study of the air, and from every part of the world papers were sent to the Smithsonian Institution in competition for the prizes. Of the 218 papers submitted to the jury for consideration, that by Lord Rayleigh and Profes- sor William Ramsay, descriptive of their magnificent dis- covery of a hitherto unknown element in the atmosphere, received the first prize of $10,000. Under the title of "Argon, a New Constituent of the Atmosphere," the origi- nal memoir, as submitted by the authors, was published in May, 1896. It forms one of the papers contained in Volume XXIX of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledoe." In it are found the reasons that led the authors to suspect the existence of a new element, and the steps in the investiga- tion that developed the suspicion into belief and conviction, culminating in the absolute proof by several methods, of the presence of a hitherto unknown gas in the atmosphere, which, owing to its chemical inactivity, was called argon. The third prize, of $1,000, was awarded to Doctor Henri de Varigny for his popular treatise entitled " L'Air et la Vie," which, under the title of " Air and Life," has been published by the Smithsonian Institution, It is an admirable summary of our knowledge of the atmosphere, chemical and otherwise, written in a pleasant style. The paper by F. A. R. Russell on " The Atmosphere in Relation to Human Life and Health," which was honorably mentioned and received one of the Hodgkins silver medals, is also of a popular character. Among the papers that re- ceived honorable mention is one on " Atmospheric Actinome- try and the Actinic Constitution of the Atmosphere," by E. Duclaux, of Paris, France. It was recommended by the award committee for publication, and is included in Volume xxix of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledofe." It is here Chemistry 625 mentioned because of its chemical character, for it is essen- tially a description of a series of experiments that show how a weak solution of oxalic acid is oxydized by the in- fluence of the chemical rays of sunlight, and hence that such a solution can be used as an actinometric measure. A paper entitled "The Air of Towns," presented by Doctor J. B. Cohen, of Yorkshire, England, likewise received honor- able mention. It consists of four popular lectures on " Close Rooms," "Smoke," "Town Fog," and "Germs of the Air"; and these were of such practical character that they were deemed worthy of prompt publication. In the oriofinal circular concerninof the Hodcrkins Fund prizes it says that " special grants of money may be made to specialists engaged in original inv^estigation upon atmos- pheric air and its properties." In accordance with this pro- vision a grant of $500 was made to Doctor Otto Lummer and Doctor Ernst Pringsheim of Berlin, Germany, for re- searches on the determination of an exact measure of the cooling of gases while expanding, with a view to revising the value of that most important constant which is technically termed " gamma " function. This grant was made on recom- mendation of Professor von Helmholtz. In the same year a second grant, amounting to $1000, was placed at the dis- posal of Doctor John S, Billings, of Washington City, and of Doctor S. Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for an investigation into the nature of the peculiar sub- stances of organic origin contained in the air expired by human beings, with a specific reference to the application of the results obtained to the problem of ventilation for inhabited rooms. The investigation undertaken by these scientists was carried on in the Laboratory of Hygiene in the University of Pennsylvania, largely by Doctor David H. Bergey. and un- der their joint names the Smithsonian Institution in Novem- 62 6 The Sinithsoniau Institution ber, 1895, published their results with the title, "The Com- position of Expired Air and its Effects upon Animal Life." They concluded that dust particles are the only really dan- gerous elements in the air, and that it is improbable that there is any peculiar volatile poisonous matter in the air ex- pired by healthy men and animals other than carbon dioxide. It forms one of the papers contained in Volume xxix of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." In June, 1896, the " Methods for the Determination of Organic Matter in Air" used by Doctor Bergey was published by the Institu- tion, and is contained in Volume xxxix of the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections." Both of these papers are cred- ited to the Hodo-kins Fund. The year 1893 was conspicuously celebrated throughout the United States as the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. In the annals of chemistry that year stands out prominently as the one in which the Smith- sonian Institution honored that science by the publication of H. Carrington Bolton's magnificent " Select Bibliography of Chemistry, 1492— 1892." Secretary Langley wrote: " It repre- sents the labor of a lifetime on the part of a most industrious student of the bibliography of chemistry, and is a work of reference of such value that it is believed it will be a neces- sity to every chemical investigator." It contains 12,000 titles, and forms Volume xxxvi of the " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections." The first edition was soon exhausted, and a second one was issued. Dr. Bolton has in hand a supplement, to include similar titles to 1895. The granting of funds for the purpose of prosecuting origi- nal investigations in science is one of the means of increasing knowledge that has been more common in the recent history of the Smithsonian Institution than was formerly the case. The present Secretary has ever shown a kindly feeling to- Chemistry 627 ward chemistry, and in his Report for 1891 he announced that a sum of $600 had been placed at the disposal of Edward W. Morley, to procure a special apparatus for determinations of the density of oxygen and hydrogen, which he properly desig- nates as "an investigation requiring extreme precision and delicacy of manipulation, and promising results of wide appli- cation," In the same Report mention is made of the grant of $200 to Wolcott Gibbs, to aid in the completion of his investigations of the physiological action of chemical com- pounds. Doctor Gibbs subsequently published his results in the American Cke?nicaL Jotcrnal. The last item to be chronicled in this necessarily brief his- tory of the relation of the Smithsonian Institution to chemis- try was the purchase of a balance — more delicate than any in the United States — which was loaned to Edward W. Morley for use in his masterly redetermination of certain physical constants of oxygen and hydrogen, concerning which it has been well said that " the classical researches of Reg- nault are far excelled by the investigations so far made by Morley." The Smithsonian Institution has also published Professor Morley's results " On the Density of Oxygen and Hydrogen and on the Relation of their Atomic Weights," on the recommendation of Frank W. Clarke and Carl Barus. It contains 109 pages, and is included in Volume xxix of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." No more conspicuous illustrations of the perfect operation of the exact wording of the will of James Smithson could be shown than those just mentioned. Knowledge — and that of the very best kind — has been increased by the promotion of the research conducted by Professor Morley, and knowledge has been diffused by the publication of his results, which con- stitute, indeed, the finest physico-chemical investigation ever undertaken and completed in this country. 62 8 The Smithsonian Institution In conclusion, a list of the chemical papers that have ap- peared in the annual reports is herewith appended : "Oxygen and its Combinations," by George I. Chace, 1855. " Memoir of Priestley," by M. Cuvier (translated by C. A. Alexander), 1858. " Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry," by Samuel W. John- son, 1859. "Scientific Congress of Carlsruhe " (Section of Chemistry), by M. J. Nickles (translated by C. A. Alexander), i860. "The Sun: Its Chemical Analysis," by Auguste Laugel, 1861. " Notes on the History of Petroleum or Rock Oil," by T. Sterry Hunt, 1861. "Report on Nitrification," by Benjamin F. Craig, 1861. " Explosibility of Coal Oils," by T. Allen, 1861. " Destructive Effect of Iron Rust" (from the German), 1861. " Memoir of Louis Jacques Thenard," by M. Flourens (translated by C. A. Alexander), 1862. "The Catalytic Force; or. Studies on the Phenomena of Contact," by T. J. Phipson (translated by C. A. Alex- ander), 1862. " On Atoms," by Sir John Herschel, 1862. "A Brief Sketch of the Modern Theory of Chemical Types," by Charles M. Wetherill, 1863. "Purple Dyeing, Ancient and Modern" (from the Ger- man), 1863. "Ozone and Antozone," by Charles M. Wetherill, 1864. "Vegetation and the Atmosphere," by J. Jamin, 1864. " Extract of a Memoir on the Preservation of Copper and Iron in Salt Water," by M. Becquerel, 1864. " Preservation of Wood " (translated from the German by C. A. Alexander), 1864. Chemistry 629 "Caoutchouc and Gutta Percha" (translated from the German), 1864. "The Products of the Combustion of Gun-cotton and Gun- powder under Circumstances Analogous to Those Which Occur in Practice," by Lieutenant von Karolyi, 1864. " Description of Apparatus for Testing" Results of Perspira- tion and Respiration in the Physiological Institute at Munich," by Max Pettenkofer (translated by A. Ten Brook), 1864, " Photochemistry," by M. Jamin (translated from the French), 1867. " Notice of Christian Frederic Schoenbein, the Discoverer of Ozone " (translated from the "Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles, Geneva"), 1868. " Appendix to Notice of Schoenbein," by Joseph Henry, 1868. "A Brief Account of the Processes Employed in the Assay of Gold and Silver Coins at the Mint of the United States " (from the Annual Report of James Pollock), 1868. "On the Chemistry of the Earth," by T. Sterry Hunt, 1869. " Hydrogen as a Gas and as a Metal," by Doctor J. Emerson Reynolds, 1870. " On Professor Thomas Graham's Scientific Work," by Will- iam Odling, 1 87 1. " Organic Bases," by Professor A. Bauer (translated from the German), 1872. "The Nitrogen Bodies of Modern Chemistry," by Professor Kletzinsky (translated from the German), 1872. " Scheme for the Qualitative Determination of Substances by the Blowpipe," by Thomas Egleston, 1872. "Eulogy on Gay-Lussac," by M. Arago, 1876. " Chemistry," by George F. Barker, 1880. "Chemistry," by George F. Barker, 1881. "Chemistry," by H. Carrington Bolton, 1882. 630 The Smithsonian Institution "Chemistry," by H. Carrington Bolton, 1883. "Chemistry," by H. Carrington Bolton, 1884. "Chemistry," by H. Carrington Bolton, 1885. " Index to the Literature of Uranium," by H. Carrington Bolton, 1885. "Chemistry in 1886, with Bibliography," by H. Carrington Bolton, 1887. "Chemistry for 1887 and 1888," by F. W. Clarke, 1888. "The Life-work of a Chemist" [Pasteur], by Sir Henry E. Roscoe, 1889. "Aluminum," by Horace C. Hovey, 1889. "Alloys of Aluminum," by J. H. Dagger, 1889. " The Chemical Problems of To-day," by Victor Meyer, 1890. "Autobiographical Sketch of Justus von Liebig" (translated from the German by J. Campbell Brown), 1891. " Deduction from the Gaseous Theory of Solution," by Orme Masson, 1892. "Some Suggestions Regarding Solutions," by Professor William Ramsay, 1892. " Liquids and Gases," by Professor William Ramsay, 1892. "Atoms and Sunbeams," by Sir Robert Ball, 1893. " Magnetic Properties of Liquid Oxygen," by Professor James Dewar, 1893. "On Chemical Energy," by Doctor W. Ostwald, 1893. "The American Chemist," by George C. Caldwell, 1893. "The Waste and Conservation of Plant Food," by Harvey W. Wiley, 1894. "The Relations of Physiology to Chemistry and Morphol- ogy," by Giulio Fano, 1894. "The Place of Research in Education," by Henry E. Arm- strong, 1895. "Eulogy on Pasteur," by George M. Sternberg, 1896. GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY By William North Rice Professor of Geology, Wesleyan University HE aim of the Smithsonian Institution, as de- fined in the will of its illustrious founder, is twofold — "The increase and diffusion of knowledge." While its contributions in the department of geology have been less exten- sive than in some other departments of science, they have been by no means unimportant. The Institution has ren- dered valuable service in both the incj'case and the diffusion of the knowledge of the constitution and history of the globe on which we live. I. PUBLICATIONS Attention turns naturally first to the publications of the In- stitution. These include both original papers and reprints of papers published elsewhere. The original papers on geology and mineralogy may be conveniently classified for present purposes in three divisions: i. Miscellaneous papers; 2. Papers immediately relating to the collections in the Na- tional Museum or displayed in the temporary expositions in which the Institution has been represented ; 3. Reports of the progress of particular branches of science. 631 6.32 The Smithsoiiian Iiistitutmi MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS Among the somewhat elaborate publications included in the quarto series (" Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge"), several have been of sufficient importance to the progress of geology to deserve special notice. J. W. Bailey's paper, entitled "Microscopical Examinations of Soundings, made by the United States Coast Survey off the Atlantic Coast of the United States " (185 i) is an interest- ing piece of pioneer work in a field destined to be earnestly cultivated, and to yield a rich harvest in the succeeding half- century. The observation that, as the soundings increased in depth (though none of them much exceeded 100 fathoms), the quartzose and feldspathic constituents of the seashore sands gave place gradually to the calcareous remains of fora- minifera, was a discovery of prophetic interest. Two important papers relate to surface geology, or the geology of the Quaternary era. " Illustrations of Surface Geology," by Edward Hitchcock (1857), is a valuable inves- tigation in a department of geology which had then received but little attention. The maps and sections of terraces of the Connecticut River and its tributaries give evidence of most thorough and conscientious work. The progress of science in the past forty years has, indeed, very largely changed the interpretation of the facts so faithfully observed and recorded. The increased knowledge of the dynamics of glaciers has answered the objections which compelled President Hitch- cock to attribute the Drift to the action of ice-floes. The marks of the action of glaciers, which he was sagacious enough to recognize in various localities in Massachusetts and Vermont, can now take their place as illustrations of particular phases of the action of the same agency which produced the Drift, instead of being arbitrarily distinguished. Geology and Mineralogy 6 jj The dynamics of river action, also, we understand better than forty years ago. Few, if any, geologists to-day would at- tribute the formation of valleys to the ocean ; and most geologists doubtless would approve Gilbert's elegant trans- formation ^ of Hitchcock's diagram exhibiting the structure of terraces. But the paper is an interesting monument of the early stages of the history of glacial geology, and much more of the same sort of conscientious study of the facts in detail will be requisite before all the problems of the Drift are satisfactorily solved. The paper " On the Fresh- water Glacial Drift of the Northwestern States," by Charles Whittlesey (1866), maps approximately the southern boundary of the Drift from New Jersey to Iowa (locating the boundary most of the way some- what further north than more recent authorities). Attention is called to the moraines far to the north of the boundary of the Drift, and their characteristic surface pitted with kettle- holes. Numerous small lakes and bays are attributed to gla- cial erosion, and the basins of the Qreat lakes are believed to have been somewhat modified by the same agency. The un- stratified Drift is referred to the action of glaciers, and the stratified deposits to fresh waters. Colonel Whittlesey contributes also one paper in the depart- ment of physiography, "On Fluctuations of Level in the North American Lakes" (i860). This paper gives a large amount of information bearing upon secular, annual, and transient variations. Very curious are those transient oscillations, which have been studied and described by a number of ob- servers in the Swiss Lakes, under the name of "seiches," and of which Colonel Whittlesey's paper is probably the first no- tice in this country. They are doubtless connected with vari- ations of atmospheric pressure. Although, in some cases 1 " Report on Geology of the Henry Mountains," Washington, 1877, Figures 64, 65. 41 634 The Smithsonian Institution reported, there was no barometric fluctuation at the point of observation at the time when the seiche was observed, the explanation is doubtless, as suggested in a note by Professor Henry, to be found in the occurrence of thunder-storms in distant parts of the lake. " Geological Researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan during the years 1862 to 1865," by Raphael Pumpelly (1866), is an important contribution to the knowledge of a field then almost untrodden by geological explorers, though destined soon after to be illustrated by the more extended travels and researches of Baron von Richthofen. The loess of northern China is in this paper considered a lacustrine deposit, though the author afterward adopted Richthofen's view of its seolian origin. The wonderful migrations of the Hoang Ho River over the immense confluent delta which it shares with the Yang-tse-Kiang is illustrated by a most interesting series of maps. Much information is given in regard to the coal of Chihli and adjacent provinces of northern China, which is considered Mesozoic, on the evidence of ferns, cycads, and a conifer described by Professor Newberry. The coal of Chihli was pronounced Jurassic by Richthofen, though in other parts of China coal of Carboniferous age is extensively de- veloped. The paper " On the Geology of Lower Louisiana and the Salt Deposit on Petite Anse Island," by Eugene W. Hilgard (1872), discusses a deposit whose scientific interest even ex- ceeds that which arises from its economic value. The salt, which is overlain by the Orange Sand, is held to be of Creta- ceous age. The subject of the physics of the globe is treated in two papers by J. G. Barnard, the first on 'T-*roblems of Rotary Motion" (1872), the second "On the Internal Structure of the Earth" (1877). In both papers the question is discussed Geology and Mineralogy >3:) mathematically, whether the phenomena of precession afford conclusive evidence as to the constitution of the interior of the earth. In the former paper, General Barnard holds that the phenomena of precession require a solid globe. In the latter paper, he holds that the precession of a liquid would be substantially the same as that of a solid globe, having be- come convinced, like Lord Kelvin, of the validity of Professor Simon Newcomb's criticism. Numerous short papers bearing upon geology and miner- alogy occur in the annual Reports of the Smithsonian Insti- tution and in the " Bulletins " and " Proceedings " of the National Museum. Detailed comment on these papers is precluded by the limits of this article, though many of them have an importance disproportionate to their length. A few of them are briefly mentioned. Joseph Le Conte's "Lectures on Coal " (Report, 1857) are a model of truly popular exposition of a scientific theme. The treatment of the paleontological part of the subject belongs, of course, to the pre- Darwinian epoch, then near its end. T. S. Hunt's report "On the Chemistry of the Earth" (Report, 1S69) is a very compact summary of the views on chemical geology, which are more fully presented in his " Chemical and Geological Essays," and other writings. W. N. Rice gives results of studies on " The Geology of Bermuda" (Bulletin, No. 25). He holds the islands to be an atoll, originally formed by subsidence, in accordance with the views of Darwin and Dana ; but supposes the subsidence to have been interrupted by an epoch of elevation in which enormous accumulations of aeolian limestone were formed. T. Egleston's "Catalogue of Minerals and Synonyms" (Bulletin, No. ^^ is an exceedingly handy little volume for reference. All mineralogical names are given in alpha- betical order ; while names of recognized species are distin- 636 The Smithsonian Institution guished by being printed in capitals, and are followed by statements of chemical composition and crystalline form, and by lists of synonyms and varieties. G. W. Hawes (Proceedings, Volume iv) shows that the Triassic diabases of the eastern United States contain not only labradorite, but various other feldspars, among which are andesine, anorthite, and albite. He also calls attention to the frequent absence of twinning structure in the triclinic feld- spars, and the consequent unreliability of optical determina- tions not checked by chemical analysis. G. P. Merrill has published numerous papers on mineral- ogical and lithological subjects in the " Proceedings of the National Museum." Among them is one somewhat elaborate paper entitled, " Notes on Some Eruptive Rocks from Galla- tin, Jefferson, and Madison Counties, Montana" (Volume xvii). In several notes on " Serpentines," from various localities (Vol- umes XI, xii), evidence is given of the derivation of serpentine from olivine and other anhydrous magnesian silicates. The glistening surfaces, like slickensides, in the serpentines, are attributed to the friction of movements due to the expansion of the mass in undergoing hydration. Interesting studies on points of detail in geological structure are given in notes "On Fulgurites" (Volume ix), "On Stalactites and Gypsum Incrustations," and on "Sandstone Concretions" (Volume xvii). A note " On Deposits of Volcanic Dust and Sand in Southwestern Nebraska" (Volume viii) records the first known observation of unaltered volcanic ashes or tufa in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. C. T. Simpson discusses (Volume xvi) the Unios found in the deposits near Toronto supposed to be interglacial. All are species belonging to the fauna of the Mississippi Valley, and most of them are no longer found in Canada. Their in- troduction into the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence dates Geology and Mineralogy 637 from the time when the St. Lawrence valley was filled with ice, and the great lakes at the southern margin of the ice sheet drained southward into the Mississippi. PAPERS RELATING TO THE COLLECTIONS IX THE NATIONAL MUSEUM Among the interesting papers relating to the Museum should be mentioned the " Catalogue of Meteorites," by F. W. Clarke, and the description of " The Gem Collection," by G. V . Kunz (Report, 1886). G. P. Merrill's paper on "The Col- lection of Building and Ornamental Stones" (Report, 1886) is much more than a catalogue, being an exceedingly val- uable monograph, treating the stones in both geological and economical relations. The same author has given, in his "Preliminary Handbook for the Department of Geology" (Report, 1889), and " Handbook for the Department of Geology, Part I " (Report, 1890), not only admirable de- scriptions of the collections, but also valuable treatises on dynamical geology and lithology. Another such paper, far transcending the character of a simple catalogue, and rank- ing as an important treatise, is Y . P. Dewey's " Preliminary Description of Catalogue of the Systematic Collections in Economic Geology and Metallurgy " (Bulletin, No. 42). REPORTS OF PROGRESS As these papers are themselves abstracts of a mass of litera- ture, any attempt to give abstracts of them would be use- less. Nor is it necessary to comment on the utility of such summaries of scientific work. The names of the authors are sufficient guarantee of the quality of the work. These papers are contained in the Reports for the years 1880 to 1S88. 41* 638 The Smithsonian Institution The authors of the various accounts of progress were well known men of science, as follows : Geology, G. W. Hawes, T. S. Hunt, N. H. Darton, W J McGee ; Mineralogy, G, W. Hawes, E. S. Dana ; Petrog- raphy, G. P. Merrill ; Vulcanology and Seismology, C. G. Rockwood, Jr. REPRINTS An appropriate memorial of the honored founder of the In- stitution is afforded by the republication of " The Scientific Writings of James Smithson," extracted from the " Philosophi- cal Transactions of the Royal Society of London," and from " Thomson's Annals of Philosophy." Most of these papers are now chiefly interesting as illustrating the character of one of the benefactors of humanity. The paper entitled " A Chemi- cal Analysis of Some Calamines " (1802) gives the proof that one of the minerals formerly confounded under the name calamine is a carbonate of zinc, while the other affords on analysis silica and oxide of zinc. The former is now most appropriately named smithsonite. The ingenious refutation of Granville Penn's theory that the fossils found in Kirkdale Cave were relics of the Noachian delude eives an interest- ing illustration of the state of geological opinion at the close of the first quarter of this century. The scientific papers to which from time to time a wider circulation has been given by their republication in the Smithsonian Reports, have been sometimes selected as giv- ing accounts of new and important discoveries, sometimes as dealing with broad generalizations and correlations. A. Geikie's brilliant address on " Geological Change, and Time" (1892) affords an admirably clear and comprehensive view of the spirit and method of geological study. The important but difficult problems of the physics of the Geology and Mineralogy 639 globe are treated in papers by A. Blytt, H. Hennessy, C. Chree, and G. K. Gilbert. C. D. Walcott, in a paper entitled " Geologic Time, as Indicated by the Sedimentary Rocks of North America " (1893), investigates especially the rate of accumulation of Paleozoic sediments in the Cordilleran Sea. The general conclusion is reached that geologic time " can be measured by tens of millions but not by single millions or hundreds of millions of years." This is in harmony with C. King's paper on "The Age of the Earth," in the same volume, in which the theory of the mode of cooling of the earth is investigated in the light of recent experiments on the latent heat of fusion, specific heat, and expansion in melting of diabase. A. Daubree's paper on "Deep-sea Deposits" (1893) gives an admirable summary of .the results of the voyage of the Challe7iger, and other recent explorations, on a subject of profound interest to the geologist. Important contributions to the geology of particular re- gions are given in T. Thoroddsen's " Volcanic Eruptions and Earthquakes in Iceland within Historic Times " (1885), and in A. Hague's "Geological History of the Yellowstone National Park" (1892). A. Brezina's "Explanation of the Principles of Crystallog- raphy and Crystallophysics " (1872) is a remarkably compact and elegant exposition of Miller's crystallographic system and of the optical characters of crystals. The theory of crystal formation is illustrated by valuable papers by J. W. Judd and C. D. Liveinor. The short paper by E. Orton on the " Origin of the Rock Pressure of Natural Gas in the Trenton Limestone of Ohio and Indiana" (1891) is valuable for the clearness and beauty of its scientific reasoning, and for the economic importance of the subject which it treats. 640 The S^nithsonian Institution J. Geikie's "Glacial Geology" (1889) summarizes clearly and comprehensively the recent progress in knowledge of the events of the Quaternary in Europe. A. R. Wallace's "The Ice Age and Its Work" (1893) affords an elegant sketch of the rise of the glacier theory, and an able argument in favor of the formation of lake basins by glacial erosion. G. K. Gilbert's " History of the Niagara River " (1890) is an elegant discussion of one of the most interesting problems of American Quaternary geology. E. Desor's " Palafittes, or Lacustrian Constructions of the Lake of Neuchatel " (1865) was given to the American pub- lic through the medium of the Smithsonian Report, most seasonably, when the evidences of the antiquity of man were beginning to attract the attention of thoughtful men. II. EXPLORATIONS A PROMINENT department of activity in all the history of the Institution has been the exploration of regions imperfectly known, especially in North America. In some cases expedi- tions have been fitted out under the direction of the Institu- tion. In other cases aid and counsel have been pfiven to parties organized by private enterprise or by various depart- ments of the government. These expeditions have resulted in the acquisition of rich stores of knowledge of the geology of the regions traversed ; and the National Museum has been enriched with minerals, rocks, and fossils, as well as with specimens illustrative of botany, zoology, and anthropology. One of the earliest of these expeditions was that of Thad- deus Culbertson to the Mauvaises Terres of the Upper Mis- souri in 1850; and the spoils of this expedition were a part of the material with which Doctor Leidy began the study of the Tertiary mammalian fauna of the West, In the Re- Geology and Mineralogy 641 port for 185 1 it is stated "that the specimens are of much scientific interest, showing, as they do, for the first time, the existence in this country of an Eocene deposit rivahng in the number of its species of extinct animals the celebrated basin of Paris." This was the modest prophecy of that wealth of discovery in mammalian paleontology which was destined to be made in the half-century of this history by Leidy, Marsh, Cope, Osborn, and Scott. Until the organization of the United States Geological Survey, the Smithsonian Institution was the headquarters of the geologists in the service of the government. The Insti- tution aided in providing their outfit, its annual Reports briefly announced their discoveries, and their collections were received into its Museum, and studied within its walls or under its direction. The geological work done by the Mexi- can Boundary Survey, the Pacific Railroad Surveys, the Colorado expedition of Lieutenant Iv^es, the expeditions of Lieutenant (afterward General) Warren to the Yellowstone, the Black Hills, and the Loup Fork, the explorations of Doctor D. D. Owen, Foster and Whitney, Doctor Charles T. Jackson, Doctor John Evans, and Doctor F. V. Hayden were all more or less intimately related with the Smithsonian Institu- tion. Within its walls were carried on the patient and con- scientious labors of F. B. Meek, by which the paleontology of the United States was so greatly advanced. The Institution activ^ely cooperated in the expedition to Alaska under the auspices of the Western Union Telegraph Company ; and Kennicott and Dall and the other naturalists of that expedition were among the scientific men whose headquarters was in the Institution. Much of geological knowledge was gained by this expedition. In 1867 geology acquired a more independent position than it had previously held in relation to the government of the 642 The Smithsonian Institntion United States. Prior to that date most of the geological work under the auspices of the United States government had been done by expeditions undertaken primarily for some other object. The place of geology had been, as Clarence King has well expressed it, that of a camp-follower. The next few years were marked by the achievements of four o-reat organizations devoted specifically to geological work : the Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, under Clarence King ; the Survey West of the One Hundredth Meridian, under Lieu- tenant Wheeler ; the Survey of the Territories, under Doctor Hayden ; and the Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, under Major Powell. All these explorations were aided by the Smithsonian Institution, and helped to enrich its Museum by their collections. After the organization of the United States Geological Sur- vey in 1879, the geologists in government employ had a headquarters of their own in Washington, and their work was naturally less intimately related to the Smithsonian Institu- tion. Yet the two organizations, entirely independent, have been mutually helpful. Several of the geologists of the Survey have been at the same time curators in the National Museum. One exploration deserves special mention in this connec- tion, because placed by act of Congress specifically under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution — the exploration of the Colorado River and its tributaries, by Major Powell, in the years 1869-72. The report was submitted to the Sec- retary of the Smithsonian Institution, though not published as one of its series of documents. The intrepid and adventur- ous character of the expedition and the brilliant style of the narrative make the report of this exploration one of the most interesting stories of scientific travel. But the report is of greater importance as containing the formulation of the doc- Geology and Mineralogy 643 trine of base levels, and the definition of antecedent, conse- quent, and superimposed drainage. These ideas have proved richly fruitful. As they have been developed by Gilbert, Davis, and others, they have marked an epoch in dynamical geology. With, perhaps, the exception of Dana's doctrine of the permanence of continents, these conceptions in regard to drainage have been the most characteristic contribution to geologic science which this country has made. Nowhere else in the world could these ideas have been so well developed as in presence of the gigantic, yet strangely simple, features of the plateau country through which the Colorado and its tribu- taries have carved their way. The doctrine of base levels is as natural a development of the American cordillera as the notion of plains of marine denudation is of the wave-beaten island of Great Britain. It is, indeed, probable that the course of the Green River through the Uinta Mountains is not a perfectly uncomplicated example of antecedent drainage. Probably Davis is correct in saying that "the mountains wrenched the saw that afterwards cut them in two." ^ It may even be true, as supposed by Em- mons,^ that the river is superimposed, rather than antecedent. But, however this may be, the formulation of the general prin- ciples of drainage in the exploration of the Colorado has been no less truly epoch-making in its influence. III. THE NATIONAL MUSEUM The collections of the National Museum have exerted a potent influence in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge in the oreoloofic as in other scientific fields. The treasures gathered by the various exploring expeditions, and studied under the direction of the Institution by specialists both 1 Natiotuil Geographic Magazine, Volume II, page 103. 2 " Report of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel," Volume II, page 197. 644 The Smithsonian Institution within and without its walls, have yielded rich results. Ref- erence has already been made to the work of Leidy and Meek, respectively, on the vertebrate and invertebrate fossils from the West. The exhibition collections, with their systems of arrange- ment and labeling continually improved by earnest work on the part of the curators, under the inspiration of that genius for museum administration which distinguished the late di- rector, the lamented Doctor Goode, have been widely and beneficently influential for good. Apart from their value as a means of scientific information to the general public, they have been an object-lesson to geological instructors in colleges and schools, and to curators of geological collections in local museums. Thus they have served to increase the educa- tional value of geological collections throughout the country. Particular attention may well be called to the collection illustrating dynamical geology, interestingly described by Doctor Merrill in his " Preliminary Handbook of the Depart- ment of Geology." Collections in mineralogy, lithology, and paleontology are to be found in about all museums. But systematically arranged and well-labeled collections illustrat- ing the subject of dynamical geology have scarcely existed in the past, and are still comparatively few. Yet a good collection of dynamical geology can be made far more intelli- gible, and therefore far more instructive, to the general pub- lic, than collections in any other department of geological science ; while its value to the student is inestimable. The example of so instructive a collection of this sort in the National Museum cannot fail to exert a wide influence upon the schools and local museums of the country. In still another way the National Museum has richly con- tributed to the diffusion of knowledge in geology and the cognate sciences — namely, by the liberal distribution of Geology mid Mineralogy 645 material to the small museums scattered throughout the coun- try. In many a school and in many a community, the collec- tions of minerals and rocks presented by the Smithsonian Institution, authentically labeled so as to serve as a standard, have stimulated the pursuit of the studies which those col- lections illustrate. Though no data are available for an estimate of the amount of influence which these donations to local museums have exerted, there can be no doubt that it has been very considerable. IV. LECTURES In the early years of the Institution, free public lectures on scientific subjects were given in its hall and under its aus- pices, especially during the sessions of Congress. The Re- port for 1849 nientioned a course on "Geology," given by Edward Hitchcock, President of Amherst College. In 1851 the elder Silliman, of Yale College, delivered two lectures on " Geology," and a year later he gave a course of twelve lec- tures on the same subject. During the winter of i856-'57 Joseph LeConte, then of Georgia, delivered three lectures on " Coal" and also three on " Coral." James D. Dana, of Yale Colleee, lectured on " Coral Islands " durinor the winter of i858-'59. During the following winter T. Sterry Hunt, then of the Geological Survey of Canada, delivered five lectures with titles as follows : " On Chemical and Physical Geology"; '' In- troduction of Geological Agencies"; '' Chemistry of the Earth's Crust"; " Life in Its Geological Relations"; " Geology of the Metals, Mineral Springs, Metamorphism " ; and "Igneous Rocks, Volcanoes, Mountain Chains." In 1862 Fairman Rogers, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, gave three lectures on "Glaciers." This was followed in 1863 by a course of three lectures on "The Glacial Period," b) Louis Agassiz, of Harvard 646 The Smithsonian Institution College. Lectures on related subjects were delivered by well- known scientists, including Charles Henry Davis, Henry Dar- win Rogers, Stephen Alexander, Daniel Wilson, and Arnold Guyot. The regular delivery of these lectures was interfered with by the progress of the Civil War, and in 1865 by the fire that destroyed the lecture-room. For a time thereafter the Institution subsidized lecture courses in other institutions in the City of Washington. In the early years, when science had scarcely naturalized itself in this country, these lectures in the national capital, and under quasi-authoritative auspices, served a most valuable purpose in stimulating public interest in scientific subjects. METEOROLOGY By Marcus Benjamin, Fellow of the Chemical Society of London j^MERICAN meteorology began with the Rev- erend John Campanius, a Swedish clergyman who settled near the present site of Wilming- ton, Delaware, in 1643. Campanius, the "first meteorological observer on the western conti- nent," kept an account of the weather, day by day, during the years 1644-45.^ The systematic gathering of meteorological information was continued by individuals at different places. Among the observers worthy of special mention were: Doctor John Lining, who, from 1738 till 1750, noted the climatic condi- tions in Charleston, South Carolina, and was the lirst to make a series of instrumental observations in the United States;^ John Winthrop, of Harvard College, who in i 742 began to collect such data, and continued the practice for more than twenty years; ^ and John Bartram, the botanist, who made observations in his famous gardens on the Schuylkill in i 748, 1 Henry, Alfred J.," Early Individual Ob- Meteorological Congress held in Chicago, servers in the United Stales." See page 293 Illinois, August 21-24, 1893." Washington, of Part 2, " Bulletin, No. 11, of the Weather 1895. Bureau," being a " Report of the International - Ibidem, page 295. 3 Ibidem, page 296. 647 648 The Smithsonian htstitntion and again in 1758-59 and in 1761-77. His manuscript is preserved by the American Philosophical Society in Philadel- phia.^ Of conspicuous interest are the series of observations made by Thomas Jefferson in Monticello in 1772-78, and toward the close of this period he instituted, with James Madison, a series of simultaneous observations in Monticello and at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia. These, it is believed, were the first simultaneous observations made in this country.^ In i8i4the Army Medical Department issued a rule, mak- ing it the duty of each hospital surgeon and director of a department "to keep a diary of the weather."^ The collec- tion of these observations was fostered by Surgeon- General Joseph Lowell, and a systematic gathering of reports of tem- perature, pressure, and moisture of the air, the amount of rain, direction and force of wind, appearance of the sky, and other phenomena ensued, resulting in the publication of three volumes of " Meteorological Registers," the last of which, issued in 1851, covered the period from 1831 to 1842. The active operations of this service continued until the beginning of the Civil War. Contemporary with the foregoing was the collection of me- teorological data begun in 181 7 by Josiah Meigs, then Com- missioner of the General Land Office. He issued blank forms of a meteoroloijical reorister to the officials of the various local land offices scattered through the States. This service be- came, in time, the parent of the observations made under the direction of the Patent Office, and continued until 1859.* 1 Henry, Alfred J., " Early Individual Ob- iiient of Meteorology in the United States." servers in the United States." Page 297. Page 208, "Bulletin No. 11 of the Weather 2 Harrington, Mark W.," History of the Bureau." Washington, 1S95. Weather Map," page 327, " Bulletin No. n, 1 Goode, G. Brown, '• The Origin of the of the Weather Bureau." Washington, 1895. National Scientific and lulucational Institu- 3 Smart, Charles, "The Connection of tlie tions of the United States." Report of the Army Medical Department with the Depail- American Historical Society, 1889, page 138. Meteorology 649 During the decade in which the Smithsonian Institution came into formal existence three distinguished American meteorologists — perhaps the three most distinguished that this country has ever known — were actively studying the phenomena of storms. These men were Redfield, Espy, and Loomis. It was Redfield who advanced the circular theory of storms, and it was Espy who accounted for their existence by convectional indrafts, while the patient Loomis gathered the essential truths from both and formulated them in his " Contributions to Meteorology," which he later gave to the world through the medium of the " American Journal of Science." Redfield was occupied with many interests, and Loomis was professor of mathematics in the University of the City of New York. Espy, on the other hand, was a professional meteorologist, and of the three he concerns us the most. The publication of his papers had gained for Espy a high reputation, extending across the ocean, and in 1840 he was invited to explain his theory of storms before the British As- sociation. From England he crossed to the Continent, and in Paris he spoke so acceptably before the French Academy of Sciences that the great Arago exclaimed: " England has its Newton, France its Cuvier, and America its Espy." ^ On his return to the United States he settled in Washing- ton, and from 1840 till within a few years of his death he was continuously engaged by the government in meteorological work.^ In 1841 he published his "Philosophy of Storms." and he was familiarly known as the " Storm King." Accord- 1 " A Few Incidents in the Life of Profes- Secretary of War under act of Congress, sor James P. Espy, " by his niece, Mrs. L. August 23, 1842. The records of the Na\y M. Morehead. Cincinnati, 1888. Page 17. Department show that he was appointed Pro- s'' The records of the War Department fessor of Mathematics in the United States show that James P. Espy was appointed Navy on May 7, 1842, which place he held clerk August 26, 1842, and resigned June 30, until July 5, 1845. ^^ ^'so served the Na\-y 1847." He was employed to perform meteor- Department as Meteorologist from August ological work, and was appointed by the 10, 1848, until the close of the year 1857. 42 650 The Smithsonian Institution ing to the memoirs of John Quincy Adams, a letter from Espy was received in 1842 by the Committee on the Smithsonian Bequest, in which he proposed that "a portion of the fund should be appropriated for simultaneous meteorological ob- servations all over the Union, with him for central national meteorologist, stationed at Washington, with a comfortable salary." ^ In December, 1846, Henry was elected Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and, already familiar with the meteor- ological work done at the Albany Academy^ during his ad- ministration there, he was quick to urge in his "programme of organization " "a system of extended meteorological obser- vations for solving the problem of American storms." In a letter to Jared Eliot, dated Philadelphia, July 16, 1747, Franklin, our first great scientist, expressed the opinion, not original with him, however,^ that " the course of the storm is from southwest to northeast," The work of subsequent me- teorologists had all tended to show that storms did progress in accordance with definite laws, and that most storms began in the west and traveled toward the east. Henry was not satisfied with simply urging this matter upon the authorities, for he returns to it in his first report and says: "Of late years, in our country, more additions have been made to meteorol- 1 " The Smithsonian Institution : Docu- tural Report for 1855," P^g^ 369. Among the ment Relative to Its Origin and History." academies where meteorological observations Edited by William J. Rhees. Page 784. were taken was the Albany Academy. See Washington, 1879. also page 212, " Memorial of Joseph Henry." 2 " A local system of meteorological ob- 3 Abbe, Cleveland, " Historical Notes on serrations was established in the State of the Systems of Weather Telegraphy, and New York, in 1825, and has been uninter- Especially Their Development in the United ruptedly continued from that time until the States." American Journal of Science, '\o\- present. Each of the academies, which par- ume II, page 82, August, 1871. In a foot- ticipated in the literature fund of the State, note Abbe says, "Earlier than Franklin must was furnished with a thermometer and rain have been Lewis Evans, who, according to gauge, and directed to make three daily ob- Hon. T. Povvnall, M. P., published in 1749 in servations relative to the temperature, the di- Philadelphia, the brief statement of this reclion of the wind, cloudiness," etc. Joseph general law." See also Lorin Blodget's Henry in his paper, " Meteorology in its " Climatology of the United States," page Connection with Agriculture," in "Agricul- 379, Philadelphia, 1S57. Meteorology 65 1 ogy than to any other branch of physical science."^ Then he unfolds his plan : " It is proposed to organize a system of observations which shall extend as far as possible over the North American continent,"^ In the accomplishment of this purpose he wisely calls to his assistance " the most experienced American meteorolo- gists,"^ Espy and Loomis, both of whom prepared reports on the subject, which are given as appendices two and three to the first annual Report. The first, by Loomis, is a mas- terly summary of all the knowledge then possessed on the subject. He showed what advantages might be expected from the study of storms, what had been already done in this country toward making the necessary observations, and finally, what encouragement there was to a further prosecution of the same researches. He then presented in detail a plan for uni- fying the work done by existing observers, and for supple- menting it by that of new observers at needed points, for a systematic supervision, and, finally for a thorough discussion of the observations collected.* The communication from Espy is a shorter one, but it is of much value and specially pertinent in that it refers to his " circular to the friends of science " sent out from the Sur- geon-General's office before 1843, i'"* which he urged the keeping of meteorological journals upon voluntary observers, and requested cooperation in his efforts to develop the phases of storms. It was also in this letter that he announced his " intention to lay down on skeleton maps of the United States. by appropriate symbols, all the most important phases of great storms which might come within the range of our sim- ultaneous observations ; and thus it was hoped that we should be able to determine the shape and size of all storms ; 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1846, page 25. Work of the Smithsonian Institution." Page - Ibidem. 217," Bulletin No. 1 1 of the Weather Bureau. " iJ Langley, S. P., "The Meteorological 4" Smithsonian Report," 1S46, page 28. 652 The Smithsonian Institution whether they are round or oblong, and if oblong whether they move sideforeniost or e7idfore7nost, or obliq^iely ; and to ascertain their velocity and direction in all the different sea- sons of the year ; the course of the wind in and beyond the borders of the storm ; the fluctuation of the barometer and change of temperature which generally accompany storms, and the extent to which their influence is felt beyond their borders." ^ Henry's request, sustained by the weighty opinions of such eminent authorities, easily convinced the Board of Regents of the value of the proposition, and on December 15, 1847, that body appropriated " for instruments and other expenses connected with meteorological observations, one thousand dollars." ^ Such was the beginning of the meteorological work of the Smithsonian Institution. With this very small appropriation it was impossible to put into active operation the plan proposed by Loomis, if in- deed, such was ever the intention of Henry, and the money was properly diverted to the purchase of instruments. With- out accurate appliances for the determination of observations, no true results are possible in science, and no one knew this fact better than Henry. It was the policy of the Institution then as now to seek aid "from every quarter whence it maybe obtained,"^ and the cooperation of the meteorological services then in existence was the evident ambition of Henry. In August, 1848, Espy was appointed Meteorologist in the Navy Department, and 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1846, page 47. I am inclined to believe that the introduction See also " Memoir of Elias Loomis," by Hu- of this simple method of representing and dis- bert A. Newton, contained in " Smithsonian cussing the phenomena of a storm was the Report," for 1890, page 754, where Professor greatest of the services which our colleague Newton calls attention to the weather maps rendered to science." made by Loomis in the year 1842, and points 2 Rhees, William J., " The Smithsonian In- out the great similarity between the maps stitution : Journals of the Board of Regents, now in use by the Weather Bureau and those Reports of Committees, Statistics, etc.," invented by Loomis. He says : "The great- page 43, Washington, 1879. est inventions are oft-times the simplest, and 3 « Smithsonian Report," 1849, page 14. Meteorology 65 o in that year an appropriation was made by Congress for meteorology under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy. According to the Smithsonian Report for 1848, "in order that the observations thus estabhshed may not interfere with those undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution, that officer [the Secretary of the Navy] has directed Professor Espy to cooperate with the Secretary of the Institution."^ The plan had now reached that stage of development when it could be definitely formulated, and Henry continues : " It is contemplated to establish three classes of observers among those who are disposed to join in this enterprise. One class, without instruments, to observe the face of the sky as to its clearness, the extent of cloud, the direction and force of wind, the beginning and ending of rain, snow, etc. A second class, furnished with thermometers, who, besides making the obser- vations above mentioned, will record variations of tempera- ture. The third class, furnished with full sets of instruments, to observe all the elements at present deemed important in the science of meteorology. It is believed that much valu- able information may be obtained in this way with reference to the extent, duration, and passage of storms over the coun- try, though the observer may be possessed of no other ap- paratus than a simple wind-vane. With the instruments owned by private individuals, with those at the several mili- tary stations, and with the supply of the deficiency by the funds of the Smithsonian Institution, it is believed that ob- servations can be instituted at important points over the whole United States, and that with the observations which we can procure from Mexico and the British possessions of North America, data will be furnished for important additions to our knowledge of meteorological phenomena."^ For the accomplishment of this plan there was required, 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1847, page 15. "^Ibidem. 42* 654 The Smithsonian Institution first of all, a corps of meteorological observers, and a circular signed by Henry and Espy, requesting the cooperation of those interested in the subject was issued on November i, 1848. This document was distributed by members of Con- gress^ during the winter of i848-'49, to such of their constit- uents as were judged to be favorable to the undertaking, including a list of all persons who, as far as they were known, had hitherto been accustomed to make meteorological obser- vations in North America. These names were furnished by Professor James H. Coffin, of Lafayette College.^ Coopera- tion was also solicited from the existing systems under the direction of the Surgeon-General and of those in the States of New York and Pennsylvania.^ A large number of communications were received in reply to this circular, and in February, 1849, the necessary answers were prepared and sent out with blank forms for the register of the weather. The number of persons who volunteered their assistance at that time, or from whom cooperation might be expected, was 412, of which 143 were correspondents of Professor Espy, and had been previously engaged in collecting observations under the direction of the Navy Department* At once the service came into active operation, and as a re- sult Henry was able to report in 1849 that already "from lo- calities widely separated from each other, and distributed over the greater portion of the United States, about one hundred and fifty monthly returns are now regularly received,"^ and "it will be seen we are in a fair way of establishing a general system of meteorology, extending over a great portion of North America, including many stations furnished with com- pared instruments referred to the same standard."* 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1 851, page 68. legislature. See Agricultural Report for 1855, 2 Thidein, 1847, page 15. P^ge 370. 3 A system of State observation was estab- 4 " Smithsonian Report," 185 1, page 68. lished in Pennsylvania in 1837, by the ap|)ro- 5 f/iidcin, 184S, page 12. priation of the sum of .$4,000 by the State ^Ibidem, 1848, page 15. Meteorology 655 In 1848 Arnold Guyot came to the United States, and at the meeting of the American Association held in Philadel- phia in that year he met Henry, who at once consulted him in regard to the development of the collection of meteorological observations. Guyot was charged with the selecting and or- dering of the improved instruments that were required.^ He rejected the old barometers in favor of the cistern barometer of Fortin as improved by Ernst, and further improved in ac- cordance with his own suggestion as regards safety of trans- portation, resulting in the instrument made by James Green, of New York, and known as the " Smithsonian barometer." Each instrument made according to this pattern was num- bered and accurately compared with a standard.^ The set of instruments sent out consisted of a barometer, thermometer, hydrometer, wind-vane, and snow and rain gauge. ^ In the Smithsonian Report for 1850, from which so much has been quoted, Henry says: "The most important service the Smithsonian Institution has rendered to meteorology during the past year, has been the general introduction into the country of a more accurate set of instruments at a reason- able price."* The distribution of these sets of standard in- struments accomplished much in the way of disseminating a greater knowledge of meteorolog)-, for there were many per- sons who were glad to purchase them for their private use, but who were unwilling to bind themselves to the strict com- pliance required by the rules of the service. The result was the establishment of numerous small meteorological observa- tories scattered throughout the country that became local centers of scientific observation and contributed toward the development of the science. Guyot was further intrusted with the preparation of a 1 Dana, James D., "Memoir of Arnold '-'" Smithsonian Report," 1850, page 17. Guyot," Biographical Memoirs, National 3 Ibidem. Academy of Sciences, Volume 11, page 338. * Ibidevi, 656 The Smithsonian Institution pamphlet of "Directions for Meteorological Observations,"^ which was issued in 1850, and he was also invited to compile " A Collection of Meteorological Tables," which was issued in 1852. The latter, consisting, when first published, of only 2 1 2 pages, passed through four editions ^ under Professor Guyot, the last of which, appearing in 1884, contained 748 pages. Although designed primarily for the meteorological observers reporting to the Smithsonian Institution, the tables obtained a much wider circulation and were extensively used by a large number of meteorologists and physicists in Europe and the United States. In 1847 Henry had recognized the value of the application of the electric telegraph^ as " a ready means of warning the more northern and eastern observers to be on the watch for the first appearance of an advancing storm " ; * and a year later he wrote, " As a part of the system of meteorology, it is proposed to employ, as far as our funds will permit, the magnetic telegraph in the investigation of atmospheric phe- nomena," and then,^ "The advantage to agriculture and commerce to be derived from a knowledge of the approach of a storm, by means of the telegraph, has been frequently referred to of late in the public journals."^ Realizing that the time for action had arrived, Henry, in 1849, personally requested the presidents of a number of telegraph companies 1 Dana, James D., "Memoir of Arnold says: "In the Atlantic ports of the United Guyot," Biographical Memoirs, National States, the approach of a gale when the Academy of Sciences, Volume il, page 338. storm is yet on the Gulf of Mexico, or in the 2 The second edition was issued in 1859. Southern or Western States, may be made Concerning this volume Guyot wrote to known by means of the electric telegraph, Henry in 1858 "that two-fifths of the pages which, will probably soon extend from Maine of tables, representing 68,000 computed re- to the Mississippi." This is the first known suits, were wholly new and were prepared published suggestion of the use of telegraphy for the volume." Also, " It is essentially a for the transmission of meteorological infor- work of patience, in doing which the idea mation, and is doubtless the source from of saving much labor to others and facilitat- which Loomis obtained his idea, which, in ing scientific research is the only encourag- turn, was passed on to Henry. ing element." Dana's Memoir, page 338. 4 "Smithsonian Report," 1846, page 25. 3 In the American Journal of Science for 5 Ibidem, 1848, jjage 15. September, 1846 (page 334), W. C. Redfield 6 Ibidem, 1848, page 16. Meteorology 657 to allow the Smithsonian Institution "at a certain period of the day, the use of their wires for the transmission of meteor- ological intelligence."^ This request was favorably considered and thereafter, until the beginning of the civil war, the system of daily telegraphic weather reports thus inaugurated was continued. Such was the beginning of the telegraphic weather service, and by means of these reports predictions of coming storms, with all the recognized advantages to the country at large, were made possible.^ It is of this service that Cleveland Abbe has so well said: "However frequently the idea may have been suggested of utilizing our knowledge by the employment of the electric telegraph, it is to Professor Henry and his assist- ants in the Smithsonian Institution that the credit is due of having first actually realized this suggestion."^ The next step was an important one, and in the annual Report for 1850 Henry wrote: "For the better comprehen- sion of the relative position of the several places of observa- tion, now embraced in our system of meteorology, an outline map of North America has been constructed, by Professor Foreman. This map is intended also to be used for present- ing the successive phases of the sky over the whole country, at different points of time, as far as reported to us, and we 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1849, P^ge 15. 2 1 am not unmindful of the fact (for which I am indebted to Professor Abbe) that in March, 1848, the American Journal of Science, page 297, contains the following item : "Telegraphic Reports of Meteoro- logical Phenomena. " Messrs. Jones & Co., Merchants' Ex- change, New York, have made arrangements to give daily and hourly reports of meteoro- logical phenomena, by telegraphic messages from all parts of the country which are in telegraphic communication with New York. This novel and important enterprise will fur- nish more extensive means of synchronous comparison of the state of the barometer, di- rection of the wind, and generally of all meteorological phenomena, than were ever before possessed by the scientific world. It is hoped the colleges, scientific institutions, and individuals favorably situated will com- bine their efforts to give efficiency to this scheme, which if properly encouraged by proper hands, cannot fail of interesting re- sults." With this brief notice the service mentioned seems to have passed away — per- haps even before it came into existence, for no traces of it are to be found, even after a most careful search. — M. B. 3 American Journal of Science, Volume li, page 83, August, 1871. 658 The Smithsonian rnstitiition have been waiting for its completion to commence a series of investigations, with the materials now on hand, relative to the progress of storms." ^ The value of this map soon became apparent, and it is not too much to say that the ambition of Espy "to lay down on skeleton maps of the United States, by appropriate symbols, all the most important phases of great storms " ^ became an actuality under the administration of the Smithsonian Institu- tion. As the data from various sources were received, the meteorological conditions were indicated on the map ; and a current weather map was the final culmination of the idea. It is thus described by Henry himself: "The first practical application which was attempted of the principle we have mentioned was made by this Institution in 1856; the infor- mation conveyed by telegraphic despatches in regard to the weather was daily exhibited by means of differently-colored tokens, on a map of the United States, so as to show at one view the meteorological condition of the atmosphere over the whole country. At the same time publication of telegraphic despatches was made in the newspapers."^ This map was hung where the public could have general access to it to observe the changes, and its indications were first published at large by signals displayed from the high tower of the Institution.* The annual Report for 1858 describes it somewhat in de- tail. It says: "An object of much interest at the Smithsonian building is a daily exhibition on a large map of the condition of the weather over a considerable portion of the United States. The reports are received about ten o'clock in the morning, and the changes on the maps are made by tempora- rily attaching to the several stations pieces of card of different 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1850, page 19. 4 Langley, S. P., " The Meteorological <2 Page 651, this volume. Work of the Smithsonian Institution," page 3 " Scientific Writings of Joseph Henry," 219, "Bulletin No. 11 of the Weather Volume II, page 453, being an extract from Bureau," being a " Report of the Interna- the " Smithsonian Report " ft)r 1865, page 56. tional Meteorological Congress," held in 1893. Meteorology 659 colors to denote different conditions of the weather as to clear- ness, cloudiness, rain, or snow."^ Soon an improvement fol- lowed by the adoption of circular disks of different colors, which were attached to the maps by pins at each station of observation, and indicating by their color the state of the at- mosphere, white signifying clear weather; gray, cloudy; black, rain; etc. The disks had an arrow stamped upon them, and as they were so arranged that they could be attached to the map in any direction, the motion of the wind at each station was shown by them.^ Henry wrote: "This map is not only of interest to visitors in exhibiting the kind of weather which their friends at a distance are experiencing, but is also of im- portance in determining at a glance the probable changes which may soon be expected." ^ It was also in 1856, to again quote Henry, that "several of the observers publish the results of their observations in the newspapers of their vicinity," concerning which, he adds: "We would commend this custom to general adoption."* With the growth of the telegraph came also a development of its usefulness to the meteorological work of the Smithsonian In- stitution, and the next step was the publication in the daily newspapers of the telegraphic reports of the weather. In 1857 Henry acknowledges his indebtedness "to the National Telegraph line for a series of observations from New Orleans to New York, and as far westward as Cincinnati, Ohio, which have been published in the * Evening Star ' of this city. These reports have excited much interest, and could they be extended further north, and more generally to the westward, they would furnish important information as to the approach of storms. We hope in the course of another year to make 1 This description is from "Smithsonian 219, "Bulletin No. 11 of the Weather Report," 185S, page 32. Bureau." 2Langley, S. P., "The Meteorological 3" Smithsonian Report," 1858, page 32. Work of the Smithsonian Institution," page ^Ibidem, 1856, page 35. 66o The Smithsonian Institution such an arrangement with the telegraph lines as to be able to give warning on the eastern coast of the approach of storms, since the investigations which have been made at the Insti- tution fully indicate the fact that as a general rule the storms of our latitude pursue a definite course," ^ The last quota- tion shows the results accomplished by the meteorological service of the Smithsonian Institution. That storms pursue a definite course was now an established fact, and the propo- sition of Franklin that the storms of the southeast advance in a northeasterly direction was recognized as a law. Of practical value is the acknowledgment that the announcement of the progress of storms by the telegraph had been accom- plished, while the original simultaneous publication in the newspapers and on a daily weather map of their advance are incidental results in the development of the science. " It will thus be seen that without material aid from the govern- ment, but through the enlightened policy of the telegraph companies, and with the assistance of the munificent bequest of James Smithson, * for the increase and dift'usion of know- ledge,' the Smithsonian Institution, first in the world, organ- ized a comprehensive system of telegraphic meteorology, and has thus given first to Europe and Asia, and now to the United States, that most beneficent national application of modern science, the Storm Warnings."^ In that which has preceded an attempt has been made to show the development of the meteorological work of the 1 " Smithsonian Pvcport," 1857, page 26. the great system of observations, has im- 2 Abbe, Cleveland, American Journal of ported standard instruments, and rated and Science, Volume II, page 85, August, 1871. constructed hundreds of barometers and ther- The following from Norton's Literary Register mometers used all over the continent. It has and Book-B/tyers^ A /manac {or lS$^,p3-ge 4<) published full directions for observing, has is also pertinent as shown in the workings of now in press a series of hygrometrical, baro- the Smithsonian at that time : " No institution metrical, hypsometrical and many other tables or government in the world is now doing any- of prime importance, amounting to upward thing like as much for meteorology as the of three hundred pages. This and much Smithsonian. It has planned and executed more for meteorology alone." Meteorology 6 6 1 Smithsonian Institution in the direction of reporting the con- dition of the weather. That was not its only function. In an excerpt from the "Transactions of the American Medical Association," quoted by Henry, is the following description : "The primary object of the Smithsonian Institution is the advancement of the science of meteorology and the elucida- tion of the laws of atmospheric phenomena ; that of the Patent Office, to collect facts and deduce therefrom laws which have immediate reference to agriculture ; while the system of the Medical Department is intended to be pri- marily subservient to the health of the troops and the ad- vancement of medical science. These three Institutions are now in harmonious cooperation, and it is believed that it is no exaggeration to say that under their auspices more is now being done to advance meteorology than has ever before been attempted under any government." ^ Of the work accomplished by the Patent Office a few words are necessary. From 1854 to i860 an annual appropriation was made by Congress for "the collection of agricultural statistics, investi- gations for promoting agriculture and rural economy, etc."^ A portion of this income during the years mentioned was devoted by the Commissioner of Patents to assisting the Smithsonian Institution in collecting and reducing meteoro- logical observations. Charles Mason, who was Commis- sioner of Patents in 1853-57, says in his Report for 1856 "that the degree of heat, cold, and moisture in various locali- ties, and usual periods of their occurrence, together with their effects upon different agricultural productions, are of incal- culable importance in searching into the laws by which the growth of such products is regulated, and will enable the 1 Preface of " Results of Meteorological inclusive, being a report of the Commissioner Observations made under the direction of the of Patents made at the first session of the United States Patent Office and the Smith- Thirty-sixth Congress," Volume I (l86l). sonian Institution from the year 1854 to 1859 - " Smithsonian Report," i860, page 34. 662 The Smithsonian Institution agriculturist to judge with some degree of certainty whether any given article can be profitably cultivated." ^ It was with this congenial cooperation that in 1855 a new set of blank reports were prepared by, and distributed under, the frank of the Patent Office. They were also returned, when filled out, to Washington, under a similar frank, thus accomplishing a large saving in the item of postage. From the Smithsonian Institution the registers were sent to Profes- sor James H. Coffin, of Lafayette College, and by him they were reduced and discussed. According to the annual Re- port of 1857 "from twelve to fifteen persons, many of them females, have been almost constantly employed, under the direction of Professor Coffin, in bringing up the arrears, and in reducing the current observations." ^ Some idea of the enormous amount of work involved may be gathered from the following statement contained in the Report for 1857: "During 1856 the records of upwards of half a million of separate observations, each requiring a reduction involving an arithmetical calculation, were received at the Institution. Allowing an average of one minute for the examination and reduction of each observation, the amount of time consumed will be nearly 7,000 hours, or, at the rate of seven hours per day, it will be 1,000 days or upwards of three years, or, in other words, to keep up with the reduction of the current ob- servations the whole available time of three expert comput- ers is required. This is independent of the labor expended in the correspondence, preparation and distribution of blank forms, and the deduction of general principles."^ This was subsequently increased quite materially, and while in 1854 there were 234 stations, in 1856 there were 320 and in 1859 the number had increased to 531.* 1 Quoted in "Smithsonian Report," i860, 2 " Smitlisonian Report," 1857, page 28. page 34, where the entire subject is fully 3 Ibidem, 1857, page 27. discussed. 4 Ibidem, 1861, j>age 36. Meteorology 663 In the annual Report for i860 it appears that the appro- priation from the Commissioner of Patents was " suddenly and unexpectedly suspended,"^ so that thereafter it was im- possible to continue the reduction of the results. Fortunately, however, the general results of all the observations for six years had already been presented to Congress in the joint name of the Smithsonian Institution and the Patent Office, and were in the hands of the Pul^lic Printer. The first vol- ume, with the title of " Results of Meteorological Observa- tions made under the direction of the United States Patent Office and the Smithsonian Institution from the year 1854 to 1859 inclusive, being a Report of the Commissioner of Pat- ents made at the First Session of the Thirty-sixth Congress," was published in 1861.^ The second volume of these " Results of Meteorological Observations" was issued in 1864, and, although it bore the same title as the earlier volume, the subject matter was entirely different, for it consisted chiefly of a digest of " Ob- servations upon Periodical Phenomena in plants and ani- mals from 1 85 1 to 1859, with tables of the dates of opening and closing of lakes, rivers, harbors, etc.,"^ arranged by Doctor Franklin B. Hough, and also a critical study of three storms of 1859 made from data collected from the records in the institution and prepared for publication by Professor James H. Coffin, of Lafayette College. The first of the three papers demands more careful con- sideration. Mention has already been made of the blanks sent out in 181 7 by Josiah Meigs when in charge of the Land Office, calling for information concerning the time of the unfolding of the leaves of plants, the time of flowering, the immigration of birds whether from North or South ; the im- 1 " Smithsonian Report," iS6o, page 3 }. tiie year in meteorology appears on page 36 of 2 A discussion of its contents together with the " Smithsonian Report " for 1861. an account of the work accomplislied during 3" Smithsonian Report," 1864, page 25. 664 The Smithsonian Instihition migration of fishes ; and similar information. No continuous record of the results collected by Meigs has ever been pub- lished, and it is not even definitely known what became of the originals after his death in 1822.^ It remained for the Smithsonian Institution to revive the collection of such infor- mation, and therefore in 1851 a circular entitled "Registry of Periodical Phenomena " was sent to all of its observers. It was prepared by Doctor John Torrey and Doctor Ed- ward Foreman and gave a list of plants to be observed for the period of flowering and fruiting. Later the circular was made to include information concerning phenomena of animal life. The gathering of such facts was continued until 1859, and the material was then tabulated by Doctor Hough. He classified the observations under the following headings : Dates of foliation or leafing of plants ; dates of blossoming of plants ; dates of ripening of fruits ; dates of defoliation or fall of leaf in plants ; dates of first appearance of birds ; dates of first appearance of other animals (reptiles, fishes, and insects), and a series of miscellaneous records, having to do chiefly with the opening and closing of navigation at certain stations. Doctor Hough in the introduction says : " These results will be found to have a more direct application to meteorological science, by indicating the progress of the seasons in different localities, and their relative variability in different years. For this purpose plants and animals afford indications as signifi- cant as meteorological instruments as to temperature, and other climatic conditions, because strictly dependent upon them, and in the absence of all other records they would furnish a reliable chronicle of the passing year." ^ At the time of the publication of this second volume, Henry said : " These two quarto volumes of meteorological results for the 1 Henry, Alfred J., "Early Individual Ob- "Report of the International Meteorological servers in the United States," page 301, "Bui- Congress." Washington, 1895. letin No. 11 of the Weather Bureau," being a 2 Page 6 of the introduction. Meteorology 665 six years 1854 to 1859 inclusive, embracing nearly two thou- sand pages, together with a volume covering very nearly the same period of time published by the War Department, probably form an unsurpassed body of materials for the investigation of meteorological phenomena over so wide an extent of country." ^ The corps of observers was in many respects a remarkable body, and a cursory examination of the list shows the names not only of men eminent in science at that time, but also of men who have since become noted, and perhaps whose first contributions to science consisted in meteorological observa- tions. The training that was thus acquired developed the powers of close observation and had much to do with the suc- cess of the individual that came later. Indeed it could hardly be otherwise. Only a student of nature would be intrusted with the proper filling out of the "Registry of Periodical Phe- nomena." The botanist would watch for the first budding of plants, and the young naturalist would be equally alert to re- cord new facts in regard to animal life. A few names taken from the hundreds on record are therefore of special interest. They include Cleveland Abbe, Michigan, i ; ^ Major J. \V. Abert, South Carolina, i ; Spencer F. Baird, Pennsylvania, I ; F'rank Baker, Illinois, 2 ; Adolf F. Bandelier, Illinois, 5 ; William M. Beauchamp, New York, 9 ; Lorin Blodget, Penn- sylvania, 3 ; William C. Bond, Massachusetts, 4 ; Parker Cleaveland, Maine, 4 ; John L. Campbell, Virginia, 2 ; Alexis Caswell, Rhode Island, 18; John Chappelsmith, Illinois, 22; P. A. Chadbourne, Massachusetts and Connecticut, 2; George H. Cook, New Jersey, 5 ; Doctor Elliott Coues, Arizona, i ; W. H. Dall, Alaska, 2 ; Reverend J. Owen Dorsey, Dakota, I ; John D. Easter, Georgia, 3 ; Doctor George Engelmann, 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1864, page 26. during which continuous observations were 2 This figure indicates the number of years carried on. 43 666 The Smithsonian Institution Missouri, 14; M. C. Fernald, Maine, 4; L. R. Gibbes, South Carolina, i ; Donald Gunn, British America, 5 ; C. F. Hartt, Nova Scotia, 2 ; Jed Hotchkiss, Virginia, 7 ; Charles A. Joy, New York, 6 ; Alexis A. Julien, Antilles and New York, 4 ; Robert C. Kedzie, Michigan, 1 1 ; W. C. Kerr, North Caro- lina, 2 ; Jared P. Kirtland, Ohio, i ; S. A. Lattimore, New York, I ; Increase A. Lapham, Wisconsin, 20 ; Captain John Henry Lefroy, Canada, 3 ; W. W. Mather, Ohio, 3 ; Alfred M. Mayer, Maryland and Pennsylvania, 5 ; J. Meehan, Penn- sylvania, 1 5 ; Marshall Macdonald, West Virginia, i ; W. A. Norton, Delaware, i; David D. Owen, Indiana, 4; Reverend Roswell Park, Wisconsin, i ; Henry W. Ravenel, South Car- olina, 5 ; Professor Orin Root, New York, i ; Charles Sarto- rius, Mexico, 14; A. P. S. Stuart, Nova Scotia and Illinois, 6; James M. Tower, New York, 3; Bela White, Nebraska, 4; R. B. Warder, Ohio, 2 ; Alexander Winchell, Alabama, 2; Theodore G. Wormley, Ohio, 2 ; Charles A. Young, Ohio, 6; and Ira Young, New Hampshire, 2. Among those who reported on periodical phenomena in plants and animals were not only many of the foregoing, but also the following well-known names : James G. Cooper, Washington Territory ; William Darlington, Pennsylvania ; Chester Dewey, New York ; Franklin B. Hough, New York ; Robert W. Kennicott, Illinois ; A. S. Packard, Jr., Maine ; F. Peyre Porcher, South Carolina ; John M. Ord- way, Missouri, and N. B, Webster, Virginia. Of these men Baird has well said : *' The interest of the observers was maintained by a con- stant correspondence with the Institution. Copies of the Smithsonian Reports and other publications were duly trans- mitted to them, and any inquiries or communications from them on scientific subjects were promptly responded to. In this way a body of collaborators was secured to the Institu- GEORGE BANCROFT. REGENT OP THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 1874-1878. ''hsOni .cuii :wey, rica, 5 ; '^ ^ u^ — ork, 4 : ., - . .. w id Pe ania, 5; J. Meehan, Penn- all Macdoi. David D, Owen, Indiai , , , .everend '\ i; Henry W. Tf?-^ ---^ South Car- New YorK, I ; L^narles Sarto- •braska, i^ma. 2; la in of the foregoing-, but !an If .,.r, oi:k ; r r an ivuu 13 I, i\ew Illinois; A. ', Jr., la ; ■ aic'LuLitii , ci cOn- tion. -^ ^^- mj iiunicatiGUS th< responded to. in ^W' L/ .MOITTTTlTriKi MAIWOWllTIMg HHT 10 T"/iaf)aH .8T8J:-:t'V8I Meteorology 667 tion, whose services cannot be overestimated, since they not only furnished information relating- to meteorology, but they were always ready to supply information and assistance in other directions. To that body of men the National Museum owes a very large part of the extensive and complete series of illustrations of North American natural history that gives to it so great a prominence, this being the result of succes- sive applications for aid from particular classes. Thus, when- ever the attention of the Institution was directed to the fact that some particular branch of natural history required its fostering care, circulars were prepared and issued to the meteorological correspondents, invoking cooperation, and asking them to collect objects of the kind that might be found in their neighborhood, so that, not only all North y\merican species might be gathered, but accurate determinations made of their geographical distribution. Very extensive responses usually followed these appeals, and in many cases sufficient material was secured to place the subject on a permanent and satisfactory basis. The works of the Institution on many orders of insects and on fresh-water and land shells, reptiles, birds, mammals, etc., were all based more or less entirely on collections and information obtained by the Smithsonian ob- servers. "As a result, therefore, of over twenty-five years' observa- tions by such men, the mass of meteorological information obtained became very great, and even though a certain per cent, of the observations could not lay claim to that minute accuracy which is generally required, yet it was found that, for many purposes, such as the general indications of varia- tions in temperature, barometrical pressure, rainfall, etc., in the collation of all observations the errors disappeared, and an average was secured which did not differ essentially from what would have been derived from more accurate obser- vations." ^ The Smithsonian Institution is also entitled to credit for gathering the following material relating to the climate of the 1" Smithsonian Report," 1878, pages 25, 26. 668 The Sniithsotiian Institution North American continent: i. A miscellaneous collection of manuscripts and other tables relative to the climate of the United States; 2. The observations made under the direc- tion of the Smithsonian Institution subsequent to 1849; 3- A series of observations made by Doctor Luis Berlandier in Mexico ; 4. Observations made in the British Possessions ; 5. The record of observations made by government and other exploring expeditions ; 6. Copies of the observations made under the direction of the Surgeon -General at the mili- tary posts ; 7. Copies of the observations made at the ex- pense of the States of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylva- nia, Maine, and Missouri ; and 8. A series of observations from Bermuda and the West Indies. ^ It was intended to systematically arrange and reduce these observations so that the results might be summarized into general laws, but the civil war put an end to such work, and ultimately the col- lected material was transferred to the custody of what is now the Weather Bureau, Certain special meteorological investigations were also car- ried on in the Institution. During 1850 Espy conducted a series of experiments on the variations of temperature pro- duced by a sudden change in the density of atmospheric air. The investiofation was carried on in one of the rooms of the Smithsonian Institution " with articles of apparatus belong- ing to the collection which constituted the liberal donation of Doctor Hare."" It was during the same year that a special circular was issued to the observers asking for infor- mation relating to the aurora, and a valuable collection of returns was received, which were placed in the hands of Cap- tain J. Henry Lefroy, then in charge of the meteorological work in Toronto, to be " incorporated with observations of a similar kind, which he had collected in the British 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1857, page 65. '^ Ibidem, 1S50, page 16. Meteorology 669 Possessions of North America." ^ Another early illustration of meteorological investigation may be mentioned : Soon after the occurrence of an earthquake in the central part of the United States on April 29, 1852, a circular was issued, requesting a report of any observations which had been made or could be gathered relative to that event. Numerous re- plies were received, embodying facts suHicient to enable the Institution to mark the point of chief intensity and trace out the diverging lines along which the earth-wave passed.^ Bare mention must be made of the reduction of the series of Temperature Tables begun in 1851 by Lorin Blodget; and also of Tables of Precipitation. Ultimately the entire mass of material, excepting of course that which was published under the joint auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and the Pat- ent Office, was given into the hands of Charles A. Schott for reduction and discussion. Three volumes resulted, of which the first, issued in 1872, consisted of "Tables and Results of the Precipitation in Rain and Snow in the United States, and at some stations in adjacent parts of North America, and in Central and South America." ^ The second was issued in 1876 and bore the title of "Tables, Distribution, and Varia- tions of the Atmospheric Temperature in the United States and some adjacent parts of America."* A third volume, issued in 1 88 1, was essentially a reprint of the first and had for its title " Tables and Results of the Precipitation in Rain and Snow in the United States, and at some stations in adjacent parts of North America, and in Central and South America." ^ It is manifestly impossible at this place to attempt any discus- sion of the contents of these volumes, but it is suggestive of the magnitude of the undertaking to repeat from the preface 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1850, page 19. arc discussed at length on page 23 of the ^Ibidem, 1852, page 74. " Smithsonian Report," 1875. '^Ibidem, 1872, page 21. 6 See description on page 26 of " Smith- 4 The character and extent of this work sonian Report," 1881. 6/0 The Smithsonian Institution of one of them ^ that of the eight sources of information from which the tables were derived, the 300 and over foho vohmies of the registers of the Smithsonian Institution was a single source. They were published in the Contributions to Know- ledge. In this connection mention must be made of the "Three Rain Charts of the United States, showing the dis- tribution by Isohyetal lines of the mean precipitation in rain and melted snow: (i) for the summer months, (2) for the winter months, (3) for the year" (1870); "Temperature Chart of the United States, showing the distribution, by isothermal lines, of the mean temperature for the year" (1873) ; "Three Temperature Charts of the United States, showing the dis- tribution by isothermal curves of the mean temperature of the lower atmosphere: (i) for the summer months, (2) for the winter months, (3) for the year" (1874); "Temperature Chart of the United States, showing the distribution of isothermal lines of the mean temperature for the year (1874); and a Base Chart of the United States" (1880). All of which were published by the Smithsonian Institution in the years indicated by the parenthesis. Mention has already been made of the valuable collection of Meteorological Tables, by Arnold Guyot, the fourth edition of which was published in 1884. This edition was exhausted in a very few years, and Secretary Langley then decided to recast the work entirely and publish it in three parts, one of meteorological, one of geographical, and one of physical tables, each representative of the latest knowledge in the field and independent of the others, but the three forming a homogene- ous series. The " Smithsonian Meteorological Tables," the first volume of the new series was issued in 1893.^ Among the early volumes of the " Contributions to Know- ledge" are numerous papers containing discussions of meteor- 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1875, page 25. 2 Ibidem, 1894, page 9. Meteorology 671 ological observations. They include the series made by Alexander D. Bache, in the Girard College Observatory, in Philadelphia, during i840-'45 and were published in six parts issued between the years 1859 and 1865;^ those made by Doctor Alexis Caswell in Providence, Rhode Island, from December, 1830, till December, 1876;^ those made by Parker Cleaveland in P)runswick, Me., during 1807-59 I^ those made by Samuel P. llildreth and Joseph Wood from 181 7 to 1823 and from 1826 to 1859,* and those made by Doctor Nathan D. Smith in Washington, Ark., from 1840 to 1859.^ The meteorological observations made in the Arctic regions were all reduced and discussed by Charles A. Schott. They included those gathered by Elisha K. Kane during 1853-55 ; ^ those collected by Sir Francis L. McClintock during 1857 and 1859;^ and last of all, those obtained by Doctor Isaac I. Hayes during 1860-61.^ Of more special meteorological interest are the following memoirs, likewise contained in the Smithsonian publications, and for the most part written by scientists who were also in- cluded among the staff of observers. They include "Winds of the Northern Hemisphere," by James H. Coffin (1853);^ "Account of a Tornado near New Harmony, Indiana, April 30, 1852," by John Chappelsmith (1855);^*' "On the Recent Secular Period of the Aurora Borealis," by Dennison Olmsted 1 Full descriptions of these parts may be found on page i8 " Smithsonian Report," 1859; page 26 "Smithsonian Report," i860; page 17 " Smithsonian Report," 1862; page 16 " Smithsonian Report," 1863 ; and page 18 "Smithsonian Report," 1864. 2 See " Smithsonian Report," 1859, page 31 ; " Smithsonian Report," i860, page 21 ; and " Smithsonian Report," 18S2, page 21, for description. 3 See " Smithsonian Report," 1867, pages 23 and 28, for description. 4 See " Siuitlisoniau Report," 1867, page 32, for detailed description. 5 See " Smithsonian Report," i860, page 22, for detailed description. <> See " Smithsonian Report," 1859, page 22, for detailed description. 7 See " Smithsonian Report," 1S61, page 16, for detailed description. 8 See" Smithsonian Report," 1865, page 26, for description. 9 This most important work costing many years' labor is described in the "Smithsonian Report," 1851, page 12, and "Smithsonian Report," 1S53, page 13. 10 See " Smithsonian Report," 1853, page 14, for analysis. 672 The Smithsonian Institution (1856);^ "Record of Aurora Phenomena observed in die Higher Northern Ladtudes," by Peter P^orce (1856);'" "On Certain Storms in Europe and America," by EHas Loomis (1860);^ "The Orbit and Phenomena of a Meteoric P"ire Ball seen July, i860," by James H. Coffin (1869),^ and "The Winds of the Globe," by James H. Coffin (1875).^ To this splendid collection of meteorological works there might well be added certain smaller monographs that are contained in the Miscellaneous Collections and Smithsonian Reports, but space is wanting.^ In the series of Records of Scientific Progress, meteorology was not neglected, and from 1879 till 1884^ the admirable summaries of this science that were contributed to the Smithsonian Reports were from the able pen of Professor Cleveland Abbe. With the beginning: of the civil war came the loss of the appropriation by means of which it had been up to that time possible to secure the reduction of the observations. At the same time the telegraphic service became unsatisfactory. In the annual Report for i860 Henry says: "We regret that frequent intermissions take place in the receipt of the tele- grams from places direcdy west of the city of Washington, especially as we are more immediately interested in these, since they afford the means of predicting with considerable certainty the character of the weather sometimes a day or more in advance."^ A year later the popular system of daily telegraphic reports of the condition of the weather from dis- tant parts of the United States had been discontinued ; " the ISee "Smithsonian Report," 1854, page 6 "The Scientific Writings of Joseph 12, for analysis. Henry " contain his Meteorological Essays 2 Ibidem. and cover more than 400 pages, and consist 3 See " Smithsonian Report," 1859, page chiefly of those published during the years 28, for detailed description. 1855 - '59. 4 See "Smithsonian Report," 1868, page 7 These were contained in the annual Re- 49, for description. ports for 1881, 1S82, 18S3, 1884, and 1885, and 5 See " Smithsonian Report," 1875, page were also issued as separates. 20, for detailed description. 8" Smithsonian Report," i860, page 36. Meteorology 673 continuity of thti lines to the South having been interrupted, and the wires from the North and West being so entirely occu- pied by public business that no use of them could be obtained for scientific purposes."^ Toward the close of 1862 "the daily telegraphic bulletin of the state of the weather"" was partially resumed, and in 1864 an important addition to the means at the command of the Institution for meteorological purposes was received by the liberal action of the North American Telegraphic Asso- ciation, which gave the free use of all its lines for the scien- tific objects of the Institution. "The association embraces the Western Union, the American, the Montreal, the Southwest- ern, and the Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph companies, covering the entire United States and Canada, including the overland line to San Francisco, which, by its charter, is re- quired to transmit without charge scientific despatches for the Institution."^ The same report adds that "the telegra])h companies on the Pacific Coast have also liberally granted the same privileges."* In 1863 came the culmination of the misfortunes that al- ready so seriously interfered with the development of the meteorological service. It came in the way of a law passed by Congress which prevented " the correspondents on agri- culture and meteorology from sending their reports by mail unless prepaid."^ Henry adds : "This arrangement almost entirely stops the reception of these articles, for, since the service rendered is ofratuitous, the observers cannot be ex- pected to bear this additional burden." Also, "owing to this restriction, the number of meteorological registers received during the past year has been diminished, and the transmis- sion of nearly all of them would have been discontinued had 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1861, page 35. ^ IbiJe/u. - /(^/(/om the study of all these he was enabled to throw much additional light upon the characters of Megalonyx. He con- sidered that the only remains of this animal yet known were those found in the United States, and satisfactorily proved that the lower jaw of an extinct quadruped discovered by Charles Darwin in South America, and referred by naturalists to the Megalonyx of Jefferson, does not belong to an animal of the same genus. The remains of the Mylodon, or gigantic sloth, were first discovered by Darwin in his researches in the southern part of South America. Remains of another species found in North America were described by Doctor Harlan, but were erron- eously referred to the Megalonyx. Doctor Leidy, in his memoir, described the collection of the remains of this animal belonging to the New York Lyceum. The Megatherium, which is the largest of all the extinct sloth tribe, when full grown, was more than fourteen feet long, including the tail, and eight feet high. It was first discovered 690 The Smithsonian Institution in South America, but has since been found in Georgia ; and it was from this locahty, the only one in the United States then known, that the remains described by Doctor Leidy were obtained. The fourth and new genus of American sloths, called the Ereptodon by the author, was established upon a peculiar form of teeth which belonged to an animal of about the size of the Megalonyx, the bones of which were also found in the state of Georgia. Doctor Hays, one of the commission to which this memoir was submitted, says in his report, that "the author has not only made valuable additions to our knowledge of an inter- esting tribe of animals, but has also collected and arranged the facts previously known so as to throw new light on the subject, and to render his memoir an important starting-point for future investigfators." A fourth memoir by Doctor Leidy was published in 1865. It consists of descriptions of remains of reptiles discovered in the Cretaceous formations of the United States, and, like the preceding ones, is one of the quarto series. Multitudes of fossils are found in the American Cretaceous formations, though the species appear not to be so numerous as in those of Europe. The mollusks are particularly abun- dant, and among them are a great many species of cham- bered shells. A species of ammonite was found on the Upper Missouri as large as an ordinary fore-wheel of a wagon. Remains of fishes were likewise numerous, sometimes in excel- lent preservation and sometimes fragmentary. The teeth of sharks were especially numerous. Bones of reptiles were also abundant, and their remains form the subject of Doctor Leidy's valuable memoir. Nothing further was published in vertebrate paleontology until 1883, when Edward D. Cope's memoir on "The Con- Paleontology 69 1 tents of a Bone Cave in the Island of Anguilla " (West In- dies) appeared in the quarto series. This memoir gives a description of the fossil vertebrates, shells, and also of the indications of human occupation discovered during the exca- vation of a cave in the West Indian island of Anguilla. The remains were discovered in 1868, and notices of them made, but the publication of a full account was delayed, in the hope that other objects might be added to the collection. The importance of the subject is shown by the fact that it is the first investigation of the life of the cave age in the West Indies ; that it gives the first reliable indication of the period of submergence, and hence of separation, of the West Indian islands, and that it describes some very peculiar forms of animal life not previously known. The paper consists of thirty-four pages, and contains five plates, with one hundred and five figures, the illustrations being made particularly full on account of the archaeological interest attaching to these animals, which were probably the contemporaries of the earliest men of tropical America. A second work by Professor Cope was published in 1891 in the " Proceedings." This paper is a discussion of the " Characters of Some Paleozoic Fishes." It contains, in addi- tion, descriptions of five new species and one new genus (Styptobasis) of fishes, and the cranial structure of Macropet- alichthys is given for the first time. The author first referred this genus to the Placodermata (Arthrodira), in a review of Professor Newberry's work on "The Paleozoic Fishes of North America," in "The American Naturalist" for Septem- ber, 1890, and the view has been adopted by A. Smith Woodward, and later authors. In addition to the foregoing, the following reprinted papers from the annual Reports, and elsewhere, have been published as separates: Marcou's "Bibliographies of American Natu- 692 The SmitJisonian Institution ralists " (1885); "Records of North American Paleontol- ogy," compiled for the years 1884, 1885, and 1886 by John B. Marcou, and for 1887-88 by Henry S. Williams. The first of these works forms the third volume of the " Bibliographies of American Naturalists," and is devoted entirely to a catalogue of the writings of those who have labored in the field of invertebrate paleontology, in connec- tion with the researches and collections made by the Insti- tution and the National Museum. The list of memoirs embraces : first. The published writings of Fielding B. Meek, numbering one hundred and five titles of papers (of which one was in conjunction with James Hall, seventeen in conjunction with F. V. Hayden, and twenty-five in conjunction with A. H. Worthen), and occupying one hundred pages ; second. The published writings of Charles A. White, numbering one hun- dred and fifty-one papers (of which two were in conjunction with H. A. Nicholson and two in conjunction with O. H. St. John), and occupying sixty-six pages; third. The published writings of Charles D. Walcott, numbering twenty-seven papers and occupying fifteen pages ; and fourth, A collection from fifteen authors of " Publications Based upon the Paleon- tological Collections of the United States Government," in- cluding the titles of three papers by Jacob W. Bailey, twelve papers by T. A. Conrad, five papers by James D. Dana, two papers by Christian G. Ehrenberg, seven papers by James Hall (one in conjunction with F. B. Meek, above referred to), two papers by Angelo Heilprin, three papers by Alpheus Hyatt, ten papers by Jules Marcou, two papers by John S. Newberry, one paper by I. N. Nicollet, four papers by David Dale Owen, and five by Owen and Shumard, two papers by Hiram A. Prout, one paper by James Schiel, seven papers by Benjamin F. Shumard, and five in conjunction with Owen (above referred to); and lasdy, five papers by Robert P. Paleontology 693 Whitfield, these occupying seventy-two pages. An index of genera and species of invertebrate fossils occupies fifty-two pages. The work is supplied with a general index of sub- jects and authors, and forms an octavo volume of over three hundred pages. In accordance with its policy, the Institution subscribed in 1857 for a few copies of a work on "The Pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina," by M. Tuomey and F. S. Holmes. This work received the commendation of some of the distino^uished members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at its meeting in Charleston, in 1850, and its pub- lication was undertaken at the risk and cost of the authors. To aid this enterprise, the Institution was induced to make the subscription above mentioned for copies to be distributed to foreign societies. In 1856 the Institution considered favorably the proposition made by Doctor James Deane, of Greenfield, Massachusetts, to publish a memoir containing a series of illustrations of his researches relative to the celebrated fossil foot-prints in the sandstone of the Connecticut valley. The number of plates required to illustrate the memoir, as originally proposed, would have involved too great an expense to be met in one or even two years by the portion of the income of the Institution which could be appropriated to any single publication. It was, therefore, concluded that Doctor Deane should continue his investigations, and endeavor, by means of photography, to produce representations of all the most important specimens, and that from these a selection should be made sufficient to illustrate the characteristics of the different species of animals by which the impressions had been left. To assist in the experiments of photography and in lithographing the illus- trations, a small appropriation was made, with which about fifty drawings were finished on stone by Doctor Deane before 694 The Smithsonian Institution his career was suddenly terminated by death. The work, however, was in such an unfinished condition that it could not be published. During the years 1852-56, inclusive, the Smithsonian In- stitution acquired a number of collections of fossils, partly as gifts, but chiefly through the diligence of its own collectors in the field. In connection with the survey of Governor Stevens, Doctor Evans revisited the Mauvaises Terres in 1852, and collected a large number of specimens of the fossil vertebrata of that region. These were put into the hands of Doctor Leidy, who detected the presence of some additional new species. In 1853 Alexander Winchell sent quite a full series of the Cretaceous and Tertiary fossils of Alabama, and Major Em- ory the same of Texas. In 1854 an interesting series from the vicinity of Satow was forwarded by the Reverend L. Vortisch ; G. Lambert, of Mons, presented a series of car- boniferous fossils of Belgium ; specimens from Texas were sent in by Lieutenant J. G. Benton, United States army, and by Doctor Julius Froebel ; from Panama, by Doctor E. L. Berthoud; from Illinois, by Doctor R. P. Stevens; from North Carolina, by J. L. Bridger. A complete set of minerals and fossils of the remarkable Brown-coal beds of Brandon, Ver- mont, was received from David Buckland ; sharks' teeth and mastodon bones of Florida, from Captain T. L. Casey, United States army ; fossil- wood of California, from W. F. Langton, and infusorial earth of Monterey, from Major T. G. Barnard. The following year Doctor Hayden procured a number of fossil mammals from the Mauvaises Terres of White River and of the Blackfoot country, and a very valu- able collection of minerals and fossils was received from the Lake Superior mining region. This collection was made by Foster and Whitney, to illustrate their government report, Paleontology 695 and with other government geological collections, previously secured, furnished rich material for representing the geologi- cal features of the country. The Thomas Barnett set of Niagara fossils and minerals was also" received in this year. Various private collections were received in 1856, the prin- cipal ones being contributed by Doctor Ferdinand V. Haydcn ; I. Lippmann of Saxony; the Koenigliche Leopoldina Carolina Akademie of Breslau, Prussia, and the Natilrforschende Ge- sellschaft of Emden, Hanover. In 1868 and 1871 important accessions were made to the invertebrate department. William H. Dall sent part of the collection made by him in Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, and Eastern Siberia in 1865-67, and other specialists contributed Permian material from Kansas and Lower Silurian fossils from Ohio. In 1875 the collections of fossil vertebrata from New Mexico, obtained by Edward D. Cope, Paleontologist of the United States Geographical Survey West of the looth Meridian, were sent to the Museum. These collections form the basis of the report by Professor Cope contained in the fourth volume of the Reports of the above survey under Lieutenant George M. Wheeler, of the United States Engi- neers. The collections were from three horizons, and included one hundred and six species, of which eighty-one were new. During 1878, 1879, and 1880, the following valuable dona- tions were received: Black Hills fossils, from Professor Henry Newton ; Californian fossils, from Senator Sargent ; and the large collection of invertebrate fossils made by Lieutenant Wheeler, presented by B. H. Lyon and other paleontologists. In 1884 the most important accession was that of Devonian and carboniferous fossils from the United States Geological Survey, many of them types of new species. Collections were also received of Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossils from California, Oregon, New Jersey, Florida, Alabama, and Mis- 696 The Smithsonian Institution sissippi, and fifteen miscellaneous lots were sent from private sources to the museum. The F. W. Taylor collection, consisting of rare minerals and fossils from the vicinity of Lake Valley, New Mexico, was acquired in 1885, and the Jordan series of cretaceous fossils in 1889. During the latter year also C. D. Walcott collected and presented to the museum a large series of Lower Cam- brian fossils from Conception Bay, Newfoundland. A few selections from the collections of vertebrate fossils were made by the United States Geological Survey, under direction of O. C. Marsh, and placed in the United States National Museum in 1893. These included some specimens of Dinosauria of the Laramie formation of the family Agath- aumidae; skulls of Menodontidae from the White River beds; skulls and bones from the Loup Fork beds of rhinoceroses of the genus Aphelops. When these collections are placed in the museum, the vertebrata of America will be as well repre- sented as in any museum in the world. In 1895 a valuable collection of remains of Zeuglodon was made by Charles Schuchert, and work on this material is now in progress. BOTANY By William Gilson Farlow Professor of Cryptogamic Botany, Harvard University. ^^]\HE numerous and important services rendered to botanical science by the Institution may be considered under the following heads: First, the development of the knowledge of the phreno- ^al ^^C^ ^^ gamic flora, especially of unexplored or little known regions of the South and West, through grants made to collectors in those regions, and more particularly by the publication in the "Contributions to Knowledge" and the mis- cellaneous publications of a series of important monographs on the North American flora by eminent American botanists; secondly, contributions to the knowledge of the algae of the United States and of other low cryptogamous plants ; thirdl)-, the diffusion of information in reofard to the local flora of Washino^ton and certain exotic floras, toefether with miscella- neous papers, either original or translated, on various botanical subjects printed in the different annual Reports or as Bulletins of the United States National Museum; and lastly, the forma- tion of a National Herbarium. The earliest reference to botanical work undertaken under 45 '''' 698 The Smithsonian Instihition the direction of the Institution is to be found in 1848/ where mention is made of some drawings and engravings of a paper on the botany of Oregon, for which a small advance had been made, and in the same volume ^ it is said that a " report on the forest trees of North America," by Professor Asa Gray, is in progress. The paper on the botany of Oregon refers apparently to the work on the plants of the Wilkes expedi- tion, of which the part by Gray appeared in 1854 and that by Torrey in 1873. The Report of 1849 again mentions the "report on the forest trees of North America," and says that " this work will be completed in three parts, in octavo, with an atlas of quarto plates, — the first part to be published next spring."^ Numerous delays in the work are mentioned in the different Reports, and in that of 1856,* after referring to the pressing demands on the author's time and the difficulty of obtaining the necessary drawings from the artist, Isaac Sprague, it is said that "the work will be ready for the press during this year." Nothing more is heard of the projected flora beyond the statement in 1864 that work was to be re- sumed upon it by Professor Gray, until 1884, when its final abandonment by Gray was announced, and it was reported that, although a proposition which had previously been made by Professor C. S. Sargent to take up and complete the work had been accepted, its magnitude had proved too great for the funds at the disposal of the Institution, and that it had been arranged with Professor Sargent that he should refund the cost of the drawings which had been made by C. E. Faxon and receive them for publication with a private pub- lisher. In 1 89 1, the twenty-three beautifully colored plates which had been drawn by Mr. Sprague between 1849 ^^'^^^ 1859 were issued by the Institution without text; and thus what was, as originally planned, to have been the first botan- 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1848, page 16. 3 Ibidem, 1849, page 18. 2 Ibidem^ page 19. 4 Jbidem, 1856, page 32. ASA GRAY. REGENT OP THE SMITflSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1874-1888. li- \ Oi til Auici iC ■ at n three parts, in e tii :>n.r1" to b icl It w: nVp -m nnH rrrmilete the too f" iuioii, and 1^5^/ 1 2 Undent y page 19. . Jt xl idLrJ j:\.Ca1 ~. ,:H01TUTITa'PlI i«AIl^C)RTTTTT/:8 [JITT 'SO TKHOaa - .86' .[ ^MM^ yv- '^^W^i Botany 699 ical publication of the Institution, in reality formed its last quarto publication on a botanical subject. In 1849 ^^ Institution contributed $150 toward defraying the expenses of the botanist, Charles Wright, on an ex- pedition to El Paso, Texas, and in 1852 appeared the first contribution to phaenogamic knowledge, entitled " Plantae Wrightianai Texano-Neo-Mexicanai," containing a description by Gray of the plants collected by Wright, together with many of those collected by Wislizenus in the valley of the Rio Grande and Chihuahua, and by Doctor Gregg in the same district and the northern part of Mexico. A second part of the " Plantai Wrightianae " appeared the following year, both parts with illustrations by Mr. Sprague. In rapid succession appeared three other " Contributions to Knowledge" by Profes- sor John Torrey. It had been hoped that arrangements would be made by the government for publishing a general account of the botany of California, including the plants collected by Fremont on his different expeditions from 1842 to 1848, but there being no immediate prospect of such a work, Professor Torrey published in 1854, in the sixth volume of the "Con- tributions to Knowledge," a monograph entitled "Plantoe Fre- montianai," in which he gave an account of twelve of the most characteristic genera and species collected by Fremont in California, including the new genera Spraguea, Fremontia, Coleogyne, Emplectocladus, Carpenteria, and Sarcodes, the type of the latter being the then remarkable but now familiar snow-plant of the Sierras, S. sa7iguinea. In the same volume are two other important papers by Torrey. In the first, " Observations on the Batis maritima of Linnaeus," he gave the first full account of this anomalous species, which is widely diffused in the West Indies and South America, and placed it in a new order which he con- sidered related to Empetracese. Although the genus was 700 The Smithsonian Institution afterward placed in Chenopodiacea^ by Grisebach in his " Flora of the British West Indian Islands" (1864), the genus was still kept as the type of a distinct order by Bentham and Hooker in their " Genera Plantarum," and also by Engler and Prantl in " Die Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien," its natural position being near Amarantacese and Polygonaceae. In the second paper Torrey described the curious and characteristic pitcher-plant, Darlingtonia Catiforjiica, of which the first sterile specimens had been collected in Cali- fornia by W. D. Brackenridge, of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition. Flowering specimens were collected afterward by Doctor G. W. Hulse, and, with this material, Torrey was able to recognize the plant as the representative of a new genus of the curious order Sarraceniacese. For many years the Institution had intended to publish for the use of those engaged in the study of Western plants a complete list, with synonyms, of all the species known in the region west of the Mississippi, and in 1870 Doctor Sereno Watson, who had acted as botanist of the Fortieth Parallel Expedition, was engaged to prepare such a work. The expense of preparation was to be borne by private subscrip- tion, the Institution paying for the clerical labor and for the publication. Work on the Index progressed until 1877, and one hundred and eighty- four pages had been stereotyped when Doctor Watson found his time much occupied with other work, and it was decided to publish the portion then finished, which included the orders of Polypetalai, as Part i. This part appeared in 1878 under the title of "Bibliograph- ical Index to North American Botany," as one of the " Smith- sonian Miscellaneous Collections," forming an octavo volume of four hundred and eighty-four pages. The " Index " was very carefully and critically prepared, but, although of great service to working botanists, the character of the work was Botany 70 1 so laborious that Doctor Watson did not feel able to continue it beyond the Polypetalae. The " Flora of North America," by Torrey and Gray, of which the first volume, including the Polypetalae, appeared in 1838-40, had never been continued beyond the second vol- ume, including the Gamopetalce, from Caprifoliaceee through the Compositce, issued in 1841-43. At that point the pub- lication was suspended, for so large an amount of new mate- rial had been brought together by the different government expeditions and by numerous private collectors, that it was decided by Professor Gray that, instead of completing the "Flora" in its original form, the orders already published should be entirely revised and, with the remaining orders, treated in a more condensed form, omitting the longer notes of the first edition, but retaining the essential part of the syn- onymy and reducing the descriptions to as few words as possible. The synoptical plan was adopted as being, all things considered, the briefest and best. Since the cost of printing such a synoptical flora was too great for private resources, and since the work offered no prospect of pecu- niary profit to publishers, the Institution determined to aid the undertaking, and expended several thousand dollars in furthering this important botanical work, which probably cost its author nearly as much more. In consideration of this. Professor Gray was allowed to issue, for his own benefit, a first edition of five hundred copies of the work before the Institution attempted to publish its own edition. The order of publication was arranged so that the first part should in- clude the Gamopetalae after Compositae, the subject treated being, therefore, a direct continuation of the original " Flora" of Torrey and Gray. This part, with the title of " Synoptical Flora of North America," Volume 11, Part i, was issued by the author in May, 1878, and formed a volume of four hundred 45* 702 The Smithsonian Instihttion octavo pages. The next part to appear, including Capri- foliaceae-Compositae, being a revision of the second volume of the Torrey and Gray " Flora," was called Volume i. Part ii, of the " Synoptical Flora," and was published by the Smith- sonian Institution in July, 1884. In January, 1886, an addi- tional part of about one hundred and fifty pages was published by the Institution, and contained supplements and indexes to the two parts previously issued. The death of Professor Gray occurred on January 2,'^, 1888, and later in that year the two parts already published, together with the supple- ments, were bound together in one large volume and issued as one of the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections." The further prosecution of the work was intrusted to Professor Gray's successor. Doctor Sereno Watson ; but his death, a few years later, delayed the appearance of any part of the "Synoptical Flora" until, in October, 1895, Doctor B. L. Robinson, the successor of Doctor Watson as Curator of the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, issued the first fascicle of Volume i, Part i, including Polypetalae, from Ranunculacese to Frankeniaceae, prepared, in part, from the manuscripts of Professor Gray and Doctor Watson. The " Contributions" relating to cryptogams, which have been published by the Institution, treat mainly of algae. The second volume of the "Contributions" included a paper by Professor J. W. Bailey on " Microscopical Examination of Soundings made by the United States Coast Survey off the Atlantic Coast of the United States," and another on "Micro- scopical Observations made in South Carolina, Georgia, and P"lorida." These were the first papers published by the Insti- tution in which reference was made to plant-life. Since they did not treat exclusively of plants, but of animals as well, only passing notice is required in this connection. In these two papers, as well as in a later paper, " Notes on New Spe- Botany 703 cies and Localities of Microscopical Organisms," contained in the third volume of the *' Contributions," Professor Bailey in- cluded numerous lists of Desmids, Diatoms, and other small marine and fresh-water algae, with descriptions, notes, and figures of the more interesting species and a few references to marine Florideae. We find in the Report for 1850,^ the first reference to one of the most extensive and important botanical memoirs pub- lished by the Institution, namely, that of William H. Harvey, on the " Marine Algae of the United States." Professor Har- vey, of Trinity College, Dublin, distinguished for his exten- sive knowledge of marine plants, was invited in 1849 ^o &^^'^ a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute in Boston, and, taking advantage of the presence of this expert algologist in our country, arrangements were made with him by the In- stitution for preparing a complete marine flora of our coast. In preparation for the work Professor Harvey spent several months on the Eastern coast, at Halifax, Massachusetts Bay, Long Island, Charleston, and Key West, studying the algae and examining the herbaria of local collectors. On his return to Dublin he worked up the rich material he had brought to- gether, and completed with his own hands the colored draw- ings to be used as illustrations. The expense of printing the text and plates being great, it was decided to issue the work in three parts. The first part, including the Melanospermae, was published in 1852 in the third volume of the "Contribu- tions," with one hundred and fifty pages and twelve plates. The second part, including the Rhodospermae, appeared in the sixth volume the following year, but the third part, including the Chlorosperma^ and supplement, did not appear until 1858. The three parts were then bound in one volume, entitled "Nereis Boreali- Americana ; or. Contributions to a History 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1850, page 12. 704 The Smithsonian Instihition of the Marine Algae of North America." The memoir of Pro- fessor Harvey forms the basis of our knowledge of the marine flora of North America, and, although the study of algae has advanced very much, the " Nereis" is still a classic work, showing the skill of the author as a systematist. In Harvey's "Nereis" there were included but a small num- ber of fresh-water algae. Professor H. C. Wood, Jr., who had published in 1869 a " Prodromus of a Study of North Ameri- can Fresh-water Algae " ^ completed a more elaborate memoir on the subject, which was accepted by the Institution and published in volume nineteen of the "Contributions," 1874, under the title "A Contribution to the History of the Fresh- water Algae of North America." The classification adopted by Professor Wood was, in the main, that of Rabenhorst's " Flora Europaea Algarum Aquae Dulcis et Submarinae," in which the generic and specific limitations differed consider- ably from those of the present day; but the work of Professor Wood has special value from the large number of new and interesting species, particularly the two orders Nostochineae and CEdogonieae. Probably no work published by the Institution awakened more interest in its day than the " Flora and Fauna within Living Animals," published in 1853 in the fifth volume of the " Contributions," by Professor Joseph Leidy. The subject was a novel one, and the vegetable parasites described by Leidy were exceedingly curious and quite perplexing. The species grow attached to the mucous membrane of the cavities in which they are found, and occasionally form the exterior covering of worms infesting the cavities. They were con- sidered by Leidy to be algoid in character, and some of them, at least, appear to be related to certain genera formerly placed in Nostochineae but now included in Schizomycetes. "^Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1871, Volume xi, page 119. Botany 705 The systematic position of the five new genera, Enterobryus, Eccrina, Arthromitus, Cladophytum, and Corynocladus, must be said to be still in doubt, for during the last forty years neither mycologists nor algologists have ventured to assign them definitely to their proper order, nor have they been able to add much to the account first given by Leidy. Of the less elaborate botanical publications we may mention three papers on exotic floras: the "Flora of Alaska," published in the Report for 1867, by Doctor J. T. Rothrock, who gave an enumeration of the species, both of pha;nogams and cryp- togams, collected by himself, as well as of those collected by previous explorers; the "Flora of St. Croix and the Virgin Islands," by Baron H. F. A. Eggers,^ being an enumeration of phaenogams and higher cryptogams of that region, with notes and introduction; and the "Botany of Bermuda," by General Sir John Henry Lefroy, formerly Governor of Ber- muda,^ a work similar in character to the preceding. A "Guide to the Flora of Washington and Vicinity,"^ by Pro- fessor Lester F. Ward, was also a museum publication. An introduction, giving statistics and general character of the local flora, was followed by a list of one thousand three hun- dred and eighty-four species, excluding Thallophytes, to- gether with a "Check-List" and "Descriptions for Collect- ing and Preserving Plants," which were issued separately the following year. Scattered through the annual Reports of the Institution are several miscellaneous botanical papers which deserve no- tice. The Report of 1859 contains a paper by Doctor J. G. Cooper on the " Distribution of the Forests and Trees of North America," prepared in connection with some meteoro- logical observations in progress under the direction of the In- 1 " Bulletin No. 13 of the United States National Museum," 1879. 2 "Bulletin No. 25 of the United States National Museum," 1884. 3 "Bulletin No. 22 of the United States National Museum," 18S1. 7o6 The Smithsonian Institution stitLition. The Report for 1889 has a reprint of the address of W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, F. R, S., on " Botanical Biology," delivered at the meeting of the British Association in 1888, and in 1890 there is a translation of a paper by Professor M. Treub, "A Tropical Botanic Garden," giving an account of the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg, Java, of which he was the director. The Report for 1891 contains a paper by Professor G. L. Goodale, " Some Possibilities of Economic Botany," an address delivered before the American Association in 1891, and a paper by James Rodway, "The Struggle for Life in the Forest," reprinted from the "Journal of the Royal Agricul- tural Society of British Guiana." We may also mention the account of " Progress in Botany " in various Reports : the ac- counts from 1879-83 by William G. Farlow and those of i887-'88 by Frank H. Knowlton. The first step taken by the Institution toward the forma- tion of a national herbarium was the arrangement made with Charles Wright, mentioned in the Report for 1849, to which we have previously referred. In consideration of the $150 subscribed toward defraying the expenses of Mr. Wright on his botanical trip to El Paso, the Institution was to be entitled to a full set of all the plants he collected. At about the same date, a set of the plants collected by Fendler in 1847 i'"* ^^ vicinity of Santa Fe was purchased, and it was proposed, further, to assist him by the purchase of a set of the collections he might make in the future. The policy of the Institution in regard to giving aid to collectors and receiving in return sets of the plants collected was expressed in the Report for 1849 in the following words: " By cooperating in this way with individuals and institutions, we are enabled, at a small expense, materially to advance the cause of science." ^ The Report for 1851, referring again to the sets of Wright 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1849, page 6. Botany 707 and Fendler, states that these sets, together with plants col- lected by Lindheimer, " form the nucleus of an important and authentic North American herbarium." ^ The Reports for 1853 and 1856 refer to several additions to the herbarium — mainly phainogams from Oregon, Alabama, and other locali- ties, a small collection from the Dead Sea, and fungi from South Carolina collected by Ravenel. Other additions were from time to time reported, the most important being a set of Doctor Berlandier's Texas plants, in 1855, and the unique set of ferns collected by Bracken ridge on the Wilkes Explor- ing Expedition in 1862. Previous to 1868 the policy of the Institution with regard to botanical collections had been to purchase sets of different col- lectors, to encourage private donations of plants, and to act as custodian of the sets of plants collected on the different gov- ernment expeditions. In 1868, however, the herbarium con- tained from 15,000 to 20,000 specimens from different parts of the world, and it became necessary to adopt a more definite policy with regard to the large and rapidly increasing collec- tion. Up to this date the Institution had depended mainly upon Professor Torrey and Professor Gray for the general arrangement of its collection, but as the time at the disposal of those botanists was limited, it became evident that the constant superintendence of a competent botanist was indis- pensable. The funds of the Smithsonian Institution were, however, far too meager to enable it, together with its other important duties, to undertake the proper care of the herbarium. Since the Agricultural Department required such a collection for continual reference, and had, in fact, begun to form a collection; and, furthermore, since it required the services of a practical botanist in the course of its investi- gations, it seemed advisable to unite the two collections. The 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1851, page II. 7o8 The Smithsonian Institution considerations of the transfer are given as follows, in the Report of 1868 : "The transfer is made with the understand- ing that the superintending botanist shall be approved by the Institution, that the collection shall be accessible to the public for practical or educational purposes, and to the Institution for scientific investigation or for supplying any information that may be asked for by its correspondents in regard to the names and character of plants. It is further stipulated that due credit shall be given to the Institution in the publications of the department for the deposit of the original specimens, as well as for the additions which, from time to time, may be made to them by the Institution." ^ In return for this transfer, the Agricultural Department agreed to turn over to the Institution any specimens relating to ethnology or to other branches of natural history than botany then in its posses- sion or which might thereafter come into its possession. The transfer of the herbarium to the Agricultural Department was referred to again in the Report^ for 1870, where an ac- count was given of the most important collections contained in the herbarium at the time of the transfer in 1868 and those subsequently received. If we consider in its entirety the botanical work accom- plished by the Institution during the first fifty years of its ex- istence we find that it gives a picture of the gradual progress of botany in a new, and to a great extent unexplored, country. The first botanical problem to be solved in a new country is of necessity the exploration of its different parts and the de- scription of the native species. As the systematic knowledge of the native flora increases, the important question as to the causes of the distribution of the different species, the effects of soil, temperature, and other climatic and biological conditions, assume a greater and greater significance, and when a general 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1868, page 15. 2 Ibidem, 1870, page 36. Botany 709 knowledge of the flora has become widely difl"used throughout a country, the stage is reached where the more general and abstract problems belonging to the domain of vegetable physi- ology and the minute investigations in cytology and the study of life-histories attract the attention of the rising generation of botanists. In the early years of the Institution the main object of botanists was to find out what plants grew in North America. Fortunately, among the native botanists were such well-trained men as Torrey, Gray, Engelmann, Bailey, and Wood, upon whom the Institution could call to assist in the working up of a great share of our native plants. In branches in which there were no competent American experts the In- stitution did not hesitate to secure the services of foreign botanists, as in the case of the "Nereis" of Harvey. The most important service rendered by the Institution to botanical science has been the very liberal aid furnished to specialists by enabling them to publish the various mono- graphs which appeared in the "Contributions to Knowledge" and in the "Miscellaneous Collections." No comment on the great value of this series of publications is needed, for the mere enumeration of the works to which we have already referred is, to anyone at all familiar with the history of botanical liter- ature, a sufficient indication of the debt we owe to the Insti- tution. In the scientific presentation of the subjects treated, in the admirable illustrations, and in the liberality with which the memoirs have been distributed to public institutions and private botanists throughout the world, the Institution has well merited the praise which it has received at home and abroad. Nor, in recognizing that the first desideratum was an accurate account of our native species, did the Institution fail to en- courage, as far as possible, the study of climatic and other causes which affect the distribution of plants, for certain of the botanical papers we have mentioned were prepared as collat- 7IO The Smithsonian Institution eral aids to work done in meteorology and other branches of science. If among the botanical contributions we find none on physiological or histological subjects, it should be said that the development of botany in this country has been slower than that of zoology, and it is not until quite recently that the study of botany with us has been expanded so as to embrace all branches of the science. The period we are now consider- ing was that in which descriptive botany prevailed. Circum- stances are now favorable to a widening of the field in this direction in the future. The foresight of the Institution in collecting and preserving the different collections of plants which were to form a nucleus for a national herbarium is greatly to be commended. Acting as a faithful custodian of this material, so valuable for future study, until a date when circumstances indicated that it could be intrusted with safety to other hands, and leave the limited funds at its disposal to be spent on the care of collections in other departments of science, the herbarium was transferred, on conditions which were liberal, but also conservative, for the Institution still has a voice in the selection of the botanist ap- pointed to take charge of the collections. It is to be regretted that the efforts of the Institution in 1855 to induce Congress to establish an arboretum on its ofrounds did not meet with a favorable response from that body. ZOOLOGY By Theodore Gill Prof essor of Zoology , Columbian University CCEPTING the terms of the fundamental or- ganization of the Smithsonian Institution, the consideration of its relations to the progress of zoology might be expected from two points of view : first, the " increase of knowledge " as the result of original investigation, and second, the "diffu- sion of knowledge among men " by publication. It will, however, become obvious on reflection that the relation of the Institution to the increase of knowledge must be chiefly through the stimulus of means which it may furnish to the original investigator. The actual increase of zoological knowledo^e has been effected throusfh the investisrations of those connected with the Institution directly or indirectly, and as the result of studies of the collections amassed in the museum. The increase of knowledge effected by the Insti- tution is therefore to be found in the aggregate of individual discoveries resulting from the study of material collected through its agency, or first made known in its publications. The most natural course, then, will be to review the further- ance by the Institution of exploration for zoological material, 711 712 The Smithsonian Institution the building up of a museum, and the publications which it has stimulated or provided for in various ways. This review will be a simple narrative of facts in which no criticism or commendation will be indulged in. EXPLORATIONS One of the most efficient means by which the Institution has advanced zoological science has been through the respect which its chiefs have enjoyed from the heads of government departments, and the consequent readiness with which the government authorities have carried out suggestions for in- vestigations in connection with various operations. The general government had early recognized the advisa- bility of exploration of the wild territory acquired from time to time, and numerous surveying expeditions had been de- spatched for that purpose. The first of special importance was the famous expedition of Lewis and Clarke "performed during the years 1804-06," and the narrative of which has been published in many editions, culminating in the luxurious one recently edited by Doctor Elliott Coues. This expedi- tion was the precursor of many others. Attempts were made in connection with some of them to further our knowledge of the fauna and flora of the countries traversed ; but, with one exception, zeal was unaccompanied by knowledge, and the results were negative. (The exception was Major Long's "Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains, per- formed in the years 181 9-' 20," to which the first great Ameri- can zoologist, Thomas Say, was attached as naturalist.) But after the Smithsonian Institution had been housed and fully organized, favoring conditions for scientific direction super- vened. No important surveying party was then despatched without a naturalist nominated or approved by the Institu- Zoology 7 1 3 tion. Chief of such expeditions were the " Explorations and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah " (1852), by Captain Stansbury; the "Expedition down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers " ( 1 85 1 ), under Captain Sitgreaves ; the ' ' Ex- ploration of the Red River of Louisiana" (1852), by Captains Marcy and McClellan ; and the " United States and Mexico Boundary Survey" (i857-'59), superintended by Major Emory. The collections made by the peripatetic naturalists were deposited in the museum of the Institution, and the vertebrates and some of the invertebrates were reported upon by Baird, Girard, and others. But by far the most important of the collections and the reports were the results of surveys for a Pacific railroad long desired and at length undertaken. In March, 1853, provision was made by Congress for "ex- plorations and surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean," to be made under the direction of the Secretary of War. Under this Act, in 1853 and 1854 several parties, commanded by officers of the corps of topographical engineers of the United States army, were sent out to ex- amine different routes suggested or proposed for a railroad. Through the influence of the Institution, naturalists or col- lectors were attached to the various parties, and the collec- tions made by them of the vertebrates at least were "worked up" soon after their reception by the Institution. The collections were mostly studied within the walls of the Smithsonian building; and the reports were published at length in the great official work (extending to thirteen large quarto volumes) devoted to the details of all the operations connected with the surveys. But these detached reports had been to some extent anticipated by preliminary accounts of the results given to the world in many articles contributed 46 714 The Smithsonian InstiUttion to the " Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia," and other periodicals. The species and genera new to science were very numerous ; and the faunal char- acteristics of reeions little or not at all known before were revealed in considerable detail. Scarcely any long stretch of coast in the entire world was so little known, from a zoological standpoint, as was that ex- tending from Alaska to Mexico. Especially true was this for ichthyology. A number of the fishes of northern and Russian America had been described by Tilesius, Pallas, and Richardson ; but only about a dozen species had been authen- ticated from the great stretch of coast just mentioned. A few species had been described in 1836 by Sir John Richard- son, a single one {Chimcera colliei) in 1839 by Lay and Ben- nett, and another {Syngnathns californiensis) in 1845 ^Y Storer. The literature otherwise was confined to brief and insufficient indications, too unreliable or too meager for positive identification. In 1853 and 1854, Louis Agassiz in- troduced to public notice, with much eclat, the remarkable viviparous perch-like fishes inhabiting the California coast, which he called Holconoti or Embiotocoidse. These papers and others by Gibbons slightly anticipated the publication of the results of the explorations for the Pacific route. But in 1854 and following years, Charles Girard contributed descrip- tions of the many new genera and species of fishes obtained by the United States expeditions, and in 1859 a final report embracine all the forms known from the Pacific coast of the United States was issued. One hundred and forty-eight nominal species of salt-water fishes were described, and most of them illustrated ; and a fair idea was thus given of the pis- cine fauna of that previously neglected coast. This mono- graph of Girard's was included in the tenth volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports. Zoology 715 Still more important in some respects, although less re- plete with startling novelties, were two volumes emanating from the pen of Spencer F. Baird, then Assistant Secretary of the Institution. Many new species of mammals and birds had been collected by the naturalists of the Pacific Railroad surveys, and the identification and correct classification of the material obtained necessitated comparisons and consequent studies of most of the species of the entire continent. To such an extent was this the case that Baird deemed it expe- dient to extend his researches to cover all the North Ameri- can material described or contained in the Institution. The result was the preparation and publication of two massive quarto volumes comprising all that was known systematically of the mammals and birds of America north of Mexico. These volumes formed the eighth and ninth of the Pacific Railroad Reports. Extra sheets of the text of both of these volumes on mam- mals and birds were subsequently published in connection with the plates already issued (often retouched and consider- ably altered) and some new ones. Copies of the plates pub- lished in connection with the reports of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey were also incorporated. The United States and Mexican Boundary Survey had been organized for the delimitation of the boundary between the United States and Mexico under the conditions provided for in the treaty of 1853. Major W. H, Emory was the United States commissioner, and the field work of the com- mission was performed in 1854 (December) and 1855. The naturalists of the survey were John H. Clark and Arthur Schott. The mammals, birds, and reptiles were reported on by Professor Baird, and the fishes by Doctor Girard. The text in this report was less noteworthy than the plates : the latter were numerous, and many of them very well executed, 7i6 The Smithsonian Institution and among these were the ones subsequently modified to ap- pear in the privately published volumes on the mammals and birds. A like work was intended for the reptiles, and forty- four plates appeared in the United States Pacific Railroad Report, and forty-one in the United States and Mexican Boundary Report, but the increasing duties devolved on Pro- fessor Baird prevented its accomplishment. The expeditions thus referred to have been specifically mentioned because they were the first provided for in ac- cordance with a new policy, and through them the general peculiarities of the countries traversed were first made known. Innumerable minor expeditions were subsequently sent out, but few were accompanied by naturalists or reported upon by experts connected with the Institution. A noteworthy vol- ume was Simpson's " Report of Explorations Across the Great Basin of the Territory of Utah in 1859," but not published till 1876. The various geological surveys may also be referred to in this connection. After the civil war four independent geological surveys were organized within a short time of each other, and became for a time contemporaneous. These were (i) the " United States Geological Survey of the Territories," ini- tiated in 1867 through the efforts of Ferdinand V. Hayden ; (2) the " Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel," under the leadership of Clarence King (also legislated into existence in 1867); (3) the second division of the "United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Terri- tories," organized by John W. Powell in 1870; and (4) the " United States Geographical Survey West of the One Hundredth Meridian," conducted by George M. Wheeler of the United States Engineers, established in 1871. The heads of all these orofanizations interested themselves more or less with zoological investigations, and cooperated with the Zoology 7 1 7 Smithsonian Institution in the collection of specimens, and also published reports or memoirs on representatives of the existing fauna. Eventually, however, all were superseded by a new United States Geological Survey created by a law approved March 3, 1879. MUSEUM When the Smithsonian Institution finally became established it began to occupy a place that had been previously vacant. In Washington there was practically no museum. The nu- cleus of one was existent in the collections obtained by the United States Exploring Expedition during the years 1838 to 1842, under Commodore Wilkes, but that at first was under no competent supervision. Excellent collections had been made by the naturalists attached to that expedition, and representatives of several classes had been placed in the hands of well-known specialists. The mammals and birds were referred to Titian R. Peale and John Cassin, the rep- tiles and amphibians to Spencer F. Baird and Charles Gi- rard, the fishes to Louis Agassiz, the classes of mollusks to Augustus A. Gould, and the crustaceans and zoophytes to James D. Dana. All of these, except Professor Agassiz, made elaborate reports on the specimens intrusted to them, and the collections, which were returned, thus became a very considerable and more than ordinarily valuable basis for a museum, inasmuch as a very large proportion of the species collected and described were new, and thus types. The American naturalists anticipated in many cases the results of the contemporaneous British expeditions. But although special provision was made, in the law pro- viding for the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution, for the transfer to the new institution of all of what may be 46* 7i8 The Smithsonian Institution called museum material, the law was not made operative till many years afterward. Meanwhile, the collections made by the Wilkes Exploring Expedition and some minor ac- cumulations remained in the Patent Office building under no scientific supervision, and suffering from lack of care and want of appreciation of their value. Tradition relates that an occasional friendly visitor interested in conchology might even be allowed to carry off desiderata for the increase of his own collection. Little regard, too, was had for the labels or tickets which had been applied by the describers to the spe- cimens returned. In other ways the collections deteriorated. It was not till 1856 that the Institution took advantage of its right to secure what remained. The original museum administered by the Smithsonian In- stitution had grown up from humble beginnings and in spite of adverse conditions. Its nucleus was a collection of verte- brates of Pennsylvania and some other regions of the neigh- boring States which Professor Baird had made in his stu- dent days and while he served as a professor of natural sciences in Dickinson College. This collection consisted chiefly of skins of birds and mammals, as well as reptiles and amphibians preserved in alcoholic spirits, and skeletons or skulls of mammals, some of birds, and a few of reptiles, am- phibians, and fishes. These were by small accessions grad- ually added to by Professor Baird himself, and by many amateur collectors. In the ninth annual report it was even claimed that "a museimi, the most complete of any in existence in several branches of the natural history of the North American conti- nent, has been collected, which has been valued at $30,000."^ But the then chief of the Institution (Professor Henry) did not view with favor the employment of the funds of the 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1854, page 9. Zoology 7 1 9 establishment for a general museum. In the fourth annual Report he recalled that, "by the law incorporating this In- stitution, ' all objects of art and of foreign and curious re- search, and all objects of natural history, plants, and geologi- cal and mineralogical specimens belonging to or hereafter to belong to the United States, which may be in the city of Washington, in whosesoever custody the same may be, shall be delivered to such persons as may be authorized by the Board of Regents to receive them.'" ^ Nevertheless, the Sec- retary was loath to take advantage of this law, although, in his own words, it "evidently gives to the Smithsonian Insti- tution the museum in the Patent Office, the conservatory of plants, and all specimens of nature and art to be found in the several offices and departments of the government."^ It was agreed that "the act, however, cannot be construed as ren- dering it obligatory on the Regents to take charge of these articles."^ It was considered that even "an annual appro- priation for the support of the museum of the exploring ex- pedition " would be "objectionable, since it would annually bring the Institution before Congress as a supplicant for governmental patronage";^ for the Secretary was "fully convinced that the true policy of the Institution is to ask nothing from Congress except the safe-keeping of its funds."" The regents therefore "declined to accept this museum as a gift," but "a few years "^ later they reconsidered their deter- mination. It was found that "the cost of keeping the mu- seum of the Exploring Expedition " then in the Patent Office was "about $5000" a year, and for that sum the Institution expressed a willingness to take charge of the natural history collections in question. In the Report for 1858 the Secretary announced that 1 "Smithsonian Report," 1849, page 20. "^Ibidem, page 21. 3 Ibidem, 1856, page 22. 720 The Smithsonian Institution " this proposition was agreed to by the government, and the contemplated transfer has accordingly been made."^ But an annual appropriation of only $4000 was made, and this was continued for many years. The appropriation by the government in 1858 of $4000 a year marks an epoch in the history of the Smithsonian Insti- tution as well as of the National Museum. By the Act so passed the sustentation of a special museum was to that ex- tent recognized, and thus the National Museum may be con- sidered to have been originated by the Act of appropriation. It was indeed on a very small and inadequate scale, but the beginning was made of a national museum. Up to this time the collection had been almost exclusively devoted to vertebrates, and "the following table exhibits the additions made to the record books of the museum in 1857, in continuation of previous years : " 2 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 Mammals None 114 198 351 1200 2046 3200 Birds 4353 4425 5^55 8766 Skeletons and skulls . . . 911 1074 1190 1275 2050 3060 3340 Reptiles . . . . . . . . 106 239 Fishes 155 613 Although the collections of the Exploring Expedition had become much deteriorated and suffered considerably from spoliation under incompetent custodians, it was still a rich one, and many types of the numerous new species described by Dana, Gould, Peale, Cassin, and Girard remained. The invertebrates of the sea at last began to be in evidence, and quite a respectable nucleus of a general zoological museum became existent. The subsequent increase was quite rapid, and resulted from many government expeditions, but was mostly confined to 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1858, page 14. 2 Ibjdetn, 1857, page 49. Zoology 7 2 1 the acquisition of American material and to what was ac- quired by donation. In the Report for 1867 it was recalled that "when the government museum was transferred to the Institution, it was stipulated that an appropriation should be annually made for it,"^ and that "the appropriation for this purpose had been limited until the last session of Congress to the sum of $4000."^ It was then announced that "the appropriation was, last year, temporarily increased to $10,000, but," it was added, "even were this continued, it would be still quite in- adequate to the suitable maintenance of a national museum." During all these years there were no paid curators for the zoological part of the museum, and reliance was had only on volunteer aid of persons too busily engaged in other pursuits properly to take care of collections of which they were nomi- nal curators. The difficulties of such curators were much en- hanced, too, by frequent changes and removals of collections from place to place without supervision. The collections even suffered also by the very willingness to make them useful; for example, in 1867 Doctor William Stimpson was authorized to take most of the collection of American invertebrates, espe- cially crustaceans and east-coast mollusks, to the Chicago Academy of Science, of which he was director, for purposes of study. He had engaged to prepare manuals of the marine mollusks and crustaceans of the eastern United States, and had prepared many descriptions and illustrations of mollusks and shells, when the disastrous fire of 1873 destroyed a large portion of the city of Chicago, and with it the building of the Academy in which the collections had been housed. The loss was irretrievable. The long labors of years were oblit- erated, and the life of the author, unsupported by hope or anticipation, and prostrate by grief, soon succumbed. 1 " Smithsonian Report," 1867, page 5S- ^ Ibidem, page 56. 72 2 The Smithsonian Institution It was not till 1876 that systematic provision was made for curators for the museum. The history from that period has been given in the chapter on the United States National Museum, to which reference may be made for the history of its subsequent development. PUBLICATIONS INSTRUCTIONS FOR COLLECTORS AND ADJUNCTS An important service has been rendered by the Institution in inducing naturalists of eminence to prepare manuals or guides for the determination of species belonging to various classes or other groups of the animal kingdom. The activity of many naturalists, ever increasing, not only in the United States but elsewhere, had largely added to the numbers of known species of many classes of animals, but the literature was very scattered and to many students quite inaccessible. The labor devolved upon the person who would identify a species had become most onerous, and even after long search it would often be doubtful whether he had exhausted the sources of information. Thus, on the one hand the Charybdis of imperfect knowledge and slovenly work threatened, and on the other the Scylla of forced in- activity. The time had come when the scattered informa- tion should be collected and an abundant literature systemati- cally indexed. The Secretary of the Institution received with favor propositions to compile guides for the identification of the species of various groups of animals. As early as 1851 Doctor Charles Girard had published "A Monograph of the Cottoids " as the first and only published part of " Contributions to the Natural History of the Fresh- water Fishes of North America." This was so well done that regret must be entertained that it was not followed by others Zoology 723 in like style. In 1853 Professor Baird and Doctor Girard published a descriptive work on the "Serpents" of the coun- try as the first part of a " Catalogue of North American Rep- tiles " ; but this also was the last as well as the first of its kind. The continuous work began later, and the publications, under various guises, were essentially of two kinds — lists of spe- cies and descriptive monographs. But first efforts were made to obtain the requisite material, and circular letters asking for specimens, and often accompanied by special instructions for collecting were sent out broadcast. Entomologists were ap- pealed to and instructed in numerous circulars and pam- phlets; the earliest of which were published in the annual Report of the Institution for 1858. These were followed in subsequent years by many others relating to insects, mollusks, fishes, reptiles, birds, and bird's eggs, mammals, and skeletons. Intimate relations had been established between the Smith- sonian Institution and officers of the Hudson Bay Company, through the friendly agency of Robert Kennicott, who had been for some time a sojourner in the company's territory, and had inspired a spirit of collecting and observation. A special "Circular to the Officers of the Hudson Bay Com- pany" was therefore published in i860, indicating desiderata and contalnino- instructions for collectinor as well as for me- teorological observations. In 1867, when the United States acquired from Russia the territory subsequently named Alaska, but then generally known simply as Russian America, another pamphlet was prepared for an expedition sent to the territory by the Trea- sury Department. This pamphlet was entitled, "Suggestions Relative to Objects of Scientific Investigation in Russian America" (1867), and covered very largely the same field as the preceding circular. 724 The Smithsoftian Instittttion The Institution contributed to the needs of its correspon- dents and collectors in another way. Under the title of "Smithsonian Museum Miscellanea," in 1862, it published sheets eivingf the abbreviated names of states, territories, etc., often repeated, and intended especially for insect-collec- tors, and also five sets of numbers of different sizes. These were frequently called for. Here, perhaps, is also the most apt place to mention a work of much more general importance than any of the publica- tions hitherto mentioned, but which belongs to the category of adjuncts to the collector's and describer's outfit. The work in question was compiled as well as published at the expense of the Smithsonian Institution, and was entitled, " Nomen- clator Zoologicus: an alphabetical list of all generic names that have been employed by naturalists for recent and fossil animals from the earliest times to the close of the year 1879." The author was Doctor Samuel H. Scudder, and the com- pleted work was published in 1882. It is a rule observed by almost all naturalists not know- ingly to give or adopt a name, already used for one genus, to or for another. But the difficulty of finding out whether a given name had already been used would be very great under ordinary circumstances, and the task of doing so would entail a disproportionate expenditure of time. With the ad- vancing years and increasing number of investigators and describers, the uncertainty and labor involved would be greatly increased. In order to meet the demand for ready reference, from time to time nomenclators or indexes to the genera proposed have been published. The first important one was prepared under the direction of Professor Louis Agassiz, over half a century ago (1842-46), and another, by Count von Marschall, was published about a quarter of a century later (1873). ^^^ useful as both were, another was Zoology 725 demanded. The names had increased manyfold since Agas- siz's work appeared, and Von Marschall's work was not only old, but much time had to be wasted on account of its divi- sion into twenty-one separate lists. The work of Scudder, in which all the names were arranged in a single alphabetical list, was therefore a most welcome boon to naturalists. In- stead of the twenty thousand (19,966) names of Agassiz's time, about eighty thousand were given in the new work, and the last " Nomenclator Zoologicus " became an indis- pensable adjunct to the laboratory of every systematic zoolo- gist. Even this has now become superannuated, and a new edition, or rather new work, is already being prepared under the auspices of the Institution, and may be expected before the close of the century. The earliest of the bibliographical aids published by the In- stitution was by Charles Girard, and entitled, " Bibliographia Americana Historico-Naturalis; or. Bibliography of Amer- ican Natural History for the year 1851 " (1852). Other aids furnished by the Institution for the benefit of investigators are the bibliographies published from time to time. Some of these form a special series entitled " Bib- liographies of American Naturalists," and five have been published, namely : I. "The Published Writings of Spencer F. Baird. 1843- 1882" (1883). II. ''The Published Writings of Isaac Lea" (1885). III. "Bibliography of Publications relating to the Collec- tion of Fossil Invertebrates in the United States National Museum, including Complete Lists of the Writings of Field- ing B. Meek, Charles A. White, and Charles D. Walcott" (1885). IV. "The Published WritinQs of Georore Newbold Law- rence " (1891) ; and 726 The Smithsonian Institution V. ''The Published Writings of Doctor Charles Girard " (1891). Another collateral to the series just considered, but never- theless an independent volume, relates to an English natural- ist long very active in the study of American birds. It is "The Published Writings of Philip Ludey Sclater, 1844- 1896" (1896). The Institution for a number of years also published in its annual Reports, and again as separately paged pamphlets, records of the progress of zoology and paleontology during previous years. The reports on zoology, seven in number, were by Theo- dore Gill, and covered the years 1879 to 1886. The reports on the progress of paleontology were four in number, namely: those for the years 1884, 1885, and 1886, by John B. Marcou ; and that for the year 1887, by Henry S. Williams. A party for the observation of the transit of Venus in. 1874 was sent by the government of the United States to Kergue- len Island, and Doctor Jerome H. Kidder, Assistant Surgeon of the Navy, served as naturalist. He published "Contribu- tions to the Natural History" of the island visited, in two parts (1875 and 1876); one embracing a general view of the animals as well as plants, and the other containing an account of the birds by Doctors Coues and Kidder. Another biological memoir by a naval medical officer was the result of Doctor Thomas H. Street's collections and ob- servations, and was published in the form of a bulletin of the National Museum.^ " Contributions to the Natural History of Arctic America, ^" Contributions to the Natural History of tiic United States North Pacific Surveying tiie Hawaiian and Fanning Islands and Expedition, i873-'75," octavo, 172 pages, Lower California, made in connection with Washington (1877). ;_ Zoology 727 made in connection with the Howgate Polar Expedition " in 1877-78 (1879), were by Ludwig Kumlein. A contribution to zoogeography was a memoir "On the Zoological Position of Texas," by Professor Edward D. Cope, which was published in 1880. The visits to the island of Bermuda, whose fishes were catalogued in 1876 by Doctor Goode, further fructified in 1884 in "Contributions to the Natural History of the Ber- mudas," edited by the same gentleman, and including articles by seven other contributors on the various classes of animals, as well as in botany and geology. The Institution took an active part in various exhibitions, and prepared catalogues of considerable general value as guides for forming as well as for viewing the collections. The most important of these, all of which were prepared by Doctor G. Brown Goode are : " Classification of the Collec- tion to Illustrate the Animal Resources of the United States. A List of Substances derived from the Animal Kingdom, with Synopsis of the Useful and Injurious Animals, and a Classification of Methods of Capture and Utilization " (1876) ; " Catalosfue of the Collections to Illustrate the Animal Re- sources and the Fisheries of the United States, exhibited at Philadelphia, in 1876, by the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Fish Commission, and forming a part of the United States National Museum" (1879); "Exhibition of the Fisheries and Fish Culture of the United States of America at the Internationale Fischerei-Ausstellung held at Berlin, April 20, 1880, and forming a part of the Collections of the National Museum, made by the United States Fish Commission" (1880); and "Descriptive Catalogues of the Collections sent from the United States to the International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883, constituting a Report upon the American Section" (1884). 728 The Smithsonian Institution In 1878 the United States National Museum began the pubHcation of its " Proceedings," and in the annual volumes of that series numerous articles were published describing new species, and often containing important discussions of the affinities and relationship, and sometimes synoptical monographs of various groups. Although published under the general direction of the Smithsonian Institution, the record of these belongs rather to the history of the National Museum than to that of the Smith- sonian Institution, and therefore no further reference need be made to them in this connection. INVERTEBRATES The marine invertebrates, with the exception of the mol- lusks, had been much neglected by American naturalists, the only authority who had contributed much respecting any of them during the first half-century having been Thomas Say. In 1853 a "Synopsis of the Marine Invertebrates of Grand Manan, or the Region about the Mouth of the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick," was published in the sixth volume of the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." This memoir has become a classic, and has made the locality whose fauna is recorded in it famous as a collecting-ground. It was the first complete view of the invertebrate animals of any American territory that had been published in the United States, and many now well-known species were for the first time recorded in it. "A Fauna and Flora within Living Animals" is the title of one of the "Smithsonian Contributions" (published in the fifth volume) embodying the results of observations by Doc- tor Joseph Leidy of the Jnlus marginatus (the Spiroboliis 7narginatus of recent naturalists) and the Passalus cornutus. Zoology 729 The former is a common myriapod or milleped ; the latter a large coleopterous insect or beetle found abundantly in decay- ing wood, and whose fat white grub is often met with. In the milleped no less than seven species of lowly entozoans, and in the beetle two, were found, described, and figured. In the cockroach six species had been found, of which two were for the first time made known. Several other new species of entozoans from other insects were also described, COELENTERATES The only memoir on any Coelenterata published by the Institution outside of the " Proceedings of the National Mu- seum " was one on the " Lucernariai and their allies," by Henry James Clark, and was in the twenty-third volume of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledore." CRUSTACEANS The Crustacea have received especial attention from the Smithsonian Institution, and are well represented in the United States National Museum ; much has also been pub- lished by the officers in charge of the collection in the " Pro- ceedings of the United States National Museum." But with the exception of the two unimportant articles giving instruc- tions for cooperation and asking for information respecting crawfish, no independent publication on the class has been issued by the Institution. INSECTS The insects have been treated of in a number of volumes, in which various orders or other groups were systematically dealt with. 47 730 The Sjmfhsoman Institntiori The first publication was one of the "Smithsonian Con- tributions to Knowledge," and appeared in 1850. It was on "The Classification of Insects from Embryological Data," by Louis Agassiz. The Coleoptera were generally studied in the early days of the Institution, as they still are. A " Catalogue of the described Coleoptera of the United States" (1853), by F. E. Melsheimer, led the way. Long afterward it was succeeded by instalments of a " Classification of the Coleoptera of North America," by Doctor John L. Le Conte (Part i, 1862 ; part 2, 1873), and a " List of the Coleoptera of North Amer- ica" (1866), by the same naturalist. It was not until 1883 that Doctor Le Conte, with the cooperation of Doctor G. H. Horn, completed the " Classification of the Coleoptera of North America." "New Species of North American Coleoptera" were also described by Le Conte in two instalments, the first of which was published in 1863, and the second in 1873. A "Contribution to Knowledge" of the faunal regions and geographical distribution was published by Le Conte under the title of "The Coleoptera of Kansas and Eastern New Mexico" (1859). The Lepidoptera form another order which received spe- cial attention from the Smithsonian Institution. A " Catalogue of the described Lepidoptera of North America" (i860) was not long afterward followed by a "Synopsis of the described Lepidoptera of North America" (1862); both of these were compiled by the Reverend Doc- tor John Morris. The first part of the Synopsis, including the diurnal and crepuscular Lepidoptera, was the only one published. The labors of the student who would seek to know what has been published respecting the early stages of Lepidop- Zoology J 2) I tera have been much lightened by a " BibHographical Cata- logue of the described Transformations of North American Lepidoptera," by Henry E. Edwards (1889). An important subdivision of nocturnal Lepidoptera has been considered in two publications by Professor John B. Smith. One is a " Contribution toward a Monograph of the Insects of the Lepidopterous Family Noctuidae of Temperate North America," in the form of a " Revision of the Species of the Genus Agrotis " (1890); the other is "A Catalogue, Bibliographical and Synoptical, of the Species of Moths of the Lepidopterous Superfamily Noctuidae found in Boreal Amer- ica, with Critical Notes" (1893). Both of these were pub- lished as bulletins of the National Museum. The Neuroptera were enumerated in a " Synopsis of the Neuroptera of North America," by Doctor Hermann Hagen, published in 1861. The Orthoptera were also listed, Doctor Samuel H. Scud- der having prepared a " Catalogue of the Orthoptera of North America described previous to 1867," which was pub- lished in 1868. As early as i860 a special "Circular in Reterence to the History of North America Grasshoppers" was sent to many correspondents of the Institution ; but the specimens and in- formation obtained in response were not directly utilized for a special work on that group. The Hymenoptera of the family Vespidai were partly monographed by Henri de Saussure of Geneva, Switzer- land, in a " Synopsis of American Wasps " ; but only the por- tion treating of the tribes Masarinae (Parasitic Wasps) and Odynerinae (Solitary Wasps) was published (1875). An- other important hymenopterous family was described in " A Monograph of the North American Proctotrypida^ " (1893), by William H. Ashmead. 732 The Smithsonian Institntion The Diptera also early received attention. A provi- sional " Catalogue of the described Diptera of North Amer- ica," by Baron Robert Osten-Sacken (1858), was replaced twenty years later (1878) by an enlarged and critical cata- logue bearing the same title. A series of " Monographs of the Diptera of North Amer- ica " was next provided for, and edited by Baron Osten- Sacken. Four of these were published, of which the first, second, and third were by Doctor H. Loew of Meseritz, Prussia, and the fourth by Baron Osten-Sacken. The first (1862) gives a sketch of the systematic arrangement of the Diptera, and monographs of the North American Trypetidae, Sciomyxidae, Ephydrinidae, and Cecidomyidae (the last by the editor); the second (1864) is confined to the family Doli- chopodidae; the third (1873) treats of the family Ortalidae ; and the fourth (1869), of the North American Tipulidae. Long afterward, in 1886, a monograph or "Synopsis of the North American Syrphidae," also an important family, by Professor Samuel W. Williston, was published as a bulletin of the United States National Museum. Another series of lists of species, with references to one or more of the descriptions of each of the species, was also pub- lished. Several orders of insects were thus catalogued, the Diptera by Baron R. Osten-Sacken (1858 and 1878), the Lepidoptera by Doctor John G. Morris (i860), and the Or- thoptera by Doctor Samuel H. Scudder (1868). MYRIAPODS The so-called Myriapoda form a heterogeneous though gen- erally recognized group which has been much neglected till recent years. A young student, Charles H. Bollman, who had been trained under the auspices of Doctor David S. Zoology 733 Jordan, undertook the study of the species, and displayed marked zeal and ability, publishing- a number of papers before his early death in his twenty-first year. These papers were combined in a bulletin of the United States National Mu- seum, entitled " The Myriapoda of North America, by Charles Harvey Bollman, edited by Lucien M. Underwood" (1893). They have had much influence on the present trend of method and treatment of the group in question. MOLLUSKS Enumerations with mere names of species of several classes were early published; such were the "Check-lists of the Shells of North America," by Isaac Lea, Philip P. Carpenter, William Stimpson, William G. Binney, and Tem- ple Prime. These lists were sometimes of families, as the " Unionidai," by Lea, and the " Cyclades," by Prime ; some- times of a class, or a large part of a class, as the "Terrestrial Gasteropoda" and the " Fluviatile Gasteropoda," both by Binney ; and sometimes of faunal regions, as the " West coast" (separated into the "Oregonian and Californian prov- ince" and the "Mexican and Panamic province"), by Car- penter, and the " East coast," by Stimpson. Various groups of shells were described and illustrated in different ways under the general title, "Land and Fresh- water Shells of North America," of which four parts were issued between 1865 and 1875. "Part I," including the land shells, or "Pulmonata geo- phila," was the result of a joint authorship by W. G. Binney and T. Bland, and was not published till 1869. At a much later period what may be considered as a new edition of the work on land shells was published, and quite properly ap- peared under a new title, as will be hereafter seen. " Part 47* 734 The Smithsonian Institution II," including fresh-water and marine Pulmonata, or " Pul- monata Limnophila and Thalassophila," as well as "Part III," embracing the Pectinibranchiate and Rhipidoglossate gastropods (" Ampullariidae, Valvatidse, Viviparidae, fresh- water Rissoidee, Cyclophoridse, Truncatellidse, fresh-water Neritidae, Helicinidae"), appeared as early as 1865 ; and both were prepared by William Binney alone. It may be added that proof-sheets of both those parts were quite widely sent out in book form to specialists ; and the investigations and criticisms to which they were subjected entailed works differ- ing very widely in their final form from the proof examples circulated, and thus rendered evident the wisdom of the course of seeking further information before final publication. "Part IV" was devoted to the " Strepomatidse (American Melanians)," and was not published till 1875. Its author was George W. Tryon. In the four parts of the " Land and Fresh-water Shells of North America " thus published, all the species found in the United States and the Dominion of Canada were described and illustrated. The Gastropoda were the only forms in- cluded, and these were for the first time embraced in a con- tinuous series. The species of the class known at the time of publication of the several volumes were apportioned to various groups. Part I included the pulmonate land shells; part II the pulmonate aquatic shells; and parts III and IV the gilled aquatic and land shells. Part I. Pulmonata Geophila . . . 286 Part II. " ( Limnophila . . " < Thalassophila . . 127 4 Part III. " ( (Siphonariidae) . C Pectinibranchiata .... ( Rhipidoglossata 57 131 II 68 Part IV. Pleuroceridae 444 Zoology 735 The census thus taken revealed no less than eight hundred and twenty-nine nominal species of gastropods inhabiting the United States. The aggregate of the species known at the present day is not very much greater, and the figure is too large for at least one family — that of the " Pleuroceridae," or American Melanians. The bivalves could not be treated in the same manner as the gastropods. There are only three families represented in the United States, but one of them — the Unionida; — is an immense assemblage of species, and no one could be found willing to undertake the task of monographing them. The other families — Cyrenidae and Pisidiidaj — were then uni- versally combined in one, and in 1865 were treated by Temple Prime in a " Monograph of the American Corbicu- ladae (recent and fossil)." In this monograph one hundred and eleven species were recognized, of which ninety-three belong to the family Cyrenidae and eighteen to the family Pisidiidas. In these numbers, however, are embraced not only the recent species of temperate and cold North America, but also those of the warm regions and South America, as well as the extinct species. Reduced within the limits cov- ered by the other monographs, the numbers were as follows : Cyrenidae 32 Pisidiidae 12 A small monograph, evoked by the differences of opinion respecting questions considered in the "proof" of the third part of the " Land and Fresh-water Shells of North Amer- ica," was published meanwhile (in 1865) by Doctor William Stimpson, and embraced the results of anatomical studies, especially of the lingual ribbon, of the Hydrobiids. In 1885 Mr. Binney resumed a consideration of the ter- restrial Pulmonates in " A Manual of the American Land Shells." This is the volume already alluded to in connection 72>^^ T/ie Smithsonia7i Institution with "Part I" of the "American Land and Fresh-water Shells." Most of the descriptions, synonymy, and illustra- tions of that volume are reproduced in the "Manual," but the classification is modified, and instead of the matter being in a continuous systematic sequence, it is broken up and ar- ranged under seven geographical categories — species ''a. Universally distributed," " ^. Pacific province," " r. Central province," " ' h ,XTH8!Att)]/i!ahIIWrkIii'' 1 also issued ,KOITUTIT8PII ZAITlOBHTIMci SHT 'iO T'Ha+^ITFT .8THr -p.dHi w Zoology yzi separately, with an independent title-page and index, but did not receive a serial number till many years later. Mean- while "Memoranda of Inquiry" and "Questions relative to the Food Fishes of the United States" were circulated to pro- cure information. Fo serve as a basis for future work, an "Arrangement of the Families of Fishes," a "Catalogue of the Fishes of the East Coast of North America," and a " Bib- liography of the Fishes of the Pacific Coast of the United States " were prepared by Theodore Gill. To the same or a like category belong a " Classification of the Collection to Illustrate the Animal Resources of the United States" (1876), and "Descriptive Catalogues of the Collections sent from the United States to the International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883, by Doctor Goode." With the field thus surveyed and mapped, articles soon appeared describing various groups or faunas. The first published was a " Catalogue of the Fishes of the Bermudas" (1876), by Goode, in which the nomenclature was well considered and many useful data were given. Next appeared several parts of " Contributions to North American Ichthyology, based primarily on the Collections of the United States National Museum," by Doctor David S. Jordan, in which various families of fresh-water fishes were elucidated and collateral questions inquired into. As a re- sult of all previous studies, a "Synopsis of the Fishes of North America" was given by Doctors David S. Jordan and Charles H. Gilbert, brincrino- the information orathered through many years and scattered in numerous volumes well up to date. Quite full descriptions of the species as well as including groups were given: 1340 species were recognized and distributed under 487 genera, 130 families, 23 orders, and 4 classes. The contrast between this work and one bearing the same title h\ Doctor D, H. 738 The Sjmthsonian iHstitittion Storer, published in 1846, was a notable one, and a compari- son between the two will give some idea of the progress of the science between the two periods. A new edition of this "Synopsis," or rather a new work bearing the title, "The Fishes of North and Middle America," by Doctor Jordan and Doctor B. W. Evermann, appeared later, the first vol- ume having been published in 1896. With the increase of region covered, a great increase of species is naturally in- volved. The last work covers essentially the same ground as Storer's "Synopsis" of 1846, both including the fishes of the continent down to the Isthmus of Panama, as well as those of the West Indian Islands. The work of 1846 embraced notices of 729 nominal species, representing 218 genera and 35 families. The work of 1896, as appears from the authors' " check-Hst," will embrace, when completed, descriptions of more than 3100 species, rep- resenting 1053 genera and 228 families. Even more notable than the numerical acquisitions are the mode of treatment and the aptness of diagnoses. Last in time, but in some respects the most important of the ichthyological contributions, was a work published as a special bulletin of the United States National Museum. It is also noteworthy as the last complete work emanating from Doctor George Brown Goode, and appeared within a month of his death. Doctor Tarleton H. Bean was his collaborator in this as in many previous memoirs. The new work was on " Oceanic Ichthyology, a treatise on the deep-sea and pelagic fishes of the world, based chiefly upon the collections made by the steamers Blake, Alhairvss, and Fish Hawk in the northwestern Atlantic, with an Atlas containing 417 fig- ures." As a summary of knowledge respecting the forms under consideration, the work is an epochal one, and the numerous species contrast remarkably with the few known Zoology 739 not long-er ago than two decades. "Only twenty years ago," the authors write, "the fish fauna of the deep sea was repre- sented in collections by forty or fifty specimens, representing not more than twenty species at the most — accidental waifs picked up at the surface or cast ashore by the waves." A work whose place is rather in archa;;ology than ichthy- ology may be referred to because of its interest to ichthyolo- gists. It is on " Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and North America" (1884), by Charles Rau, and was published as one of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." AMPHIBIANS As EARLY as 1853, ^ monograph on the "Anatomy of the Nervous System " of the common bullfrog of the United States, called, in conformity with the accepted nomenclature of the day, Rana pipiens, but now known as Rana cates- biana, was supplied by Doctor Jeffries Wyman to the "Smith- sonian Contributions to Knowledge." It was a creditable and well illustrated memoir. In 1875, Professor Edward D. Cope enumerated the re- cent species of amphibians in his " Check-list of North American Batrachia and Reptilia." In 1883, another " Check- list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia " was prepared by Doctor Henry C. Yarrow. Finally, all the materials in the National Museum, as well as the literature, were considered and discussed in a descrip- tive and thoroughly illustrated volume entitled "The Batra- chia of North America," by Professor Cope. In the "letter of transmittal " it is stated that descriptions are given of fifty - three Urodela and forty-seven Salientia, thus aggregating just one hundred species. Some remarkable specie? have been added to the North 740 The Sinithsoniau Institution American fauna since the publication of Professor Cope's monograph. The most notable are two blind forms de- scribed by Doctor Leonhard Stejneger, one in 1892, a cave salamander ( TypJilotriton spelceus) of the family Desmog- nathidae, and the other in 1896, a tenant of subterranean waters, and related to the Proteidse (Typhlomolge). REPTILES The earliest contributions to herpetology published by the Smithsonian Institution were also contributions to paleon- tology. The first was a " Memoir on Mosasaurus, and three Allied New Genera," by Doctor Robert W. Gibbes, and ap- peared in 1850. A second by Doctor Joseph Leidy, includ- ing the tortoises from the *' Mauvaises Terres," of Nebraska, was published in 1853. A third was a monograph of the "Cretaceous Reptiles of the United States" (1865), and was also from the pen of Leidy. In the year 1853, ^'""^ ^^'st part of a "Catalogue of North American Reptiles in the Museum of the Smithsonian Insti- tution," by Spencer F. Baird and Charles Girard, was pub- lished, and embraced diagnoses and detailed descriptions of all the "Serpents" found in America north of Mexico, New principles of classification were introduced in this work, and on the whole the species were more naturally grouped than in any previously published work and many unknown species were added to the fauna. Indeed, the chief fault charged upon the work was an undue multiplication of species, but although amenable to the criticism, the fault has been exag- gerated and the authors have been found to be often more nearly fight than their early critics. Check-lists of all the reptiles were published later. One by Cope appeared in 1875 and another by Yarrow in 1883. Zoology 74 1 The numerous memoirs on various species and groups of reptiles, for which the museum of the Institution furnished the material in whole or part, were published chiefly in the " Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- delphia," and the " Proceedings of the United States Na- tional Museum." The other separate publications, involving the reptiles, were on their anatomy and physiology : one by Doctor S. Weir Mitchell made known " Researches upon the Venom of the Rattlesnake" (i860); another, by Doctors Mitchell and Georo-e R. Morehouse, described " Researches upon the Anatomy and Physiology of Respiration in the Chelonia " (1863). A quarter-century after the publication of the researches on the rattlesnake, the senior author (Doctor Mitchell), seconded by another (Doctor Edward T. Reichert), published the results of later " Researches upon the Venom of Poisonous Serpents" generally (1886). BIRDS The earliest of the "Contributions to Knowledge" relatincr to ornithology was the beginning of a " North American Oology," by Doctor Thomas M. Brewer. A "first part," descriptive of the " Raptores and Pissirostres, ' was pub- lished in 1857, but was never succeeded by another. In 1895 this field was covered by a new work entitled " Life His- tories of North American Birds," illustrated by many plates, in which the eggs are delineated. The new work was by Major Charles Bendire, and was extended to two volumes, but this must also remain unfinished on account of the death of the author. The work of Bendire is noteworthy as open- ing a new series in quarto form, published under the auspices of the Institution and designated "Special Bulletin," the vol- umes in question being the first and third "Special Bulletins." 742 The Smithsonian Institution The several catalogues of North American birds issued by the Institution — and especially the octavo edition of 1859 — were long in great demand among bird and ^^'g col- lectors for cataloguing purposes. In 1881, however, they were replaced by a new catalogue by Robert Ridgway, en- titled " Nomenclature of North American Birds," and this in turn served the purpose of most collectors until it was sup- planted by the "check-list" published by the American Ornithologist Union in 1886. Professor Baird did not abandon his ornithological studies after the publication of his great work on North American Birds, but extended them to the species of Middle and South America, and went over the ground he had already so well surveyed. In 1863 the Institution issued a circular relative to collections of birds from Middle and South America, and a " List of the Described Birds of Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies, not in the Collection of the Smithsonian Institution," and solicited desiderata. With the new material thus obtained, Baird began in 1864 the publication of " Part I " of a " Review of American Birds in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution," includinsf those of North and Middle America, and continued the issue in instalments till 1866, when increasing duties compelled him to abandon it after having covered a number (fourteen of the system adopted) of the families of Oscines. In 1866 a separate issue of an "Outline of a Systematic Review of the Class of Birds," by W. Lilljeborg, and an "Ar- rangement of Families of Birds," containing only the names of those divisions and including groups, by Spencer F. Baird, were issued. These general works on American ornithology were sup- plemented by a number of special memoirs on various avifaunas as follows : One such was a cataloeue of the Zoology 743 " Birds of Southwestern Mexico, collected by Francis E. Sumichrast," was prepared by George N. Lawrence in 1875, and an Avifauna Columbiana, being a list of birds ascer- tained to inhabit the District of Columbia, by Elliott Coues and D. Webster Prentiss, was published in 1883. Another was a catalogue of "The Birds of Bermuda," by Saville G. Reid in 1884, and "Results of Ornithological Explorations in the Commander Islands and Kamtschatka," by Leonhard Stejneger, appeared in 1885. Among the "Contributions to Knowledge" is a "Classifi- cation and Synopsis of the Trochilidai," by Daniel G. Elliott, which was issued in 1879, ^^^ ^^ ^'^^ same time also appeared an independent " List of Described Species of Humming Birds," by the same author. MAMMALS The earliest memoirs on the mammals published by the Smithsonian Institution related to fossil forms, and were is- sued as "Contributions to Knowledge." Three such contri- butions were furnished by Doctor Joseph Leidy. The first was a " Memoir on the Extinct Species of the American Ox " (1852); the second was included in "The Ancient Fauna of Nebraska" (1853); and the third was "A Memoir on the Ex- tinct Sloth Tribe of North America" (1855). These were all well illustrated. A " Catalogue of North American Mammals," by Spencer F. Baird, published in 1857, is merely an edition of the table of contents of his work on North American mammals. An analogous catalogue was published in 1884 as "A Pro- visional List of the Mammals of North and Central America and the West Indian Islands," by Frederick W. True. No work on an extensive order was for a long time pub- 744 The Smithsoiiiau Institution lished, except a "Monograph of the Bats of North America," by Doctor Harrison Allen (1864). Many years afterward (1895) a new edition of this monograph by Doctor Allen was published as a " Bulletin of the United States National Museum" (1893). In 1889 "A Review of the Family Delphinidse," by Fred- erick W, True, was also issued as a Bulletin of the United States National Museum." The first part of an "Arrangement of the Families of Mammals" (1872) was published by Theodore Gill, but the completion of the work was prevented by the poverty of the collections in foreign material. Several physiological memoirs were also issued by the In- stitution, as follows: "On Strain and Overaction of the Heart," by Doctor J. M. Da Costa (1874), the "Dual Action of the Brain," by Doctor C. E. Brown-Sequard (1874), and "The Effect of Irritation of a Polarized Nerve" (1880), by B. F. Lautenbach. ANTHROPOLOGY By Jesse Walter Fewkes Editor of the Journal of American Ethnology and Archceology I^HE influences on the many branches of the science of anthropology which have sprung from the Smithsonian Institution, during the last half-century, have been far-reaching and ^2^^ profound. In this prolific epoch the science has grown almost from infancy to manhood, from an humble beginning to ever increasing conscious strength, and there is no American institution which has so profoundly influenced the development of the study of man. Two aspects of this influence claim our attention, and it is noteworthy that they are both directly related to those for which the Smithsonian Institution stands — the advancement of knowledije and its diffusion amonfj men. An indication of the potency of the former is seen in the long series of original researches made possible by the accumulation of collections and systematic field explorations fostered by the Institution. The publication of these researches has enlarged know- ledge, stimulated scientific investigation in other intellectual centers, and drawn to the museum scholars from all parts of the world. Judged from the point of view of scholarship, 48 745 74^ The Sniithsojiian InstUiition the Smithsonian Institution from its foundation, fifty years ago, has been to the American anthropologist a foster parent of oriofinal research. This is, however, but one aspect of the influences which this Institution has exerted on the study of man. A rich and weh-arranged collection of anthropological material not only attracts the scholar, forming the basis of the researches of the specialist, but also is a great educational factor to the community at large, A well-arranged museum is an un- written encyclopedia, teaching many who are not reached by other methods. The wealth of anthropological objects spread before the visitor to the museum exerts a profound influence on the intelligence of the community. Thousands visit a collection, and inspect its anthropological treasures, who never open a scientific book. The mind is, indeed, dull that is not in some way aflected by simply strolling through the museum, and hundreds of visitors have had an interest excited in anthropology from such a visit. This method of difiusion of knowledge is no less a function of a museum than research and publication, and in point of fact it touches the multitude, while technical science appeals to the few. From what has been written it may be evident that a treatment of the influences of the Smithsonian Institution on anthro- pology, past and present, falls under two headings, — research and publication ; collections and their installation. The former appeals especially to the student, and commonly measures the standing of an institution among scholars ; the latter concerns the general public, and determines its value as an educational institution among the many. While I shall emphasize the former, since it more readily submits to analysis, the greatness of my subject admits no such limita- tion. The silent lessons daily taught by ocular demonstra- tions we have no scale to measure, no statistics to tabulate Anthropology 747 save number of visitors ; the museum teaches a lesson to each visitor and exerts an influence which eludes analysis. ARCHEOLOGY The publications in this department of anthropology which have emanated from the Smithsonian Institution are many and comprehensive. As the large majority relate particularly to the antiquities of North and Central America, they may be considered under the following headings : 1. Appalachian Mountains and Atlantic Slope. 2. Rocky Mountains and Pacific Slope. 3. Central Region. 4. Mexico and Central America. 5. West Indies. APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS AND ATLANTIC SLOPE The prehistoric denizens of this region have received much attention, and researches and publications on its archaeology have been numerous and important. The evidences of paleolithic man in the valley of the Potomac and the Trenton gravels have been critically exam- ined and ably discussed by assistants in the Institution ; and the works of Abbott, Rau, Holmes, and Wilson have attracted wide attention among students of this subject. Professor Baird early recognized the great field for re- search presented by the kitchen middens of the Atlantic Coast, and personally carried on studies of these prehistoric camping places on the coast of Maine. Doctor Rau dis- cussed in 1872 a gold ornament from a Florida mound, and six years earlier called attention to the artificial shell deposits on the coast of New Jersey. 74B The Smithsonian Instihition ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND PACIFIC SLOPE By an interesting coincidence, in the same year that the Smithsonian was founded, there was added to the territory of the United States an immense domain in the Southwest, rich in most interesting antiquities of a prehistoric race of unique characters. Early explorers of this vast region brought back fascinating accounts of ruins of a kind novel to men of Anglo-Saxon blood — the cliff-houses and so-called pueblos. The influence of the Institution can readily be traced in the aims of several exploring expeditions, which, one after another, enlarged our knowledge of this new arch- aeological realm. Active work in this prolific field began with the foundation of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1879, an account of which would naturally fall in another chapter. The most important publication on the architecture of the ancient pueblos of Cibola and Tusayan, as likewise the most complete on the antiquities of the pueblo area which has yet appeared, is to be found in one of the " Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology," a work of great industry, both in office and field, by Victor Mindeleff. The expedi- tions of James Stevenson brought enormous collections of ethnological material from this region, enriching the museum with many archaeological objects of great value. Valuable archaeological work has been carried on under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution on the Santa Barbara Islands, off the coast of southern California, and in the caves of the Aleutian Islands, the character of which in the latter locality can best be considered elsewhere. The Alaska Commercial Company in 1875 presented to the Institution a series of mummies from the Aleutian Islands and Prince William's Sound. W. H. Uall prepared a memoir Anthropology 749 on this collection, with an account of related tradition, history, and other material such as he had obtained in eight years' experience in the region of the globe in which they were found. His memoir, which is well illustrated, was an im- portant contribution to a little known subject. CENTRAL REGION The most striking of the many archaeological problems of the central region are those connected with the mound builders, the antiquities of the Mississippi valley and those of the Saint Lawrence. The influence of the Smithsonian Institution has always been wisely directed to fostering and advancing the investigation of these mounds of the United States, and its publications are recognized, both at home and abroad, as most important contributions to this subject. Previously to 1847 the unaided pioneer work of Caleb Atwater and others had called attention to these antiquities, but without awakening a widespread interest in the sub- ject. To no one institution does archaeological science owe so much as to the Smithsonian in quickening dormant interest in the study of the mound builders, and there is probably no department of anthropology where the publications of the Institution have done more to arouse interest in research than in this. The " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledgfe " open with a most valuable article on the "Ancient Monu- ments of the Mississippi Valley," by E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis, a classic work illustrated by forty-eight lithographic plates and two hundred and seven woodcuts. This volume, which appeared in 1848, was followed two years later by another written by the senior author on a related subject : " Aboriorinal Monuments of the State of New York." These memoirs, especially the former, may be regarded as epoch - 48* 750 The S7JtitJisojiian Instittttion making, a worthy introduction to a subject which dates an ever-growing interest from that year. If we may judge from results, the fifty years during which " Squier and Davis" have been famihar words with American and foreicrn archse- ologists, whenever the mound builders are referred to, has well justified the following quotation from a letter of Honor- able George P. Marsh of equal age: "It is fortunate," he says, "for the cause of American archaeology that the first sys- tematic attempt at its elucidation — (referring to the problem of the mound builders) — should have been conceived and executed in so truly philosophical a spirit; and rich as this age already is in antiquarian lore, it has, I think, received few more important contributions. . . . The Smithsonian collections could not begin with a more appropriate or creditable essay." These two works were followed by a supplementary com- munication by Charles Whittlesey and a memoir by I. A. Lapham, both of great value. Lapham described figure mounds from Wisconsin, representing a variety of fanciful forms of animals which had been overlooked by previous travelers. The figures represented men, bears, foxes, birds, reptiles ; the style of mound seemed to have been limited to the plains of the upper Mississippi river. But the memoir is not confined in its treatment to these forms ; it includes like- wise tumuli, embankments, and like structures. This memoir presented the subject with accuracy and skill, and had an important influence on the growing interest in the antiquities of the west. Lapham's researches were car- ried on under the direction of the Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Massachusetts, by which his memoir was pre- sented to the Smithsonian Institution for publication, a good example of the harmony with which the Institution has always worked with societies of kindred aims. Mr. S. F. Haven, the librarian of the American Antiqua- Anthropology 751 rian Society of Worcester, prepared, by special request of the Institution, a memoir which formed a part of the seventh volume of the " Contributions." This was a thorough and able article with a bibliographical character, summarizing the opinions of early writers on American antiquities, and the existing knowledge of aboriginal monuments east of the Rocky Mountains, The great labor performed by Haven in gathering material from publications which were rare and inaccessible did much to correlate accumulated observations, and led to a hope, carried out forty years later, of publishing a complete archaeological map of all the mounds east of the Rocky Mountains. For twelve years subsequent to Doctor Haven's memoir, however, nothing appears in the " Contribu- tions" respecting the antiquities of the middle region of the United States, save a short communication by Whittlesey on "Ancient Mining on the Shores of Lake Superior." In 1872 Doctor Joseph Jones was aided by a small appropriation, and pursued investigations with ardor and success. The refer- ences to his work in the Reports from 1872 to 1S76 show the wide range of studies pursued by him in historical and biblio- graphical directions. His memoir forms a volume of one hundred and eighty-one quarto pages, with many woodcuts, and a very full index by Professor O. T. Mason. This work, entitled "Antiquities of Tennessee," (1876) contains de- scriptions of burial caves and mode of burial, mounds, earth- works, forts, and relics, closinof with ireneral conclusions. The exploration of the mounds was vigorously taken up in 1882 by the Bureau of Ethnology, and systematic excavations carried on in the field for eight successive years under the direction of Doctor Cyrus Thomas, aided by Doctor Palmer, Norris, Ragan, Reynolds, Middleton, and others. These re- searches were not confined to mounds, but it was found nec- essary to include in them all anticjuities of the central region. 752 The Smithsonian Instittition Many articles on the subject were published as a result of these studies, culminating in a voluminous report by Doctor Cyrus Thomas, the largest which has yet appeared on a subject which was inaugurated by the opening volume of the " Contributions." MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA The rich field presented to the archaeologist in Mexico and Central America has received the attention of the Institution, and several interesting publications on this subject have ap- peared in the " Contributions." In 1878 an important memoir by Doctor Habel entitled " Archaeological and Ethnological Researches in Central and South America, with a Detailed Account of the Sculptures at Santa Lucia Cosumalwhuapa," was accepted by the Institution for publication. Doctor Habel had devoted seven years to exploration in this region, visiting many of the great ruins described by Stephens in 1841. The main portion of this contribution was devoted to a de- scription of the great monoliths at Santa Lucia Cosumalwhu- apa, a village in the department of Esquintla, near the Volcan del Fuego. These stone slabs were discovered by a planter who came upon a large pile of buried monoliths in preparing his farm for cultivation. They were found to be richly sculp- tured and ornamented in cavo-relievo with representations of human figures of unusual carving, supposed to refer to the adoration of the sun, moon, and other anthropomorphic deities difficult to identify. Doctor Habel made true copies of the originals with great care and on his return to the United States was invited to visit Washington, where the ex- pense of the preparation of his manuscript, and the plates, which were made under his personal supervision, was borne by the Institution. This publication attracted much attention, Anthropology 753 and as in the later transportation of some of the monoHths to Germany — it is to be regretted that they did not all find a home in Washington — one of the most interesting was lost in the Pacific ocean, the figure of it given by Doctor Habel will always remain unique. The estimation in which the volume by Doctor Habel is held by scholars is voiced by the late Pro- fessor W. D. Whitney, who wrote: " It seems to me a story refreshing by its brevity and simplicity, very unlike the pom- pous and boastful way in which such things are often heralded. One may not agree with all the inferences drawn at the end, but that is a matter of very small im.portance ; no two persons would arrive at precisely the same conclusions. So far as I can judge, the Institution has every reason to take pleasure and pride in the issue of such a contribution to American archaeology." The scientific discovery of these interesting monoliths and a publication of the memoir upon them led to several interest- ing studies by German archaeologists and to the final trans- portation of the antiquities themselves to the Berlin Museum, by which institution replicas have been distributed to the col- lections of several European and American cities. Of all the interesting ruins of Central America to which at- tention was called by Stephens and Catherwood, none excited more wonder at the culture they revealed than those of the great city of Chiapas called Palenque. A portion of one of the most interesting shrines of that ancient city, now known wherever archaeology is cultivated as the Palenque Tablet, came into the possession of the Smithsonian, and was de- scribed and figured by Doctor Charles Rau in the twenty- second volume of the " Contributions." This stone tablet is one of the most precious archaeological treasures in the Na- tional Museum. It was formerly the property of the National Institution for the Promotion of Science, to which it was pre- 754 The Smithsonian Institution sented in 1842 by Charles Russell, a former Consul of the United States in Mexico. It was transferred to the Smith- sonian in 1858, and its relation to the famous group of the cross recognized by Doctor George A. Matile, who was en- gaged in making a cast of it at the request of Professor Henry. Del Rio and Dupaix gave a poor figure of it in position in the Temple of the Cross, but it was probably broken in 1832, and Stephens in 1839 noticed its scattered fragments. The first trustworthy representation we thus owe to Doctor Rau's memoir, as mentioned above. The account of the Palenque treasure was followed by a valuable contribution on "Archaeological Researches in Nica- ragua," and preceded by " Observations on Mexican History and Archaeology " by Brantz Mayer, both of which articles were timely additions to a knowledge of a great subject. Other smaller but no less important works on the "Antiqui- ties of Guatemala" should not be overlooked, especially that of Bransford and Kneeland, both of which are frequently quoted. WEST INDIES The Smithsonian possesses a most valuable collection of ancient Carib art in stone, and has published several impor- tant works on the antiquities of the Antilles. Professor E. D. Cope in 1883 discussed the contents of a bone cave in the island of Anguilla, giving an interesting insight into cave life in a comparatively unknown quarter. The purchase of the Latimer collection of stone objects from Porto Rico enabled Professor O. T. Mason to prepare an elaborately illustrated article on idols, or zemes, and Carib stone implements, a picture of a style of stone working unsurpassed on the American continent. Somewhat later he was able to sup- plement this report by an examination of beautifidly exe- Anthropology 755 cuted drawings of the Guesde collection of similar objects from the island of Guadeloupe. In the same year as the Centennial Exposition in Philadel- phia, and directly connected with that work, a quarto volume was written by Professor Charles Rau on the "Archaeologi- cal Collections of the United States Museum," and dis- tributed by the Institution. This work was in the form of an illustrative catalogue, and, although not exhaustive in its treatment, served to give a wider knowledge than had been current of the wealth of archceological material in the mu- seum. There can hardly be a question that this publication should take hiofh rank with other influences which at that time quickened public interest in American antiquities, and led to a rejuvenescence of scientific activity in several centers of learning. But perhaps of special importance in that line ouofht to be mentioned the several articles on methods of archaeological study which appeared at about that time. Of these the more important were, " Circulars in Reference to American Archaeology," written by Professor Mason and signed by Professor Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Those interested in the antiquities of the mound builders were appealed to in a circular of somewhat different character, prepared by Doctor Cyrus Thomas, at the inaugu- ration of his extensive explorations in this field. There is probably no more perplexing problem presented to the anthropologists than the derivation of a prehistoric people of Easter Island, one of the most isolated islands of the Pacific Ocean. The colossal carvings in stone made by these people, their quaint hieroglyphic slats and hideous figurines, have attracted wide attention. A good representative collection from this island is now housed in the National Museum, and an exhaustive report, well illustrated, forms one o'i the most interesting of the contributions to insular archaeology. 756 The Smithsonian Instihttion Several articles of a comparative nature treating of collec- tions of archaeological material in the museum have materi- ally added to the progress of archaeology. Among these may be mentioned a work, by Doctor Charles Rau, on •' Prehis- toric Fishing in Europe and North America." This large volume was published in two parts, forming an article of three hundred and sixty pages with four hundred and six figures. About one-third of the memoir was devoted to archaeological relics of Europe, classified in the three epochs, of the palaeo- lithic, neolithic, and bronze ages. The second part deals with archaeological fishing implements, and relics of North America, and considers such topics as " Fishing Implements and Utensils," "Boats and Appurtenances," and "Aboriginal Representations of Fishes, Aquatic Animals," etc. The chap- ter on " Artificial Shell Deposits " is of great value. This work has a historical side no less important than the archaeo- logical, and embraces many early documentary and printed references to aboriginal fishing scattered in various writings, most of which are inaccessible to the public save with great difficulty. Doctor Rau was an industrious contributor to the Smithsonian Reports from 1864 to 1883, and his articles on "Agricultural Flint Implements," " Drilling in Stone without Metal," "North American Stone Implements," and "Ancient Aboriginal Trade in North America " testify to the breadth of his archaeological work in special lines. Although the greater part of the archaeological industry of the Institution has been turned to the antiquities of America, other countries have not been neglected. The publications have reprinted important articles by masters in the science, as, Hamy, on the probable " Home of the Troglodyte"; Tylor, on the "Prehistoric Races of Italy," and Ouatrcfages, on " The Advent of Man in America." The Re2:)orts contain likewise articles by Evans on "The An- Anthropology 757 tiquity of Man," Desor on " Palafittes of Lake Neuchatel," and Adler on " Oriental Antiquities." One important publication on Egyptian archaeology has been issued by the Institution. Gliddon, the Egyptologist, in 1842 presented to the national collection a portion of the lid of a mummy case from Sacara. This was regarded by Doctor Charles Pickering, of Boston, as older than the third dynasty, and its inscription, which unfortunately gives no indication of the date, appeared to him to have preceded an important change in the character of hieroglyphic writing. The lid had been divided into three parts, and distributed, and the missing parts could not be traced. Doctor Pick- ering, however, described the portion which came to the Smithsonian, and gave a large plate of it, which was a fac- simile in size and color, representing the figures upon it with scientific accuracy. LINGUISTICS The Smithsonian Institution early recognized the value of linguistics in the study of anthropology, and from 1850 to 1876 a large amount of work was done in collecting the vo- cabularies of the American Indians. The keynote of the value of linguistics is well indicated in one of the early reports, from which I quote, "A language is not originally a thing of man's device, or the result of conventional art, but the spon- taneous production of human instinct, modified by the mental character, the physical condition, and other peculiarities of the people or tribe among whom it had its origin, or by whom it is used. It is subject to definite laws of formation and development, and is intimately connected with the his- tory of the migrations and affiliations of the people by whom it is spoken, and hence becomes an object of interest to the student of the natural history of man." 758 The Smithsonian Institution From its foundation to the present time efforts were made to collect Indian vocabularies as part of the ethnological work of the Institution, and in 1876 their number amounted to six hundred and seventy. They were placed in charge of Doctor J. H. Trumbull, of Hartford, Connecticut, for critical study. It was the intention of the Institution to publish these vocabularies in the " Contributions to Knowledge," and in separate form for general distribution among philologists. In that year, however, Major J. W. Powell, who had collected a series of Indian vocabularies from the inhabitants living near the Great Colorado River, requested that the manu- script material be turned over to him to be published in con- nection with his work. This proposition was accepted, the only conditions of the transfer being that in the publication of the material due credit be given to the founder of the Smithsonian, and that extra copies of the publication be fur- nished the Institution for distribution. The series of publica- tions on linguistics began with an article by Doctor Francis Lieber, " On the Vocal Sounds of Laura Bridgman, the Blind Deaf Mute at Boston, compared with the Elements of Pho- netic Lanofuaofe." The wonderful work of Doctor Howe in opening the mind of this person to outward impressions has become famous, and perhaps no more interesting problems are presented to the psychologist than those connected with the enlightenment of a mind apparently forever consigned to darkness. Doctor Lieber had exceptional advantages to study the sounds first used by Laura Bridgman as indicative of ideas, and his psychological and philosophical deductions naturally attracted wide attention among scholars. At the time of the publication of this work modern psychology as now understood was in its infancy. For eighteen years missionaries among the Dakota Indians industriously collected material for a grammar and lexicon of Anthropology 759 that language, which, under the auspices of the Historical Society of Minnesota, was arranged and edited by the Rev- erend S. R. Riggs. Although primarily prepared to meet the needs of missionaries, it was found to be an interesting contribution to ethnology, and its publication was recom- mended by several of the best philologists of the country. By cooperation with the Historical Society of Minnesota, and the American Board of Missions, which contributed al)out a third of the cost of the work, the Smithsonian Institution devoted the fourth volume of the " Contributions " to this valuable memoir. The appearance of this memoir led to the preparation of others, which, although not all published, showed the wealth of material and the awakening interest in this branch of eth- nographic study. The Institution gave its fostering help to this work, assisting in the elaboration of material, and coop- erated with other institutions in its publication. Among these may be mentioned a " Grammar of the Choctaw," by the Reverend Harvey Byington, which was warmly recom- mended by Professor Felton, of Harvard and George Gibbs. It was published by the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, having been much improved by the author and Doctor D. G. Brinton, after the death of Mr. Byington. The growing trade with Oregon rendered timely the publication in 1853 of the "Vocabulary of the Jargon or Trade Lan- guage of Oregon," edited by B. Rush Mitchell, and Professor W. W. Turner, who at that time was librarian of the United States Patent Office. The interest of the latter scholar in philological studies appears also in the " Grammar and Dic- tionary of Yoruba Language," published in the tenth volume of the " Smithsonian Contributions." Yoruba is in West- ern Africa, east of Dahomey, and is peopled with a primi- tive race of simple and harmless character. The Reverend 760 The Smithsonian Institution Thomas J. Bowen, a missionary of the Southern Baptist Board, Hved with these people for six years, and collected much information concerning the physical characters of the country, the manners, customs, and language of the inhabi- tants. With the aid of Professor Turner he revised and rewrote his notes, which, when published, became a memoir of great value to students of the languages of the African race. To show the value of this work to specialists, I need only refer to a commendation of it by the profound German Egyptologist, Lepsius. The influence of Gibbs and Shea on the study of the lin- guistics of the aboriginal races of North America was most important. They found in the Smithsonian Institution a channel by which their ideas were impressed on the growing study of ethnology. Morgan's suggestion of an ethnological map, in a circular issued by the Institution, was adopted with zeal and broadened in its scope to embrace all fields of an- thropology. He proposed to enlist the help of several insti- tutions, as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Surveyor- General of the Land Office, the Hudson Bay Company, in the distri- bution of circulars calling for ethnographic information, and proposed the association of several well known scholars in perfecting his plan of an ethnological map of North America. He found in Professor Henry, then Secretary of the Smith- sonian, an appreciative helper, and in Professor Whitney an adviser of great value. John G. Shea, of New York, had devoted much attention to linguistics, and at his own expense began the publication of a series of grammars, or dictionaries, which he styled a " Library of American Linguistics." This praiseworthy undertaking not only enlisted the sympathy of the Smithsonian, but also active aid and association in the work. A number of manuscripts presented to the Institution for publication were transmitted to Shea to be published Anthropology 76 1 in the series above referred to, and arrangements made by which a considerable number of copies of each memoir were secured from the pubHsher for distribution. In this way the Smithsonian aided in the pubHcation of grammars or vocabu- laries of the Mutsun language, spoken at the missions of San Juan Bautista and San Antonio, California, and the Yakima and Pima. Instruction for research relative to ethnology and philology prepared by George Gibbs and printed and distributed to officers of the United States and other governments met with a gratifying response. As supplemental to that work blank forms for systematic records were sent out, resulting in valuable returns of vocabularies, implements, and other objects illustrative of the arts, customs, and mental condition of American races. The vocabularies were intrusted to Gibbs, whose work for many years was largely gratuitous. He contributed to the publications several valuable articles, of which his dictionary of the Chinook jargon and " Com- parative Vocabulary " are good examples of his work. The accumulated material on Indian linguistics passed into the hands of the Bureau of Ethnology at its foundation, and the continuation of its elaboration naturally will be found in the account of that department of the Institution. The " Instructions for Research relative to the Ethnology and Philology of America," by George Gibbs, first published in 1 86 1, stimulated investigation throughout the country, and fifteen years later the demand for this work had been so great that a second edition of more comprehensive plan was prepared under the direction of Major J. W. Powell. The elaboration adopted the following plan, as stated in the report for 1876: ''First, It is found necessary to enlarge the alphabet so as 49 762 The Smithsonian Institution to include a wider range of sounds which have been discov- ered in the North American languages. " Second. It is necessary to enlarge the vocabulary so as to modify it somewhat as experience has dictated, and that new words may be collected. " Third. It is desirable that many simple sentences should be given, so chosen as to bring out the more important char- acteristics of grammatical structure." The new edition, with the above mentioned improvements, was widely distributed among Indian agents and traders, missionaries, and local students, and resulted in the collection of much data in the form of linguistic and other notes, and a harvest of objects illustrating the manners and customs of the aborigines of America. Although the fruition of this plan will be considered in the account of the work of the Bureau of Ethnology, I may refer to the accomplishment of one of the plans of George Gibbs, so often referred to in the Reports of the Smithsonian Insti- tution for 1862 and the following years. The plan of an "Ethnographic Map" was successfully carried out by Major J. W. Powell and his assistants as far as linguistic stocks were concerned, thus giving a valuable contribution to the cartography of the Indian tribes north of Mexico. Of the many valuable articles on linguistics published by the Smithsonian Institution, those of Dorsey on the "Com- parative Phonology of Four Sioux Languages " and Roehig " On the Language of the Dakota or Sioux " are noteworthy. The " Lectures on Linguistics " by Professor Whitney was a timely publication written by a master of philology, and given a wide distribution by the Institution. Doctor Cyrus Adler in his "Oriental Literature in America" treats a sub- ject of ever growing interest to a large number of American Anthropology 763 scholars. The valuable memoir of Lewis H. Morgan on "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family" was a remarkable work by a profound scholar. Having been led by his studies of the system of relationship among the Iroquois Indians to certain conclusions in regard to consanguinity, Morgan was able to develop the fact that the same law holds likewise among other Indian tribes of America, and at his request circulars asking for information on these points were distributed to consuls, missionaries, and ethnologists by the Smithsonian Institution. This work was officially facilitated by General Cass, Secretary of State, by whom it was commended to diplomatic agents of the gov- ernment in various lands. The effect of this circular in ad- vancing anthropological knowledge was great not only in the special line of inquiries which it specially concerned, but also in other branches germane to social organization of primitive society. The National Museum has accumulated enormous collec- tions of objects illustrating the ethnography of different races of man. This material has served as the basis of many valuable researches, furnishing valuable data on technology, mythology, and many other departments of anthropology. Several monographic accounts of different races from the ethnographic standpoint enrich the publications of the Smith- sonian Institution. At the request of the Institution James G. Swan, an agent of the government, prepared an account of "The Indians of Cape Flattery," opposite Vancouver Island, in the northwestern corner of what was then Washinofton Ter- ritory. This article, published as a memoir, contained a full description of the manners and customs, myths, and cere- monials of these people, with a detailed account of imple- ments, clothing, houses, and mortuary customs, and beliefs. 764 The Sfuithsoiiian Institution It drew largely in its illustrations from specimens in the museum, and was accompanied by a vocabulary of the Makah tribe. The Institution was fortunate in having this memoir edited by George Gibbs, whose valuable and enthusiastic work in other departments of ethnology has been commented upon elsewhere. A few years later Swan prepared another work on the Indians of the Northwest coast, which was published in the twentieth volume of the " Contributions to Knowledge." This article, consisting of eighteen pages of text, with seven plates, two of which were in color, treated of "The Haidah Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands." The people considered in this publication are best known by their exquisite carvings of ivory, and the lofty heraldic poles, called totem posts, which are placed before their dwellings as indicative of the gentes of the occupants. The museum collection is especially rich in objects from the Indians de- scribed by Swan in these two memoirs, and their publica- tion led to a new interest in northwestern coast villaores. This rich vein of ethnographic material was found to extend along the whole coast from Washington Territory to the Aleutian Islands, and was successfully worked by Niblack and Dall. The former author published, in the Report for 1888, an elaborate monograph of " The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska," in which will be found a detailed account, with figures of many objects in the museum which were deposited there by him. A large and unique collection, which can probably never be duplicated, was made for the National Mu- seum in this region by E. W. Nelson. John Murdoch, at one time librarian of the Smithsonian, had earlier been attached to one of the circumpolar stations at Point Barrow, Alaska. He thus had a rare opportunity to study the Eskimo of that high latitude, which he improved, bringing back much valuable information. His ethnographic report, extended by Anthropology 765 studies of the great collection of Eskimo material in the museum, is the most important memoir on the people of the Arctic coast of Alaska which has ever been published. The publications of the Smithsonian Institution have been greatly enriched by the articles of Boas on "The Indians of the Northwest Coast," and the work of this eminent ethnologist has made him an authority in this interesting field of re- search. Many collections of objects used in ceremonials have been added to the museum by his industry, and his contribu- tions to folk lore, mythology, and linguistics are widely known among scholars as most valuable additions to knowledge. The ethnography of the pueblo area is a favorite child of the Bureau of Ethnology, and this study was much stimulated by the formation of that department of the Smithsonian Insti- tution. The large collections of pueblo pottery, stone imple- ments, ceremonial objects, basketry, blankets, and other specimens illustrating the primitive life of all the pueblos of the Southwest, made by Powell, the Stevensons, Gushing, the Mindeleffs and others, is unsurpassed in any museum. From the time this collection was brought in from the field, until the present, it has contributed material for specialists in several lines of study. Specimens from it have been, perhaps, more often figured than those of any other collection of pueblo objects. To barely mention the articles which contain illus- trations taken from this collection would swell this account to undue proportions. The pottery, stone implements, cere- monial paraphernalia, and other objects represented in the richly illustrated report of Stevenson were drawn from this collection, as well as many figures in the articles of Mrs. Stevenson, whose devotion and industry contributed to the value of the collection. The remarkable collections from the Orient, from China, Japan, and Tibet, the hermit nation, Corea, shows how broad 49* 766 The Smithsonian Institution the scope of purely ethnographic objects is in the museum. Of the many publications on these collections, it may be in- vidious to single out any one, and not mention others. The articles by Hitchcock and Hough give an idea of the wealth of material from the far East, in the National Museum, while the beautifully illustrated and carefully prepared de- scription of the collections from Tibet by W. W. Rockhill have been published in a typographical form worthy of their great merit. Of particular interest to the student of eth- nography are the aborigines of Japan called the Ainos, a comprehensive collection of objects from which people has been well described by Hitchcock. BIBLIOGRAPHY A CLASSIFIED record of the yearly progress of science is of utmost importance, and merits the attention of an Institution so well equipped with exchanges as the Smithsonian. The bibliography of anthropology, year by year, has been pub- lished from 1879 to 1893, inclusive, and the Smithsonian is to be congratulated in being able to call upon Professor O. T. Mason for this work. This series, by one so signally fitted by breadth of knowledge of anthropological literature, con- tains not only a list of publications on this science during each year by different institutions and societies of Europe and America, but also a judicial summary of several, and valuable abstracts or notices of the more important current articles. In order to complete this series, the Smithsonian Report for 1879 gives an index to papers on anthropology from 1847 to 1878, thus carrying the bibliographical lists back to the time of the foundation of the Institution. By the acquisition of the famous Catlin Gallery the Smith- sonian Institution gave a permanent home to one of the most Anthropology 767 valuable collections of Indian portraits which has ever been made. George Catlin was a wonderful man, and his work as artist and ethnologist among the wildest tribes of Indians did much to increase the scanty knowledge of the aborigines of North America. He was one of the first to live among the Indians, camping with them and following them in their mi- grations. His accounts of several of the tribes are about all that is known of them, and, as some of them have now disap- peared, will ever remain the source of knowledge in the future. The original paintings of this artist have a unique value and their purchase for the national collection appropriate and necessary. In order to make this collection as efficient amonof eth- nologists as it was widely known, a descriptive account was published with copies in one of the publications of the Institu- tion. A list of the photographic portraits of North American Indians in the gallery of the Smithsonian Institution ap- peared in the "Miscellaneous Collections" for 1867. The unparalleled facilities for photographing typical Indians who visit the capital have led to the collection of an unique assem- blage of pictures of our aborigines nowhere equaled in the world. It was an opportunity which can never recur, for many of the famous Indians who sat for these photographs are no longer living. The publications on somatology have taken a wide range, treating of physiology, anatomy, and craniology. Among other articles of merit may be mentioned those of Carter and Holmgren on "Color Blindness," Shute on the "Anatomy of the Brain," Turner and Romanes on " Heredity." Doctor Baker's "Ascent of Man" more properly belongs to another line of Smithsonian work, but may well be mentioned in our consideration of contributions by the Smithsonian to somatology. 768 The Smithsonia}i Institution TECHNOLOGY The great collections of objects illustrative of arts and manufactures gathered from all quarters of the globe have offered unrivaled advantages for studies of technology. Sev- eral prominent specialists have availed themselves of these facilities, and publications on the arts have covered a wide field of human activities. The study of ceramics has been given great importance, and the publications on this subject from time to time have at- tracted world-wide attention. In 1866 Doctor Rau opened the series with a valuable article on Indian pottery, a subject which was later treated in so exhaustive and artistic a manner by W. H. Holmes. From the rich storehouse of material in the hands of aboriginal potters, Gushing and others have drawn much in the preparation of their valuable paoers on the primitive potter's craft and its origin and significance. Professor O. T. Mason's studies of comparative technology were broader in scope, more varied in subjects. From this industrious worker, identified for so many years with the growth of the museum, have come some of the most learned and exhaustive articles which enrich the pages of the publica- tions of the museum. His work on throwing-sticks gave him a wide reputation for its comprehensive treatment, while that on basketwork, published in the same year, was of great importance. A natural complement of the former article was a treatment of the subject of bows and arrows, in which is found a wealth of information and illustration only possible with the resources of a large museum at the disposal of the author. Child-life in all its phases is of greatest ethnological interest, and in Mason's article on "Cradles of North American Indians" one Anthropology 769 can obtain an aspect of technology which should not be over- looked. A cradle is in a way an index of the evolution of a method of carrying a burden, and the human beast of burden in its various modifications, from the time the aboriginal mother carried the child on her back, gives Professor Mason a subject for interesting studies. The immense collections of ceramics from many Indian tribes have furnished most important material for several monographs. From a study of these collections, made by officers of the Smithsonian and acquired by purchase, almost every phase of the potter's technic has been discovered, and many peculiarities of symbolistic decoration made out. From this source have been drawn most of the illustrations in the beautiful monographs of W. H. Holmes on pottery, while the types of many of the specimens used in the prepara- tion of his articles on shell and bone working are found in the museum. Doctor Walter Hough, adopting the thought that one could best study aboriginal arts by working with aboriginal tools, experimented with primitive fire-drills, and as a result he published an interesting article on " Fire-making Ap- paratus" of many rude or uncultured people. Joseph D. McGuire cultivated a somewhat different field, influenced by a similar thought. With no other implements than those used by primitive man, he was able to cleverly fashion any of the various types of stone implements which characterize lower stages of culture. While the scope of the anthropological researches fostered by the Smithsonian Institution has not been limited to the study of the American race, a consideration of the preceding pages shows how large a part of this work has been devoted to American antiquities and aborigines. The reason for the predominance is not far to seek. While occupying a position 770 The Smithsonian Institution as one of the great scientific institutions and museums of the world, the Smithsonian is naturally an American institution, founded by individual munificence, aided in its development by appropriations from public funds of the United States. While renowned foreign scholars have deemed it an honor to be associated with its work, the majority of anthropologists who have aided in its growth have been American specialists on subjects connected with America. Few countries have a larger and more varied anthropological field to study than our own. Fifty years ago the relative proportion of the unknown to the known in American anthropology was much larger than at present. It is an inevitable result of these and other influences that, whatever its aspirations, the dominant influence of the Smithsonian Institution on the study of an- thropology must be, as we can say with pride it has been, in fostering the study of American ethnology and archaeology. As a national institution, there is but one ideal possible for the Smithsonian Institution, and that the highest, the leading scientific center of the intellectual life of a great nation. In American anthropology it should stand, as it has stood, without a rival in this field, not one of several institutions fostering American science, but the leader, appealing to scholars through the most profound researches, and to the public and students through the most carefully arranged museum in the country. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS The enormous collections of material in the exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution illustrating archaeology or the dis- tribution of man in time, and ethnography or geographical distribution, form but a part of those under charge of the curator. Its wealth is known to the special student who JxVMES OLAEKE AVELLi:^rG. REGENT OF THE SMITHSONIAN TNSTTTUTK^N 1884-1694:. as one : Aw^v ciii American i'^"- ccnce, aided in its deveiopmen. he United a scholars have deemed it the majority of an ...^w its grow... ..^ve been An... .^ ccls connected with America. Few counLiicb a i mor led a ' oological field to s ■ur own. /ears ar tive pre mknown to the k. ican anthr< jy wa \ -^ .. n at present. It is .... ....„.._. result of these anO '""-^r inflr " " ^hat, whatever its a?-"'^^' — ""^^-^ ^ — 'nam le study of an- ve can say witi. pride it ha arch V ■ ]^ hr.t nvii r itilic * tuai iiic ot a great natu i ■ stand, as it has stood, without a r{\ a] in this fiel- - ne of several itions A. . ... . ,.ence, but the leader, appealing to scholars ti ^. he I ■'' - ^ — ^ -1, researches. -^^^ ' "-^ the public and students carefully arrangcu museum in the coun MTHP 1. the cxiUDits oi Tchsology or the di but a p curatc;^^^^j.^^ 0feto:iO eMT/^l. - i V* t ■-»-■-» V Anthropology yyi seeks the museum for his researches. That which is not seen by the visitor is carefully preserved and freely placed before the special investigator. All great museums are trea- sure-houses to the student, repositories of unworked ma- terial awaiting the advent of specialists. The Smithsonian Institution thus draws visitors to the objects installed, and special students to the rich collections stored in appropriate places. Much of the material is unique, can never be dupli- cated, and so long as it lasts will draw to this Mecca of anthropologists both the sightseer and the investigator. Although there are many sides to the discussion of the question of the influence of the installations of the anthro- pological material in the Smithsonian Institution, I can men- tion but one or two points germane to this subject. One aim of a museum collection is to attract and to teach the public something. Every museum strives to accomplish this object, but the means used often vary. In certain directions the work of the Smithsonian Institution in the installation of ethnological and archaeological material is unique. The value of models is recognized by all curators, and these representations have been used with great success in all the foremost museums of the world. The Smithsonian Institution had before it an exceptional problem in developing this side of its anthropological exhibit. Peculiar conditions presented themselves to those in charge of the illustration of American ethnology and archaeology. While models were considered indispensable, there were no models in existence to illustrate aboriginal American life. European workmen, adepts in their craft, were unfamiliar with our Indians, and their attempts to represent them were often caricatures. American modelers had not yet turned their attention to this line of work when the Smithsonian Institution adopted the method and carried it to a high perfection. An Indian group "J"] 2 The Smithsojiian Institution making pottery or basketry, a Navaho silversmith, tells a story much more effectually than can be told in any other way. In this method of installation the Smithsonian Institution is not only a pioneer as far as the American Indians are con- cerned, but preeminent among museums. The models of pueblos and cliff-houses in the museum are also unique ; their duplication elsewhere shows that they are appreciated as a method of installation, and yet it is not say- ing too much to declare that the Smithsonian Institution was also a pioneer in this kind of installation. In this con- nection may be mentioned an adaptation of photographs of ethnographic material which has attracted much attention among experts at home and abroad. I refer to the use of transparencies in windows. These pictures of American Indians, of pueblos, and similar objects have certainly not been carried to the same perfection elsewhere. From the influences which have been enumerated, and others equally potent, anthropology in the last half century has made enormous strides. In this short time in the history of science many great ethnological museums have been born and grown to exert widespread influences. Trained anthro- pologists have taken the places of amateurs, ethnological re- searches have become more exact, publications more special. The mode of installation of ethnographic material has im- proved, a science of museums is beginning to be recognized. The history of the influences which have brought about all this growth interests every one who studies the glorious part which the Smithsonian Institution has played in the fifty years now closing. The new anthropology nurtured into vigor by great institutions reciprocates by claims which can- not be disregarded ; it instinctively looks for future growth to that influence to which it owes so much in the past. GEOGRAPHY By Gardiner Greene Hubbard President of the National Geographic Society ^^PURING the half century that has elapsed since t the Smithsonian Institution was organized, more progress has been made in acquiring knowledge of the geography of the earth than in any previous century. More than a fourth of the globe, which in 1846 was practically unknown, and was represented by a blank on our maps, has been explored in this half-century ; and in this work of developing our knowledge of unknown regions, the Smithsonian Institu- tion has played a far more prominent part tlian is popularly supposed. Few expeditions have been equipped and sent out by it; but of the expeditions organized by the United States government for purposes of exploration, there are few which have not been aided by the Smithsonian Institu- tion, either by additions to its personnel, by instruction, counsel and advice, or by the working up and publication of its results. In these ways the fostering care of the Smithsonian Insti- tution has been felt by many branches of science now rep- 773 774 The Smithsonian bistitution resented by organizations under the general government. The creation of these organizations, which was in large part due to the Smithsonian Institution, constitutes one of its greatest services to mankind. It was Professor Henry's idea that the Institution should make original investigations in all branches of geographic knowledge, institute explorations, and collect specimens of minerals, animals, plants, and ethnological objects for its mu- seum, where they could be studied by specialists, and diffuse knowledge by publications based upon them. This plan con- templates increasing our knowledge, (A) by means of explor- ing expeditions sent out, either at its sole expense or jointly with other organizations; (B) by the collection of specimens for the museum illustrating the geography, geology, biology, and ethnography of the countries explored. It should diffuse the knowledge thus gained, (A) by the preparation of maps; (B) by the publication of its annual reports; and (C) by the publication of memoirs. Among the many expeditions which the Smithsonian Insti- tution has aided in a greater or less degree, a few only can be specifically mentioned. NORTH AMERICA If we look at the northern part of North America on a map of 1846, we shall find the shore line of the Arctic Ocean ill- defined and the outlines of the islands and the mainland fre- quently confused. The river Yukon on that map enters the Arctic Ocean near Point Beechey instead of flowing into Be- ring Sea, several hundred miles to the southward, as is now known to be the case. Although the general courses of the rivers were then laid down with some approach to correct- ness, this was more through theoretical than by actual know- Geography 775 ledge. On one of the maps of this date, the Red River of the North flows south instead of north, connecting- the great rivers flowing into Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay with the Min- nesota and the Mississippi. Alaska, then httle known, was the property of Russia. Professor Henry took great interest in the exploration of the Arctic Ocean ; and aided by his counsel, advice and in- struction, the second Grinnell expedition, under Doctor Elisha Kent Kane, was undertaken in 1853, that of Doctor Isaac I. Hayes in i860, and the Polaris expedition, under Captain Charles F. Hall, in 1871. The western part of Canada was then controlled by the Hudson Bay Company. At its request Professor Henry prepared circulars to its officers, with suggestions and direc- tions for exploration of its territory. In accordance with these suggestions much exploration was done between 1850 and 1870, at the joint expense of that company and the Smithsonian Institution. In this way valuable additions to our knowledge of its geography and biology were acquired. In 1 86 1 the Western Union Telegraph Company organ- ized an expedition for building lines of telegraph overland through Alaska and Siberia to Europe. Robert Kennicott, William H. Dall, and George Kennan accompanied the ex- pedition, partly in the capacity of representatives of the In- stitution, and made extensive explorations in Alaska and . eastern Siberia; but before their work was tinished, it was interrupted by the successful laying of the Atlantic cable. Notices of these explorations were published in the Re- ports of the Institution. Subsequently, when stations were established in Alaska and the Arctic reofions of America for the purpose of obtaining meteorological data, the In- stitution selected observers to accompany the parties, and furnished other material aid ; and the explorations made by 7^6 The Smithsonian Institution the parties stationed at Point Barrow and Lady Franklin Bay were in no small degree the result of the cooperation of the Institution. By such means a large portion of the Arctic regions of North America was explored, and extensive collections, especially of biologic and ethnologic subjects, were made. In 1846 the greater part of the United States west of the one-hundredth meridian was unknown. The most western State was then Illinois, the region west of the Mississippi being an unsettled region where Indians and buffaloes roamed. Texas had just been admitted to the Union, but California and the greater part of the country west of the Rocky Mountains belonged to Mexico, and were ceded to the United States in 1848. The explorations of Lewis and Clarke, Pike, Long, Bonneville, and Fremont had laid down the general course of the main streams, and the general dis- tribution of the mountain systems, but little or nothing was known of the details of the topography, and nothing what- ever of the resources of the country. The only means of reaching California was by sailing vessels around Cape Horn. The Mormons were then located on the Mississippi River, and several years passed before they took up their dangerous march across the desert to Salt Lake. Between 1849 and 1854 the United States government .sent out a number of expeditions for the purpose of discov- ering practicable routes for railroads across this great desert region. These expeditions were conducted by the War Department, but they were aided in many ways by the Smithsonian Institution. They were accompanied by geolo- gists, botanists and ethnologists, who received their instruc- tions from the Institution ; and the magnificent series of Pacific Railroad reports are in no small degree the work of the Institution. After these expeditions followed many Geography jyj others, under the control of the War Department, wliich were aided in greater or less degree by the Institution; but they are too numerous to be mentioned here. The early ex[)lorations of Professor F. V. Hayden, which were mainly geological in character, were aided b)' the In- stitution. In 1869 Major J. W. Powell, partly at the expense of the Smithsonian Institution, and jjartly at that of the Illi- nois State University, explored the Colorado River of the West, traversing it from Green River to the foot of its can- ons in boats. During subsequent years he continued ex- ploration of the plateau region drained by this river and its tributaries, under the Smithsonian Institution, mainly by the aid of direct appropriations from Congress. Finally, in 1879, the organizations of Major J. W, Powell, Doctor F". V. Hayden and Lieutenant G. M, Wheeler, of the United States Engineer Corps, were merged into the present United States Geological Survey. During the earlier part of this period of fifty years before the general construction of railroads, the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers was of the utmost importance to the inhabitants of the IVIississippi Valley, for it afforded the only means of intercommunication between the people living in the northern and southern parts of the valley of this river. Furthermore, the annual inundations of the Mississippi River were often the cause of orreat devastation to the cotton and sugar fields in the lower part of the great valley, as the banks of the river are lower than the river at its hioh-water mark. Moreover, the bar at the mouth of the river was a serious impediment to sea-going vessels. The Ohio and Mississippi rivers were examined by Charles Ellet. under the general oversight of Professor Henry, and the contribu- tions of Mr. Ellet were published at various times by the Institution in iS49-'5o-'5 1, and were of great value not only 50 7/8 The Smithsonian Institution as an aid to our knowledge of the physical geography of the rivers, but also as determining the steps to be taken, and which have subsequently been carried out, for improving the navigation of the rivers and the prevention of inundations. Great wisdom was shown by the Institution in its earlier days in aiding other institutions unable to incur the whole expenses of an expedition, by furnishing the means for send- ing out skilled parties connected with such universities, thereby obtaining more satisfactory results and interesting broader circles than if the expeditions had been made solely by the Institution. Thus Professor Charles B. Adams, of Amherst College, was sent to the West Indies and Panama on two expeditions in 1851-52, at the joint expense of the Smithsonian Institution and the College. In 1868, Frederick Sumichrast, of Kentucky University, was sent out to explore the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and he prepared an account of his journey, which was made at the joint expense of the University and the Smithsonian Institution, In 1868 the remains of a bone cave were found in the West India island of Anguilla and thoroughly examined by experts of the Smithsonian. This investigation throws light not only on the ancient life, but also on the geography of the West Indies in prehistoric times, and the importance of the research is shown, Professor Baird tells us, by the following considerations: First. It is the first investigation of the life of the cave age in the West Indies. Secoftd. It gives the first reliable indication of the period of submergence, and hence of separation of the West India islands from the continent. Third. It furnishes the best evidence as to the antiquity of man in the West Indies, and brings to light some very peculiar forms of animal life not previously known. Geography 779 There is not space to mention the many reports of different travelers and collectors in the West India islands. Xo part of the world seems to have been so frequently visited by writers for the Smithsonian as the West India islands and the different countries in Central America. ASIA Passing now from America, we will consider the work of the Smithsonian Institution in extending our knowledge of the Old World. Ten years after the Institution was chartered, an exploring expedition was sent out by the United States, and by the able management of its commander, Perry. Japan was first opened to foreign trade. Since that time, and within the last thirty years, greater changes have taken place in Japan than ever before in any country — a country which had been closed to the rest of the world for over two hun- dred years, and where no changes had taken place in the manner, habits or progress of the people for many centuries. The Japanese in many ways differ from their neighbors the Chinese and Koreans ; though they resemble them in some of their habits and in their religion, yet their language is very dissimilar. Inquiries have therefore been made to ascertain their origin, and especially by Romeyn Hitchcock, who visited Japan in 1887 and 1889. On traveling into the northern part of the country his attention was called to the Ainos, who were supposed to have been the earliest inhabit- ants of that territory, and at some early period had been for- cibly driven from the south, the richest portions ol Japan, into Jeddo, the most northern and poorest of the islands. In visiting northern Japan to learn more of the Ainos. he heard of the Pit Dwellers, earlier inhabitants of Japan than the Ainos, but greatly inferior to them, who probably had been 7^0 The SniitJisonian Institution driven from their pits by the Aincs. This report is of great value and interest, and was published in 1890 by the Smith- sonian Institution. The maps of fifty years ago show the general course of the rivers of China (with several ranges of mountains), having been largely constructed from the reports of Marco Polo, who traveled through China six hundred years ago, for little had been added to the knowledge of the interior of China since his time. During the past fifty years intercouse with China has been greatly increased, barriers have been thrown down, the country has been partially opened to missionaries and travelers, who have crossed and recrossed its territory, so that we have now a oreneral knowledofe of the whole of the Chinese Empire. Raphael Pumpelly was one of the first Americans who traveled extensively through China, Mon- golia, and Japan between 1862 and 1865, and his researches were published by the Smithsonian Institution. He was the first to describe the great Loess formation of the Hoang-Ho, in northeastern China, which has been the chief source of its agricultural wealth and the means of subsistence of its vast population, and to ascertain the location of the vast coal beds and fields of iron and copper. Various facts have been ascer- tained in regard to the Loess formation, of interest to us, as the same formation has been found in Iowa and some other of the central States. These countries were again explored in 1 88 1 by Pierre L. Jouy, who also visited Korea, and sub- sequently by John B. Bernadou, each of whom made large collections of the fauna of those countries and of the mortuary pottery of Korea. It must not be forgotten that the latter are not only valuable as interesting specimens of art, but also as giving us a very accurate knowledge of the resources of the country and the character and civilization of its inhab- itants. Later William W. Rockhill, for several years con- Geography 781 nected with the American Embassy in China, acquired suffi- cient knowledge of the Chinese language to converse in it, and also became acquainted with the habits and customs of the people, and thus was fitted to travel in that country. He traversed China, Mongolia, and Tibet, thous^di he was not successful in reaching Lassa. A year or two later he visited these countries a second time; and an account of the countries and peoples visited by him in both of these explorations is given in the reports published by the Smithsonian. South- east of Tibet is the beautiful Vale of Kashmir and the deep valleys of the Himalayas, with canons through which the In- dus runs, as much deeper than our caiions as the mountains are higher than those of our own country. These were visited by Doctor William L. Abbott in 1893 ^^'^^ 1894. AFRICA Fifty years ago the interior of Africa was unknown ; the maps of Africa delineated the coast-line, the course of the Niger, the lower Nile, a small tract south of the Desert of Sahara in the region of Timbuctoo, and Lake Tchad and Cape Colony, while all the rest was unknown. U was re- served for our times — for Livingstone and Stanley and Speke and Baker, and a host of other eminent travelers, to explore the different parts of Africa, until now the Dark Continent has become better known than the interior of Asia. Negrroes from our country were sent to Liberia, under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, and founded the first republic of Africa. This republic was visited by Reverend R. R. Gurley in 1824, 1858, and 1867, who in his earlier trips collected many specimens for the Smithsonian museum. Near Liberia, and east of Dahomey, is Yoruba, the most densely populated portion of Africa, — a country inhabited by 50* 782 The Smithsonian histitntion a peculiar people more highly civilized than most other negro tribes. It was visited by Reverend J. J. Brown in 1856-57, who prepared a grammar and dictionary of their language, of great value to ethnologists, with a description of the country and people. In 1889, Reverend A. C. Goode visited the Gaboon, a little to the north of the Congo, and about the same time Heli Chatelain explored the coast of Africa south of the Congo, near Loando, one of the most flourishing settle- ments in Africa, founded by the Portuguese, where they have large plantations and a railroad extending into the interior. Their reports were published in 1891 and 1892. The river Congo was visited by J. M. Camp between 1892 and 1895, who collected many valuable specimens for the Museum, and also by Dorsey Mohun, who sailed up the river to the territory of the Ujiji people in eastern Africa. There is one country in Africa, Morocco, partially civilized, of which we know less than of any other similar country, as its in- habitants oppose the entrance of travelers or any foreigner into their country. Morocco has had a civilization of its own for many centuries, and from there the Moors entered and conquered Spain, and there they found a refuge when driven from Granada. This country was visited in 1889 by Talcott Williams, of Philadelphia, who prepared a most interesting account of his visit for publication by the Smithsonian Institution. A number of scientific expeditions have been sent out by our government to witness eclipses of the sun; one in 1889 to South Africa to observe the eclipse which took place that year. In this connection the coast of the Congo region was visited by William Harvey Brown, of the National Museum, who later accompanied an expedition sent out by the South African Exploring Company into South Africa, the country of which we have recently heard so much ; for here Geography -j^z are the great diamond mines of Rhodesia and the gold fields of the Transvaal, which so nearly involved England in a war with the Boers, and were the cause of the rising of the Mata- beles and Mashona tribes. Eastern and northeastern Africa have also been visited by two American explorers, who associated themselves with the Smithsonian Institution by presenting large and valuable collections of natural history and ethnological objects to the National Museum. Doctor William L. Abbott visited that part of eastern Africa now claimed ])y the Germans, in the vicinity of the great snow mountain of Kilimanjaro, from 1889 to 1893, going from there to Madagascar. In 1892, W'illiam Astor Chanler, of New York, after a full conference with Doctor G. Brown Goode, determined on an expedition to British East Africa, for the purpose of exploring the source of the Yuba and the rivers of Abyssinia. His journey was of great interest. He visited many localities in northeastern Africa, and a report of his journey was published in 1893. Besides the publications of the Smithsonian Institution which have been mentioned in the preceding pages, in con- nection with the story of its relations to exploration and travel, the Institution has issued numerous publications of a geo- graphical character. For five years, from 1882 to 1S86, inclusive, it published in its annual report a summary of prog- ress in geography, in which, in a few pages, the progress made by mankind, in acquiring knowledge of its environ- ment, was set forth. It has published a collection of geo- graphical tables in several editions, the earliest of which were edited by Professor Arnold Guyot, and the latest by Professor Robert S. Woodward, which are of the greatest value to geographers and scientific travelers. It has published many short papers, among which are "Promotion of Further Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic 784 The Smithsonian Institntion Regions," and "The Present Standpoint of Geography," by the well-known English geographer, Clements R. Markham; "The Renewal of Antarctic Exploration," by another celebrated English geographer, John Murray; "The Mediterranean, Physical and Historical," by R. L. Playfair; "Development of the Cartography of America up to the year i57o,"by S. Ruge; "Geographical Latitude," by W. B. Scaife; "The North Polar Basin," by Henry Seebohm; "Physical Condition of the Ocean," by W. J. L. Wharton; "How Maps are Made," by H. O. Blakie; "Antarctica, a Vanished Austral Land," by W, B. Forbes; "Antarctic Explorations," by G. S. Griffiths; "Evolution of Commerce" and "The Relations of Air and Water to Temperature and Life," by Gardiner G. Hubbard ; "Stanley and the Map of Africa," by J. S. Kelte. A compilation of data regarding altitudes in the United States was first undertaken by the Institution. A generation ago attempts were made by it to obtain profiles of the railroads of the country, and great progress had been made in this work when it was taken up on the one hand by the Signal Office, and on the other by the Hayden Survey, and since carried forward by that organization and its successor, the present Geological Survey. The only outcome of this collection of altitudes made by the Institution is the production of a small hypsometric map of the United States, prepared by Charles A. Schott, and published in the United States Statistical Atlas of 1874. Many maps have been published by the Institution, but in practically all cases they are embodied in reports which they serve to illustrate, and therefore require no separate mention. BIBLIOGRAPHY By Henry Carrington Bolton Lecturer on the History of Chemistry and Professor of Bibliography, Cohimbian University ORD RAYLEIGH, in his presidential address at the Montreal meeting of the British Asso- ciation held in 1884, said: " By a fiction as remarkable as any to be found in law, what has once been published, even though it be in the Russian language, is usually spoken of as 'known,' and it is often forgotten that the re-discovery in the library may be a more difficult and uncertain process than the first discovery in the laboratory." This well formulated truth, coming from so high an author- ity, emphasizes very strongly the immense importance of bibliographical publications, a fact which has always been appreciated by the Smithsonian Institution. Having been especially established to promote " the increase and diftusion of knowledge among men," its officers have always regarded as peculiarly within its province the means for making the vast stores of learning in print available to students of science. This feature was an object of particular interest to the first Secretary, Joseph Henry, and in his " Programme of Organi- zation," he recommended that the library should contain. 785 786 The Sniithsonian Institittioii " first, a complete collection of the transactions and pro- ceeding-s of all the learned societies in the world ; and second, of the more important current periodicals, publications, and other works necessary in preparing the periodical reports." Subsequently he further recommended that "catalogues of all the different libraries in the United States should be pro- cured," as well as "catalogues of memoirs, and of books and other materials for rendering the Institution a centre of biblio- graph ica I knowledge. " Again, in his Report for 1851, Henry remarked: "One of the most important means of facilitating the use of libraries (particularly with reference to science), is well-digested in- dexes of subjects, not merely referring to volumes or books, but to memoirs, papers, and parts of scientific transactions and systematic works." He then refers to Doctor Thomas Young's " Catalogue of Books Relating to Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts," published in 1807, and remarks: " I know of no richer gift which could be bestowed upon the science of our day than the continuation of this catalogue to the present time. Every one who is desirous of enlarging the bounds of human knowledge should, in justice to himself as well as to the pub- lic, be acquainted with what has previously been done in the same line ; and this he will only be enabled to accomplish by the use ot indexes of the kind above mentioned." These brief extracts show the mental attitude of Henry toward bibliographical labors. Reference will be made later to his splendid contribution to bibliography in suggesting the work which led to the publication by the Royal Society of London of the "Catalogue of Scientific Papers." As in many other departments of activity, the foundations laid by Henry for bibliography have been constantly built upon by his successors in the secretaryship. Their policy Bibliogj'aphy 787 has always been to foster bibliographical researches, both by the labors of the staff of the Smithsonian, as well as by scholars and specialists to whom the pages of its publications have been freely opened. The " Smithsonian Deposit," in the Library of Congress, is especially rich in the publications of learned societies ; the Smithsonian "Annual Report," "Miscellaneous Collections," and "Contributions to Knowledge" are replete with indexes, catalogues, bibliographies, and check-lists to every branch of knowledge, supplying to some extent the tools for the use of bibliographers. JEWETT'S PLAN FOR A GENERAL CATALOGUE Professor Charles C. Jewett, Assistant Secretary of the Institution and Librarian, in 1850, proposed an elaborate plan for compiling a general catalogue of all the books in the United States with reference to the libraries where each might be found. To accomplish this Professor Jewett de- vised a method of elcctrotyping titles separately, one on a block, and he drew up a set of " Rules " for cataloguing to secure uniformity on the part of the different librarians. Professor Jewett seems to have anticipated some of the feat- ures of the modern linotype method of printing catalogues, as the process is stated to be " peculiarly adapted to the stereotyping of separate titles or even of single lines." His plan contemplated cooperation between the libraries in the United States and the Smithsonian Institution on this basis: the titles of books received were to be transcribed on a uni- form system, and then to be stereotyped by the Smithsonian, the latter Institution to pay the extra expense of stereotyp- ing or such part as might be agreed upon ; the stereotyped titles to remain the property of the Smithsonian Institution; 788 The Sjnithsonian Institution and each library to have the right of using all the titles in the possession of the Institution, as often as desired, for the printing of its own catalogue by the Smithsonian Institution, paying only the expense of making up the pages, or press- work, and of distributing the titles to their proper place. And lastly, the Smithsonian Institution to publish, as soon as possible, and at stated intervals, a " General Catalogue of all Libraries " coming into this system. In urging the economy of this scheme, the interesting fact was brought forward that the printed catalogues of libraries in the United States comprised a total of 450,000 titles, but of these not more than 150,000 titles were different. This was in 1850; now there are several single libraries which have on their shelves more books than all the combined libraries of the United States then possessed. Professor Jewett proposed an extension of the copyright law to all books, and the publication of a monthly "Bulletin" as well as a " General Catalogue" every five years. He favored an alphabetical arrangement of titles on account of the dififi- culties surrounding any attempt at classification. His scheme provided for a superintendent to revise the titles so that they conform to the "Rules," and to supervise the stereotyping. The "Rules for Preparing Catalogues" embody detailed instructions as to the transcription of titles, the choice of headings, the treatment of foreign names in alphabeting, the character of cross-references and the arrangement of data ; they are followed by examples and a library check-list show- ing in what American libraries (thirteen selected) the books catalogued are to be found. The "Rules" have formed the basis of all subsequent publications of like character, although certain ones have been materially changed. The plan of stereotyping separate titles was carried on for several years by the Smithsonian Institution, but the Bibliography 789 scheme for a " General Catalogue " was never accomplished, though a beginning was made. Jewett further published "Notes of Public Libraries in the United States" (1851), a work which, though admittedly incomplete, excited great interest; and the distribution of the volume brought into the Institution a large amount of statistical information pertinent to the subject. HENRY AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY The monumental work of the Royal Society of London, a "Catalogue of Scientific Papers, 1800-83," had its origin in a communication addressed by the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. As early as 1854, Henry conceived the plan of preparing an "American Scientific Bibliography," and sought to enlist the cooperation of the British Association for the Advance- ment of Science in procuring, with its large resources, a similar classified index for British and European scientific literature. Henry's proposal was favorably received by the British Association and referred to a committee comprising Fellows of the Royal Society ; this committee approved the suggestion, presented a general outline of the proposed work, and eventually succeeded in interesting the Royal Society itself in the undertaking. Ten years later, the Royal So- ciety, aided by a government grant, published the first part of its splendid "Catalogue of Scientific Papers." In the preface occur the following words: "The present under- taking may be said to have originated in a communication from Doctor Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution." The eleven quarto volumes, covering the period 1800 to 1883, form one of the greatest tributes to Henry's 790 The Smithsonian Institution sagacity. Being an author-catalogue arranged alphabeti- cally, its use has been hampered by the lack of a subject- index, but scholars have been recently delighted to learn that the Royal Society contemplates supplying this very impor- tant deficiency. The Royal Society has recently opened correspondence with the Smithsonian Institution concerning a continuation of the Catalogue on an enlarged plan for the period begin- ning with the year 1900. In a letter dated March 31, 1894, Professor Michael Foster, Secretary of the Royal Society, says : "The Smithsonian Institution is, on historical grounds, so closely connected with the efforts of the Royal Society in cataloguing scientific papers, that I am directed to add to the circular letter herewith sent, a few words expressing the hope of the Committee of the Royal Society, which has the matter in hand, that they may have in a special way the assistance of your valuable body in coming to a decision on so important a question." The circular alluded to states that the Royal Society con- templates the preparation of a continuation of the catalogue, and inquires as to the feasibility of its being compiled through international cooperation, and invites suggestions as to the best methods for carrying out the plans. Secretary Langley replied promptly, and his letter is thus referred to in the report of the International Catalogue Committee dated July 25, 1895 : " It is a pfreat orratification to the Committee that the matter has been taken up in a most cordial manner by the Smithsonian Institution, the Secretary of which, in his reply, refers to the desirability of a catalogue of the kind suggested as being so obvious that the work commends itself at once." Bibliography 79 1 An International Conference was held in London in July, 1896, to consider this important undertaking, in answer to invitations sent by Lord Salisbury to twenty-one countries, and the results of its labors are familiar to all. CHECK-LIST OF SERIALS From time to time the Smithsonian Institution has published check-lists and catalogues of the publications of learned so- cieties and of periodicals received and placed on file in the library. The first of these bears the date 1853, " Check-list of periodicals received in the reading-room," issued only as a separate. This was followed by others in 1855, 1856, 1859, 1862, and culminated in the stout volume of nearly 600 pages, octavo, issued in 1866, entitled: "Catalogue of Publi- cations of Societies and of Periodical Works, belonging to the Smithsonian Institution, January i, 1866." At the time of its publication it was the " most complete work on the bibliography of publications of learned societies which has yet appeared in the English language." In 1882, Mr. William J. Rhees, chief clerk of the Smith- sonian Institution, contributed an important bibliograph\- to the series, entitled : " Catalogue of Publications of the Smith- sonian Institution (1846-82), with an Alphabetical Index of Articles in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Miscellaneous Collections, Annual Reports, Bulletins and Proceedings of the United States National Museum, and Re- port of the Bureau of Ethnology." A second edition brought down to date was published in 1886; this forms an indis- pensable key to the articles, volumes, and numbers issued by the Institution from its organization to the date of issue, a period of forty years. The alphabetical index contains in a single alphabet the 792 The Smithsonian Institution names of authors and the titles of the specific articles, with references to the series, volume, and number where each can be found. In this connection may be mentioned the several editions of the " List of Publications of the Smithsonian Institution for sale or exchange," edited by Mr. Rhees and issued at fre- quent intervals for many years. Also the " List of the Pub- lications of the Bureau of Ethnology, with Index to Authors and Subjects," by Frederick Webb Hodge, which bears the date 1894. RECORDS OF PROGRESS IN SCIENCE In the "Programme of Organization," approved by the Re gents, December 8, 1847, provision was made for "the pub- lication of a series of reports giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge not strictly professional " .... "The reports to be prepared by collaborators eminent in the different branches of knowledge." These reports have constituted for more than forty years an important part of the appendixes to the "Annual Re- ports." In 1880 they took the form of a systematic " Record of Scientific Progress," and most of which contain full bib- liographies, and this feature was, in part, continued until 1895. The reports comprised the following topics by the persons named, at the dates given : "Anthropology," 1879-93, by Otis T. Mason. "Astronomy," 1879-84, by Edward S. Holden; 1885-92, by William C. Winlock. From 1883 accompanied by par- tial bibliographies. That for 1887 was published in the " Miscellaneous Collections." "Botany," 1879-83, by W. G. Farlow; 1887-88, by F. H. Knowlton. Bibliography 793 "Chemistry," 1879-81, by George F. Barker; 1882-86, by H. Carrington Bolton; 1887-88, by F. \V. Clarke. [A bibliography of chemistry for the year 1887, ^^y H. Carrington Bolton, was published in the " Miscellaneous Collections."] "Geography," 1881-84, by F. M. Green; 1SS5, by J. K. Goodrich; 1886, by William Libbey, Jr. " Geology " (including Petrography, Vulcanology, and Seis- mology), 1879-80, by George W. Hawes; 1881-83, by T. Sterry Hunt; 1886, by N. H. Darton ; 1887-88, by W J McGee. "Meteorology," 1879-84, by Cleveland Abbe. "Dynamic Meteorology," by Cleveland Abbe, 1887-88; 1889, by G. E. Curtis. "Mineralogy," 1879-80, by George W. Hawes; 1882-88, by Edward S. Dana. "Paleontology" (North American), 1884-86, by J. B. Mar- cou; 1887-88, by H. S. Williams. "Petrography" 1887-88, by George P. Merrill. ["A Bibliography of Works on Building Stones," forms Appendix E to George P. Merrill's paper on "The Col- lection of Buildinir and Ornamental Stones in the United States National Museum; A Handbook and Catalogue," published in 1886.] "Physics," 1879-86, by George F. Barker. " Vulcanology and Seismology," 1883 -'86, by C. G. Rockwood. "Zoology," 1879-86, by Theodore Gill. CONSTANTS OF NATURE The eminent English mathematician, Charles Babbage. pro- posed, as early as 1856, a great work, entitled "The Con- stants of Nature and Art," intended to contain all facts which can be expressed in numbers, in the various branches of knowledge, such as the atomic weight of bodies, specific gravities, elasticity, tenacity, specific heat, conducting power, 51 794 The Smithsonian Institution melting-points, etc. This undertaking would require the cooperation of a number of institutions, but it would neces- sarily consist of many independent parts, any one of which would be of immediate value. Recognizing the utility of this suggestion, the Institution began to collect material on several of the topics embraced in the general plan, under the direction of Professors John and Joseph Le Conte, but the outbreak of the Civil War in- terrupted the work. In 1873, however, Frank Wigglesworth Clarke offered a series of "Tables of Specific Gravities, Boiling-points and Melting-points of Bodies," compiled from the best authorities, and this was issued as Part I of the " Constants of Nature " in the same year. Three years later (1876) the same industrious worker published "A Table of Specific Heats for Solids and Liquids," forming Part II of the series named. Other volumes of this valued collection followed : Part III, "Table of Expansion by Heat for Solids and Liquids," by F. W. Clarke, 1879. " First Supplement to Part I ; Specific Gravities, etc.," 1876. Part IV, "Atomic Weight Determinations," by George F. Becker, 1880. Part V, "Recalculation of Atomic Weights," by F. W. Clarke, 1882. Of Part I, a new edition was issued in 1888, and of Part V, a new edition was issued in 1897. These works have become invaluable to all scholars and investigators in the physical sciences. SMITHSONIAN TABLES In connection with the meteorolooical observations conducted by the Institution, Professor Guyot compiled a volume of Bibliography 795 "Meteorological and Physical Tables," which was published in 1852. A second edition was issued in 1857, a third in 1859, and a fourth, prepared with the assistance of William Libbey, Jr., was published in 1884. The demand for these valuable tables soon exhausted the edition, and in 1890 Secretary Langley planned a new work in three independent parts, "Meteorological Tables," "Geo- graphical Tables," and " Physical Tables." Of this scries the first volume, " Meteorological Tables," was published in 1893 ; a second edition being required a year later. The second volume of the series, " Geographical Tables," prepared by R. S. Woodward, was published in 1894; the third volume, " Physical Tables," prepared by Thomas Gray, was issued in 1897. BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF INDIVIDUALS In William J. Rhees's "Scientific Writings of James Smith- son " (1878) there is a list of the publications of the founder of the Smithsonian Institution. The "Memorial of Joseph Henry," published by order of Congress in 1880, contains a " List of the Scientific Papers" of the distinoruished first Secretarv of the Institution. In 1883 the National Museum began a series of bibliogra- phies of American Naturalists, of much importance. These include the following, issued as " Bulletins of the United States National Museum " at the dates named : I. "The Published Writings of Spencer Fullerton Baird," i843-'82, by G. Brown Goode. (1883.) II. "The Published Writings of Isaac Lea," by Newton Pratt Scudder. (1885.) III. " Bibliography of Publications relating to the collec- tion of fossil invertebrates in the United States Na- 796 The Smitkso7iian Institution tional Museum, including a complete list of the writings of Fielding B. Meek, Charles A. White, and Charles D. Walcott," by John Belknap Marcou. (1885.) IV. "The Published Writings of George Newbold Law- rence, 1844-91." By L. S. Foster. (1891.) V. "The Published Writings of Dr. Charles Girard," by G. Brown Goode. (1891.) These monographs form splendid monuments to the natur- alists named, exhibiting more perfectly than is possible in bibliographical sketches their genius, industry, and fertility of resources. Four other bibliographies of individuals, not included in the above series, have appeared in the Smithsonian Reports: VI. " A list of the Writings of Alexander Dallas Bache," by Benjamin A. Gould. VII. " List of the Writings of Arnold Guyot," following the Biographical Memoir by James D. Dana. VIII. " List of the Writings of Asa Gray, accompanying the Memoir by William G. Farlow. IX. "The Publications of Elias Loomis," attached to the Memoir by H. A. Newton. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS Volume XXIX of the "Miscellaneous Collections," issued in 1885, comprises a single work, bearing the title: "A Cata- logue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals, 1865 to 1882, together with Chronological Tables and a Library Check- list," by Henry Carrington Bolton. This contains the titles of the principal periodicals of every branch of pure and applied science, published in all countries from the rise of their literature to the close of the year 1882 ; it embraces over Bibliography 797 five thousand titles in twenty languages, not including, how- ever, transactions of societies, or medicine. T^ollowing the Catalogue are ninety-one pages of " Chronological Tables," arranged in columns by years, giving a synchronal conspectus of all those periodicals having any considerable number of volumes, and showing the precise number of the volume published in any given year. To this succeeds a concise index of subjects under ninety-four heads, arranged alpha- betically. A novel feature of this comprehensive work is the library check-list indicating the library or libraries in which each periodical may be found ; each of the one hundred and twenty-seven principal libraries of the United States and Canada being designated by a symbolic abbreviation. A new edition of this " Cataloo-ue," brouf^ht down to the year 1895, with about 3500 new titles, is in preparation by Doctor Bolton. It will contain a new library check-list. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES NATIOxNAL MUSEUM Bibliographies of the United States National Museum have been prepared by G. Brown Goode, annually, since 1881 ; these comprise : I. Publications of the Museum. II. Papers by Officers of the Museum. III. Papers by Investigators, not Officers, of the Museum, based on Museum material. The record for 1894 contains the new genera and species described in the publications of the Museum for that year, in a supplement. BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF SCIENCE Anthropology. Exceedingly important works on bibliog- raphy, in relation to the North American Indians, have been published by the Bureau of American Ethnology. The Bureau 5'* 798 The Smithsonian Institution has projected five series of bibliographies : those relating to linguistics, amusements, industries, institutions and opinions (mythology, folk-lore, etc.), and has made substantial con- tributions in each. Mr. J. C. Filling's bibliographies of the Algonquian, Athapascan, Chinookan, Eskimo, Iroquoian, Muskhogean, Salishan, Siouan and Wakashan languages, as well as his " Proof-sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians" (1885), are monuments of the author's erudition and industry. George H. Boehmer compiled an " Index to Anthropologi- cal Articles in Publications of the Smithsonian Institution," published in the Annual Report for 1879; it covers the period from 1847 to 1878. Captain John G. Bourke's " Medicine Men of the Apache," in the Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, is accompanied by a bibliography. The " Study of Prehistoric Anthropology," by Thomas Wilson (1888), contains a bibliography of the subject. A partial bibliography of the " Ethnology of the Eskimo," by John Murdoch, accompanies his essay on "The Ethno- logical Results of the Point Barrow Expedition," published in the Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Another partial bibliography of the " Central Eskimo," by Franz Boas, is published in his essay on the subject con- tained in the Sixth Annual Report of the same Bureau. Astronomy. Besides the bibliographies accompanying the Records of Progress in Astronomy, noticed elsewhere, two others should be named. " Index-Catalogue of Books and Memoirs relating to Nebulae and Clusters," by Edward S. Holden. (1877.) " Synopsis of the Scientific Writings of Sir William Her- schel," by Edward S. Holden and Charles S. Hastings. (1880.) Bibliography 799 Botany. Sereno Watson prepared a comprehensive " Bib- liographical Index to North American Botany ; Part I, Poly- petalse." (1878.) This contains citations of authorities for all the recorded indigenous and naturalized species of the flora of North America, with a chronological arrangement of the synonymy. Doctor Horatio C. Wood, Professor of Botany, University of Pennsylvania, published in the " Contributions to Know- ledge " a "Contribution to the History of the Fresh Water Algae of North America," to which is added a bibliography. Chemistry. The Committee on Indexing Chemical Litera- ture, appointed by the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science in 1882, two years later secured the consent of the Smithsonian Institution to publish such chemical bibliographies as might be recommended by the committee. By means of this cooperation chemical students have been provided with several indexes of a technical character, whose value increases as their number multiplies ; they include : " Index to the Literature of Uranium," b)- H. Carrington Bolton, 1885. " Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope," by Alfred Tuckerman, 1888. " Index to the Literature of Columbium," by Frank W. Traphagen, 1889. " Index to the Literature of Thermodynamics," by Alfred Tuckerman, 1890. "A Bibliography of the Chemical Influence of Light," by Alfred Tuckerman, 1891. "Bibliography of Aceto Acetic Ester," by Paul M. Seymour, 1894. " Indexes to the Literature of Cerium and Lanthanum." by W. H. Magee, 1895. " Index to the Literature of Didymium," by A. C. Langmuir, 1895. 8oo The Smithsoman Institution More comprehensive than these special works is the " Se- lect Bibliography of Chemistry," compiled by Henry Car- rington Bolton and published in 1893. This volume covers the period 1492 to 1892, and embraces the titles of the prin- cipal books on chemistry published in all parts of the world. For convenience the titles are grouped under seven heads : I. Bibliography; II. Dictionaries; III. History; IV. Biog- raphy; V. Chemistry, pure and applied; VI. Alchemy; VII. Periodicals. Within these sections are more than twelve thousand titles in twenty-five languages. According to Secretary Langley, it is "a work of reference of such value that it is believed it will be a necessity to every chemical investigator." Doctor Bolton has in preparation a supplement which will contain about eight thousand additional titles, including a new section, No. VIII, devoted to "Dissertations and Theses." Natural History. Doctor Charles Girard, one of Baird's assistants in natural history, published in 1852 a " Biblio- graphia Americana Historico-Naturalis " for the year 185 1. This work includes the doings of American naturalists, the labors of foreign authors in reference to American natural history, and abstracts of papers relating to foreign natural history published in American periodicals. Ornithology. In the " Proceedings of the United States National Museum,"^ Elliott Coues published " Fourth Instal- ment of Ornithological Bibliography, being a List of Faunal Publications relatinof to British Birds." '^ This extensive bibliography undertakes to do for British birds what the author had previously done for American birds ; the latter were treated in three previous instalments of this Universal Bibliography of Ornithology ; these are: 1 Volume 11, page 359, 1879. 2 "Miscellaneous Collection," Volume xix. Bibliography 80 1 First Instalment. In appendix to ** Birds of the Colorado Valley."^ Second. In " Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories."^ Third. In the same "Bulletin."^ In the preface to this List of Faunal Publications, the dis- tinguished authority on birds names the rules that governed his action as a bibliographer, which deserves the attention of others. He says : " In conducting this work I habitually re- gard the title as inviolable, — to be transcribed in full, ver- batim, literatim, et punctuatim"; and again, " No title in this Bibliography has been taken at second hand." The an- notations accompanying titles are critical, erudite, and enter- taining. Baird's " Review of American Birds in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution" (1864-66), contains a fund of bibli- ographical matter, though not specifically prepared as a bib- liography. This statement is also true of Baird's Catalogue, published in the "General Report on Birds," contained in the Pacific Railroad Reports.* This catalogue was succeeded by Elliott Coues's "Check-list of North American Birds"^ (Salem, 1873), and by Ridgway's "Nomenclature of North American Birds" (1881). These were followed by the "Code of No- menclature and Check-list of North American Birds," pub- lished by the American Ornithologists' Union in 1886 (second edition, 1895), which contains references to the original de- scription of each species. This work was prepared by a committee of five, including Elliott Coues and Robert Ridgway, Curator of Birds of the United States National Museum. 1 Miscellaneous Publication, United States 4 Volume IX (1858). Geological Survey, No. 11. 5 Published also as an Appendix to Coues's 2 Volume V, No. 2 (1879). " Field Ornithologj-" (1874), a second edition 3 Volume V, No. 4 (18S0). of which appeared in 1882. 8o2 The Smithsonian Institution A chronological " List of the Books and Papers Relating to the Great Auk" is appended to Frederic A. Lucas's account of the "Expedition to Funk Island."^ Oriental Literatiux. A " Bibliography of Oriental Litera- ture in the United States during 1888 " is appended to the "Record of Progress of Oriental Science in America during 1888," by Doctor Cyrus Adler. Physics. The principal contributions to bibliography under this head have been named as forming parts of the series " Constants of Nature," and the " Smithsonian Tables." Besides these, however, may be mentioned the " List of the Principal Authorities Consulted," by William Harkness, in preparing his address on " The Progress of Science as Exem- plified in the Art of Weighing and Measuring," delivered be- fore the Philosophical Society of Washington in 1887. Siirgery and Medicine. Doctor William W. Keen's lecture on the " Surgical Complications and Sequels of the Contin- ued Fevers"^ is accompanied by a "Bibliography of Works on Diseases of the Joints, Bones, Larynx, the Eye, Gangrene, Haematoma, Phlegmasia." (1876.) The "Report on the Pharmacopoeias of All Nations," by Doctor James M. Flint, United Sates Navy, originally printed in the " Report of the Surgeon-General of the United States Navy" for 1882, has been adopted for circulation by the Smithsonian Institution. It contains critical reviews of the Pharmacopoeias of the following countries: Argentine Re- public, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Central American States, Chili, China, Cuba, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hayti, Hawaiian Islands, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela. 1" Report of the United States National Museum, 1888." 2 Toner Lecture, No. 5. Bibliography 803 Vulcanology and Seismology. A " Bibliography of Volca- noes, Earthquakes and Geysers of Iceland." compiled by George H. Boehmer, was published in 1885. It forms an appendix (of twenty- nine pages) to Mr. Boehmer's trans- lation of Thoroddsen's " Oversigt over de islandske Vulka- ners Historie." The "Bibliography of Vulcanology " (1883-86), by Charles G. Rockwood, Jr., has been mentioned under the Records of Progress. Zoology. The " Nomenclator Zoologicus " of Agassiz, pub- lished in Solothurn in 1842-46, was succeeded by a volume bearing the same title, compiled by Marschall, and issued in 1873. ^^ 1882 Doctor S. H. Scudder pul)lishcd a new "Nomenclator ZooloQ^icus," ^ to which was added a " Univer- sal Index to the Genera and Species named in the Works of Agassiz, Marschall, and Scudder, as well as in tlic Record of Zoological Literature." This Universal Index embraced over eighty thousand names. Doctor Leonhard Stejneger is engaged on a supplement to Doctor Scudder's work, which will embrace about twenty thousand additional names ; the author hopes to complete this bibliograph)- within a year. Perhaps the most important contributions to the bibliog- raphy of zoology are from the pen of that erudite and indus- trious scholar. Doctor Theodore Gill ; the following is a partial list of his treatises : "Arrangement of the Families of Mollusks " (1S71); "Ar- rangement of the Families of Fishes" (1872) ; "Arrangement of the Families of Mammals" (1872); "Catalogue of the Fishes of the East Coast of North America" (1873); Bibli- ography of the P^ishes of the Pacific Coast of the United States" (1882); "Bibliography of the Reports of Fishery Commissions" (1874); "Materials for a I'ibliography of 1" Bulletin No; 19 of the United States National Museum." 8o4 TJie Smithsonian Institution North American Mammals," by Theodore Gill and Elliott Coues, in '' Monographs of North American Rodentia," by Elliott Coues and Joel Asaph Allen (1877). The "Catalogue of the Described Diptera of North Amer- ica," by C. R. Osten-Sacken (1878), is accompanied by many bibliographical notes. In 1863-64 W. G. Binney compiled a "Bibliography of North American Conchology Previous to the Year i860," published in two parts ; Part I contains the writings of Amer- ican conchologists generally, and Part II the works of foreign authors relating to the shells or mollusks of North America. Each part is accompanied by an index of authors. Together these comprehensive works fill over nine hundred pages of the "Miscellaneous Collections" (1863-64). A large number of bibliographies accompany, incidentally, papers published in the "Proceedings of the United States National Museum," in the "Annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology," and in other series issued by the Smithsonian Institution, of which space available prevents enumeration. THE COOPERATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WITH OTHER INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING By Daniel Coit Oilman President of Johns Hopkins University NE of the officers of the Smithsonian, in re- counting^ the services of one of its depart- ments, has said that they might be expressed in three words, Record, Research, and Educa- tion ; and these are doubtless the most im- portant functions of the entire Institution, if it is to proceed upon the hne that was indicated by Washington and re- affirmed by Smithson — the advancement and diffiision of knowledge. But there has been another factor in the or- ganization, and one that cannot be too frequently named or too highly extolled. That coefficient is cooperation. In a complex establishment almost everything depends upon the spirit with which its functions are performed, and the intelli- gence which guides its workv Old Mortality, Doctor Dryas- dust, and Dominie Sampson were devoted to record, research, and education; but these characters were not the t)pes ol Smithsonian historians, investigators, or teachers. It will not be proper to speak of the one who is living, 805 8o6 The Smithsonian Institution however pleasant this would be; but in praise of the two who are gone too much can hardly be said. Neither Henry nor Baird sought popularity. They were so much absorbed by their duties that they had not the leisure requisite for easy and familiar relations with the multitude. Henry rarely, Baird hardly ever, if at all, appeared as a public speaker. Yet they were always at the service of those who for any good reason desired of them counsel, or sought for informa- tion. No one could come into relations with either of these great men, orally or by correspondence, without being im- pressed with his desire to be cooperative. As they grew old, they did not enjoy attendance upon large assemblies, even of a scientific character; but in the early days of the American Association for the Advancement of Science they were foremost among its supporters. To the end of their days, they were not only efficient aids to all the learned men of the country, but they had the disposition, far more un- common, to be patient with and helpful to the uneducated and ill-informed, the men who ride hobbies and the men who turn cranks. They were examples to the country of in- dustry, fidelity, suggestiveness, and kindliness. These per- sonal qualities governed their official action during the period of forty years in which they guided the Institution. Those who are familiar with the intellectual development of this nation must admit the justice of a claim put forth in these words, that "the most important service which the Smithsonian Institution has rendered to the nation — in- tangible, but none the less appreciable — has been its fifty years of constant cooperation with the government, with public institutions, and with individuals, in every enterprise, scientific or educational, which needed its advice, support, or aid from its manifold resources." Each secretary in his own way has been free, and has felt free, to open new roads and THOMAS GEORGE noi:)GE:i:N^s. DONOR OF THE HODGKIXS FUND. vvere so muci _/\ I not til ^Y irely, iker. ny i Li- Lhese ing im- . - „, y grew Lijoy attendance emblies, iic character; but } ie Advai ice they eir TT>pn cated who , y were example n- rrn-,-vc;(;ivene'^- -' . 1 . n which t! the at of ce of h in 'th t'. IV,tl *.l L.^ Cl,V.lVl'.V ■^'-Ti'^ y in his ov\ ;. nt new ; and Cooperation of fJie SinitJisonian Institution 807 enter fresh fields when the pubHc good required it and the funds at command permitted extension. Each head of an important bureau, in his turn, has Hkewise contributed plans, suggestions, and methods to the unique institution with which he was connected. There has been but one restriction, laid down by the first secretary, and thus explained by Asa Gray: "In view of the limited means of the Institution, it oucfht not to undertake anything which could be done, and well done, by other existing instrumentalities. So, as occasion arose, Henry lightened its load and saved its energies by ofivino" over to other aofencies some of its cherished work." It would have been easy for the managers to maintain an exclusive theory, — to organize an academy of limited membership sitting with closed doors, — to claim precedence for the scientific officers of the United States government. — to surround all proceedings with an air of mystery and re- serve, — and to claim that territory once occupied by the Smithsonian belonged forever to the original tenant, and should not be invaded. But nothing of this kind has been done in a period of fifty years. On the contrary, from its inauguration until now there is an unbroken record of friendly relations with every agency in the land devoted to the en- couragement of learning. Without any patronage, without the power to bestow much pecuniary assistance, without the bestowal of diplomas, medals, or other badges of distinction, without any official or paternal control, witliout even the dis- position to criticize or correct, the Smithsonian has been and is the great auxiliary of science and education throughout the length and breadth of the land. One of the earliest acts of the administration was peculiarly adapted to a country in which everybody is encouraged to be interested in the proceedings of the government. Corre- spondents were enlisted in every part of the United States, 8o8 The Smithsonian Institution and great consideration was paid to their inquiries and sug- gestions. Many of these collaborators, perhaps a large majority, were already connected with colleges, schools, and local associations having a scientific purpose. Others were isolated, lonely students or observers, far from good instru- ments and books, deprived of intercourse with men of like pursuits. Some were persons of great ability and influence ; some were very humble. Many were enrolled as local me- teorologists, and were led to keep accurate records of the weather, and send their reports to Washington. The study of local natural history and archaeology was encouraged in these and other correspondents. The formation of libraries and museums was promoted by many agencies, among which the loan on deposit of objects to be exhibited and the gift of valuable publications were especially noteworthy. It is diffi- cult in these days, when traveling is easy and when endow- ments, large and small, have been provided in every part of the land for the benefit of science, to appreciate the educa- tional influence of the Smithsonian, in places far distant from the capital, during the first fifteen or twenty years of its active operations. The actual, almost universal, appreciation of the value of science among the American people is doubtless due in a very considerable degree to the influences referred to. There has been no "conflict" between men of letters and men of science in our schools of learning, and the appre- hensions of religious teachers with respect to the tenden- cies of scientific doctrines have been transient and mild. Far and near, the quiet, unobtrusive influence of the Smith- sonian has contributed to this result. The mode in which the Smithsonian publications were dis- tributed aided not a little the building up of libraries. To possess these works was the laudable ambition of many people. The annual reports were widely distributed. They Cooperation of the Smithsoniait Institution 809 might be obtained from a member of Congress, They con- tained suggestive and stimuhiting papers in many branches of knowledge — papers, moreover, that could not be found elsewhere, or translations of articles accessible only to the few. The publications which were printed under the name of " Miscellaneous Collections " were not to be obtained by everybody. They were not meant for general readers, but for students. The scholar, however, whether young or old, who showed a special bent could readily obtain access to such papers in this series as were of interest to him. The quarto "Contributions" were given to libraries of consider- able importance. Many communities were thus stimulated to enlarge their collections of books in order to present a fair claim for the reception of these stately volumes. To facilitate the exchange of printed papers among the vast corps of correspondents, a system of international ex- changes was begun in 1852. It must be remembered that when this plan was initiated it was difficult to maintain rela- tions with distant countries, especially beyond the western part of Europe. The opportunities afforded by the book- sellers, the express companies, and the mails were then quite inferior to those now existent. Even to-day great advan- tages are derived from the Smithsonian system, and its curtailment or abolition would be a serious interruption to the maintenance of friendly intercourse between the scientific men of this country and those of distant lands. Some idea of the extent of this work may be formed from the statement that the number of enrolled correspondents is not far from twenty-four thousand, of whom seventeen thousand arc in foreign lands. A million and a half of packages have thus been distributed in forty-three years. All this is to be credited to the account of cooperation. Publication is an important function of a scientific foun- 52 8io The Smithsonian htsiitMtion dation. In early days there were those who thought the issue of popular tracts, like the " Penny Magazine," or other juvenile and elementary books, would be most useful. But the secretaries took a different view. In their opinion, the private publisher might be relied on to secure and set forth, at very low prices, works for which there was a large de- mand. What was needed in this country, at that time, was encouragement for the publication of learned memoirs, often elaborate and voluminous, which appealed to a very select company of readers, and could not possibly be made to pay. This service has been performed from the beginning, when it issued an original memoir by Squier and Davis, on the aboriginal mounds of the Mississippi Valley, until the present time, when thirty quarto volumes of" Contributions to Know- ledge " have appeared. But cooperation was not restricted to typographical assistance. Books, apparatus, specimens, and laboratory facilities have been generously accorded to investigrators and writers. The "Contributions" have been supplemented by the " Miscellaneous Collections," consisting, usually, of less elaborate or less extended papers, as well as by the publications of the National Museum and the Bureau of American Ethnology. Many persons favored the establishment of a great library as an essential part of the Smithsonian ; for it was early obvious that in addition to the purchase, large and valuable series, the publications of governments and of learned so- cieties, would be received as gifts and by exchanges. The collectors of books are usually miserly, desiring to get all they can and to keep all they get, but another disposition was manifested here. The Congressional Library, it was already evident, was destined to become the National Library. Now, instead of building up a rival, or forcing the government to duplicate costly books, the authorities Cooperation of the Smithsonian Institution 8 1 1 of the Smithsonian transferred the principal parts of their collection to the custody of the Congressional, and gave to it yearly accessions. The magnitude of this renunciation is apparent from the simple statement that more than three hundred thousand volumes and parts of volumes have thus become a part of the National Library, constituting perhaps one fourth of its possessions. In the new building a separate hall is assigned to this important department. The chapter on Meteorology illustrates the principle of Henry. As the study of the climate of this country seemed of great importance, he devised methods, provided instru- ments, prepared the requisite mathematical tables, and en- listed far and wide the services of observers and recorders. He initiated and for years maintained this great work, and reached results which demonstrated its importance; and then, when the government, with all the possibilities of army ser- vice on the frontier and in stations remote from ordinary settlement, indicated its readiness to establish a weather bureau, he passed over all this work with its valuable archives to the new organization. The growth of the National Museum, and its management, furnish additional illustrations of the cooperative spirit of the Smithsonian. At the time of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia many great collections were brought together from remote countries. Baird was quick to see what a valu- able possession they would be in Washington. Many of them were offered to our government, on the understand- ing that they should be properly displayed. Already the Smithsonian was the custodian of important collections made by the explorers of this country in our Western Ter- ritories and in foreign lands, including the objects brought together by the Wilkes expedition. Baird saw the oppor- tunity to combine these elements and institute a national 8i2 The Smithsonian Institution museum. In this he succeeded, Congress being interested and willing to make the requisite appropriations for a build- ing and for administration. The generous contributions of private persons, and the results of public expeditions now brought together, show what may be accomplished by co- operation. The last report of the Director, acknowledging the accession of one hundred and twenty-seven thousand specimens within a year, attributes this increase almost en- tirely to a warm interest in the welfare of the museum on the part of individuals, many of whom have at one time or another received some courtesy from the officials of the Smithsonian Institution. Within the same year not far from forty thousand speci- mens were distributed to universities, colleges, museums, and normal schools, and the like distribution has been in progress for years. Four hundred and sixty-seven " lots " were sent to the museum for examination in the year 1895, and the reports of the curators were extended outside the United States and Europe to Canada, Central and South America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, India, Java, Borneo, the Philippine Islands, and various islands of the Pacific Ocean. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the Smith- sonian has been its power of adaptation to changing cir- cumstances. This is shown not only by its renunciation of the library idea, and of the meteorological bureau, but by the expansion of other work. The Bureau of Eth- nology, for example, has its own accomplished director and staff, and it is supported by special appropriations from Congress. Yet it has grown up under the protection of the Smithsonian, and has shared in its reputation for scholarship, sagacity, and economy. The evolution of this bureau is an interesting chapter in institutional history. The responsi- Cooperation of the Smithsonian Institiitioji 8 1 3 bility of studying the habits of the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent, and of preserving, ere they totally perish, the knowledge of their languages, religions, arts, manners, and customs, was recognized when the Institution was first or- ganized. The earliest quarto publication was a token of this interest. For many years the Catlin portraits stared every visitor in the face. The exploring expeditions in the trans- Mississippi brought back curious relics of primitive men, which were exhibited and studied by many young and en- thusiastic investigators. The head of the Geological Survey, under whom parties were annually sent forth into distant and unknown regions, was keenly alive to the interest attached to anthropological inquiry. Nothing was more fitting than that he in due time should become the director of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Quite different was the growth of the Fish Commission, an independent organization of which Baird was the originator and the head, from its beginning, and until his death. Technically, the credit of this branch of the government service does not belong to the Smithsonian. It stands on its own foundation. But it will undoubtedly be admitted that without the knowledge, the official encouragement, and the fine cooperative spirit of the second secretary, this com- mission, which has been so significant in its economic and in its scientific work, and has broucfht so much renown to the country, would not, in the present generation at least, have attained to its usefulness and distinction. It is here worth while to note that each of the secretaries has added impor- tant features to the Smithsonian which have had widespread influence upon the development of science. This will ap- pear fully in the historical chapters. The cooperative spirit of Henry in initiating the Weather Bureau, of Baird in developing the National Museum, the Fish Commission, 52^ 8 14 The Smifhsonian Institution and the Bureau of Ethnology, of Langley in estabhshing the Astrophysical Observatory and the National Zoological Park, and in advancing the art of aero-navigation, deserves the highest praise. No attempt has been made in this chapter to give the details of the Smithsonian management, — but only to indi- cate the impressions it has produced upon the mind of one who has had no official connection with the establishment. Con- stant intercourse with the collaborators, in Washington and in distant parts of the country, as well as in foreign lands, has never revealed one word of censorious criticism respecting the spirit which has governed the administrations of Henry, Baird, and Langley. Cooperation, the fundamental idea that has here been discussed, may be mechanical and formal, gov- erned by petty regulations and accompanied by ceremo- nious exactions. But that is not the kind of cooperation to which this record has called attention. On the other hand, it has not been the cooperation of a spendthrift, throwing away the opportunities of usefulness and influence. In con- clusion, the Smithsonian has been never ready to take up, and has always been ready to give up, those undertakings which other institutions and individuals might be disposed to assume and sustain with efficiency. Second, it has lent encouragement to thousands of workers whose work would have failed without a moderate amount of pecuniary assist- ance. Third, it has always been ready to enlarge its domain and sustain the burden of fresh responsibilities when it has appeared to be the wish of Congress or of the scientific men of the country that it should do so. THE INFLUENCE OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIBRARIES, THE OR- GANIZATION AND WORK OF SOCIETIES, AND THE PUBLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE IN THE UNITED STATES By John Shaw Billings Director of the New York Public Library -^^jHE more one becomes familiar with the early If A history of the Smithsonian Institution, and rK^v) with the ideas, plans, and work of its organ- vHwv^ izers and first officers, so far as these can be ^ ascertained from the annual Reports and from some of its special publications for the first twenty years of its existence, the more will he become convinced that this was a time of much seed-planting in many and various fields, and that we are only now just beginning to see the character and magnitude of the very great harvests which are to result therefrom. It is proposed in this paper to consider very briefly the in- fluence which the Smithsonian Institution has exerted upon library and bibliographical work in the United States, upon the organization of societies of various kinds, and upon the 815 8i6 The Smithsonian Institution publication of reports, memoirs, and other forms of contri- butions to knowledge of the general government, by the several States, and by the various societies in this country, through the powerful stimulation which it has given, both by example and by precept, to work of this kind as special features of the second of its great objects: "the diffusion of knowledge." The fifth section of the Act which organized the Institution required that it should form a library ; and the eighth section provided that it should make an appropriation not exceeding $25,000 annually for the gradual formation of a library com- posed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge. To this end, also, the tenth section of the Act directed that one copy of all copyrighted books, en- gravings, maps, etc., published in the United States, should be sent to this library. In the original program of organization Professor Bache proposed to render the Institution a center of bibliographical knowledge to which students from all parts of the country could apply, by letter or otherwise, for information as to what books existed on particular subjects and in what library they could be found. In accordance with this idea, the first librarian, Mr. C. C. Jewett, began by collecting a large num- ber of works on bibliography, and endeavored to procure copies of catalogues of all libraries in this country. It was at first proposed to secure three copies of each of such cata- logues : one to be preserved in its original form, the others be cut up so that each title could be pasted on a separate card, these cards to be arranged in drawers so as to form a general catalogue. After something had been done in this direction, this work was set aside in favor of a system pro- posed by Mr. Jewett for producing printed catalogues by means of stereotyped plates of individual titles ; by which InJlMence of the Smithsonian Instittttion 8 1 7 means he proposed to obtain a general catalogue of all the books in the country, which catalogue should contain references to the various libraries from which each book might be obtained. Much time and money were spent in vain on this scheme, and it is evident that neither Mr. Jewett nor the managers of the Institution had at first any adequate idea of the magni- tude or cost of the work which they proposed to undertake, or of the great development of American libraries which was to occur in the near future. At the time this plan attracted a good deal of attention, and there is no doubt that Mr. Jewett's '* Notices of the Public Libraries of the United States," published by the Institution in 1851, and his rules for cataloguing, published in 1853, did exert a great influence on the formation and arrangements of a great number of the libraries of this country. Professor Henry, the first secretary, soon perceived that the formation and maintenance of a great library would leave the Smithsonian Institution no funds for work which he had more at heart. It was found that the copyright law was rather a burden than an aid, and upon his representation it was finally so modified as to relieve the Smithsonian of the duty of receiving the publications which it provided for. Finally, through his exertions, the library of the Institution was transferred to the Congressional Library, under an agreement that it should be kept separate ; that all ex- penses for binding and care of the books should be paid for by the general government; and that the Institution should have the right to withdraw the books at any time, upon payment of the expense which had been incurred. The number of volumes which were thus transferred was about forty thousand, largely the publications of learned societies which had been received in exchange for publications ot the 8i8 The Smithsonian Institution Institution, and which formed a collection of records of the progress of the world which was unequaled in the United States, and hardly surpassed in other countries. The growth of this special collection was a very rapid one. In 1853 it had already attained 25,000 volumes, and in 1895 it included 314,499 volumes, and formed over one quarter of the National Library. A most important influence was exerted by the communi- cation addressed by the secretary of the Institution to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, setting forth the importance of the publication of lists of titles of me- moirs or papers contained in all the transactions of learned societies of the world, and offering to cooperate in this work. The result of this suggestion was the undertaking of this work by the Royal Society of London, which has now pub- lished ten large quarto volumes of the " Catalogue of Scien- tific Papers." The latest development of this movement was the calling of an international conference, which met in London in July, 1896, to consider a plan for cataloguing sci- entific literature in such a way as to make readily accessible the bibliography of any particular subject coming within the scope of such an index. The development of public libraries in the United States since 1850, the date when the Smithsonian Institution began to exert its influence in this direction, has been marvelous. Jewett's " Notice of Public Libraries," referred to above, gave the statistics for the year 1849, showing that the number of libraries containing 1000 volumes and upward was 423, and the aggregate number of volumes in these libraries was 2,105,652. In 1891, according to the Report of the Bureau of Education, there were 3804 such libraries, containing about 27,000,000 volumes. In 1849 there were but five libraries con- taining over 50,000 volumes and upward, the largest being Influence of the Smithsonian Institution 819 that of Harvard College, with 84,200 volumes. In 1891 there were 98 such libraries, and 30 of these had 100,000 volumes and upward. To the growth of many of such libraries the Smithsonian Institution has largely contributed directly by supplying them with its own publications and with books obtained tlirough its system of international exchange, and indirectly througli the stimulus which it has given to bibliographical work and to the publications of societies. When it undertook this work, the wisdom and foresight of the organization was shown by the fact that many of the library methods which have become prominent were fore- shadowed in the first report of the Institution. Soon after the organization of the Institution it undertook to create and maintain a system of international exchange be- tween the scientific and literary societies of the United States and those in other parts of the world. Prior to 1850 ex- changes between such societies were made difficult, in part by the ignorance of some of them with regard to the existence and publications of others ; in part by the custom-house re- quirements of different countries, which often caused great delay and considerable expense ; and in part by the fact that each society had to provide its own agents and the means of transmitting its own documents and packages. Through the influence of the Smithsonian Institution and its ao^ents in other countries most of the custom-house difficulties were done away with. The need on the part of individual societies of supplying agents disappeared, and by the publication of lists of correspondents and lists of publications of learned societies and of periodicals received, the Smithsonian Institu- tion furnished libraries and associations with information as to their deficiencies, and with data as to the channels through which desiderata mioht be obtained. 820 The Smithsonian Institution The story of the development and progress of the system of international exchanges of the Institution is a very inter- esting one, but it would occupy too much space to include it in a paper of this kind. The first volume of the Smithsonian " Contributions to Knowledge," published in 1848, was widely distributed to the libraries and societies of foreign countries, as far as the exis- tence of such institutions was known ; but the total number of copies thus circulated was only 173. At the present time the number of foreign institutions receiving the Smithsonian publications is 2588, and the number of institutions in the United States is 2866. In 1867 the Smithsonian Institution initiated another sys- tem of foreign exchange in addition to the one for learned societies and scientific men, which had at that time fully developed. This second system was intended to include everything printed at the expense of the United States gov- ernment, no matter how trivial or apparently unimportant; and a complete set of these publications was to be sent to each government which agreed to make an equally ex- haustive return. By 1879 this work had been fairly begun, and thirty-two sets of documents were being disposed of to as many governments. For a number of years this work was done entirely at the expense of the Institution, but finally Congress voted an appropriation for a portion of the sum annually required for this purpose. Under the provisions of the international exchange the United States has sent out a very much greater number of publications of the government than it has received. This was in part due to the much greater amount of matter published by the United States than by any other government, but it also largely depended upon the fact that other governments did not undertake to furnish annual lists Injittence of the Sinithsonian Institution 821 of all official documents and to charge some department with the collecting and forwarding of them. The magnitude of the operations of this department of the Institution may be estimated by the fact that during the fiscal year 1894-95 the total number of packages received was 107,118, and the number of cases shipped abroad was 1364. The number of government publications shipped abroad to various sources was 23,023. The example set by the Smithsonian Institution in pub- lishing and widely distributing valuable contributions to knowledge, and the advice and recommendations of its secretaries and their co-workers, have exerted a powerful influence upon the several departments of the general gov- ernment in inducing them to encourage their officers to make scientific investigations and explorations, and to pre- pare careful and elaborate reports, in the belief that these would be published at the expense of the government. Xo doubt this has resulted in the publication by the government of a considerable amount of matter the cost of which could have been much more judiciously applied in other directions; but this is really a small affair in comparison with the vast educational work which has been accomplished both as re- gards the great number of readers of and the contributors to these " public records." Many societies of various kinds in this country have been induced to make special efforts to publish reports of trans- actions in order to secure for their members some of the benefits of the Smithsonian system of exchanges ; that is to say, that they might have something to give in return for the publications of other societies. All this has led to the production of a very considerable amount of valuable literature which does not primarily cir- culate in trade channels and is not influenced by commercial 822 The Smithsonian Institution considerations, and it has also been an important factor in the higher education in this country. It has created a demand for skilled observers and for scientific teachers and writers, and the knowledge that good work would be published and brought to the notice of those competent to appreciate it in all parts of the world has had quite as much to do with the meeting of this demand as has the mere pecuniary compensation offered for the work. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AND THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS By Ainsworth Rand Spofford Librarian of Congress T was a signal good fortune which preserved the valuable library of the Smithsonian Institution from destruction by the fire of 1865, which so seriously damaged the building, and destroyed the Stanley Indian Gallery. Immediately fol- lowing that event, Professor Henry, then at the head of the Institution, impressed by the peril which the collection of books had just escaped, sought a conference with the joint committee on the Library of Congress, in conjunction witli the librarian. He developed to them a plan for securing the library from any future danger, while it might be brought at the same time to enrich the great library of the government. In the view of Professor Henry, several highly desirable objects would be accomplished by the union of the two libraries at the Capitol. As two spacious and fire-proof wings, constructed of solid iron, had just been added to the Congressional Library, there was then ample room for the orderly arrangement of the Smithsonian collection there, instead of attempting to continue it in the 823 824 The Smithsonian Institution narrow quarters, already overflowed, which it occupied, and which were greatly needed for other purposes during the re- construction of the Smithsonian building. The removal would also relieve the Smithsonian fund of the expense of a library, including salary of librarians, and the cost of binding books, leavine so much more of the annual income free to be devoted to the promotion and publication of original re- searches in science. The latter having always been the car- dinal object of the Institution, in Professor Henry's view, he had early taken the ground that the collection of a library should be kept somewhat subordinate, and confined mainly to the publications of scientific societies and aids to scientific study, leaving to the general government the more com- prehensive aim of building up in the city of Washington a library of universal range. On the other hand, it would clearly be to the advantage of the Library of Congress to receive so extensive an acces- sion to its collections; and the annual additions of scientific transactions, through the Smithsonian exchanges, would com- pensate for the expense of binding, cataloguing, and care of such a collection, in the incidental saving of many purchases which would otherwise be essential for the Congressional Library in its progress toward completion. These views, after due conference and comparison of ad- vantages, prevailed with the committee representing Con- gress, as well as with the Regents of the Institution ; and the result was the passage of the Act of April 5, 1886,^ with the provisions following: "The library collected by the Smithsonian Institution under the provisions of an act approved August tenth, eight- een hundred and forty-six, shall be removed from the build- ing of said Institution, with the consent of the Regents 1" United States Statutes at Large," volume xiv, page 13. The Institution and the Library of Congress 825 thereof, to the new fire-proof extension of the Library of Congress, upon completion of a sufficient portion thereof for its accommodation, and shall, while there deposited, be sub- ject to the same regulations as the Library of Congress, except as hereinafter provided. *'The Smithsonian Institution shall have the use thereof, in like manner as it is now used, and the public shall have access thereto for purposes of consultation. "All the books, maps, and charts of the Smithsonian Li- brary shall be properly cared for and preserved in like manner as are those of the Congressional Library, from which the Smithsonian Library shall not be removed except on reim- bursement by the Smithsonian Institution to the Treasury of the United States of expenses incurred in binding and in taking care of the same, or upon such terms and conditions as shall be mutually agreed upon by Congress and the Re- gents of said Institution. "The Smithsonian Institution, through its Secretary, shall have the use of the Library of Congress, subject to the same regulations as Senators and Representatives." The removal of the library to the Capitol was effected during the winter of 1866-67. It then comprised about forty thousand volumes, now increased to more than eighty thousand volumes (about two hundred and fifty thousand titles), besides a great assemblage of pamphlets and unbound serials ; and it completely filled one entire gallery of the newly constructed south wing of the Congressional Library, and overflowed into another gallery below. The Smith- sonian librarian. Doctor Theodore N. Gill, was transferred with the library to the Capitol, and continued to catalogue and superintend the collection, in the service of Congress, until he resigned some years later to devote himself to scien- tific work. He was succeeded by Mr. John Murdoch, and on his resignation, in 1892, the present incumbent, Doctor Cyrus Adler, was appointed librarian. 53 826 The Sinithsoiiian Institution The advantages confidently anticipated from the conjunc- tion of the two libraries in the Capitol, although accompanied by some serious drawbacks hereafter referred to, have been in great measure realized. The Smithsonian collection, so rich in the transactions and other publications of scientific bodies throughout the world, formed a specially extensive and invaluable complement to the already large miscellaneous Library of Congress. The benefit to scientific students and to the public of finding in one central repository so extensive a collection of aids to research, without traveling to widely separated localities to pursue their investigations, can hardly be overrated. Economy of time, convenience of readers, comprehensiveness of authorities, were all united in con- tributing to the objects aimed at in such researches. No class of men can be more impressed than scholars with the supreme value of moments. The ideal university of modern times is a library of universal range, in which the books shall come to the reader as fast as wanted, without troubling the reader to travel after the books. That concentration of mind and of pursuit which is the secret of success in so many fields is signally furthered by bringing all aids to research to one common center. That an ideal so much to be desired has not yet been attained in the government library in Washington is due to several causes which may be briefly summarized. They all concenter in one pregnant fact — utterly inadequate space within the Capitol for the reception and arrangement of a great comprehensive library. Within two years after the completion of the two library wings referred to, they were nearly filled by the accession, first, of the large historical library of Peter Force, and, secondly, by the reception of the Smithsonian collection. Every step in the internal economy of the library in the thirty years following has been a study The Ijisfitittion mid the Library of Congress 827 of providing for an overflow. All available space within the library having been exhausted by the introduction of movable cases of shelves, storage-rooms in the basement of the Capi- tol were next availed of To add to the embarrassment, although directly contributing to the enrichment of the library, the copyright law was enacted in 1870, by which all records of copyright were thenceforth to be concentrated in the office of the Librarian of Congress, and two copies of all publications under that law to be there deposited. This provision has entailed an enormous increase of library ma- terial, consisting not only of books and periodicals, but of a great variety and quantity of maps and works of graphic art, and musical compositions, occupying large space, and pouring in year by year in a constantly increasing flood. Thus the very means which most powerfully contributes to increase the library also adds incalculably to the difficulties of its accommodation and arrangement in the extremely narrow space provided. The evils of overcrowding, and the hope- lessness of any remedy within the walls of the Capitol, were urged upon Congress year after year by the librarian, and by enlicjhtened members of both Houses of Conorress. In his annual report for 1877, iiistar omnium, this language was used by the librarian : "While it may be said in extenuation that it is no function of the Library of Congress to supply the public, whether residents of Washington or the scholars of the countr)-, with facilities for information, it cannot be forgotten that Congress has itself invited such frequentation by the liberal policy of accumulating a great library at the seat of government, and throwing open its doors to all. It has also taken in charge the rich scientific library of the Smithsonian Institution, as a probably permanent deposit, with the contingent responsi- bility of making its stores contribute to the diffusion of know- ledge among men. And it would little comport with the 828 The Smithsonian Institution theory or the practice of our popular institutions and form of government that any new bars should be placed in the path of the widest diffusion of intelligence. When it is considered that, from the nature of the case, the embarrassment of pro- ducing books and information from these accumulated heaps is constantly growing; that Congress, by the act of 1870, requiring two copies of every publication protected by copy- right to be deposited in the library of the government, settled the question of its possible permanent shelter in the Capitol in the negative ; that this building, overcrowded in all its departments so that several committees have to occupy the same room, is crowded worst of all in the library depart- ment, to which no possible outlet or addition of room can be procured ; that the mere arithmetical computation of the growth of the country's literature proves that space must be provided within the century for a building at least two thirds the size of the Capitol ; that there is no large capital in Eu- rope in which the library of the government can be or is provided for under the same roof with its legislature ; that in our case, and in ours alone, there is added to the great gov- ernment library the extensive and growing bureau of copy- rights and copyright business for the whole country ; that the attempt to get along with this double difficulty has already produced great injury to the books, with partial ex- clusion from their benefits, and must ultimately curtail the usefulness of the library to an incalculable degree ; that even if the remedy authorizing new space to be provided were immediately applied, some years must elapse before the requisite building accommodations could be complete: the case becomes one of such pressing emergency, not to say distress, that argument upon it should be unnecessary. Suffice it to say that it scarcely becomes a government repre- senting a nation of such wealth, intelligence, and power to treat the assembled stores of literature and art of the country, which its own laws have caused to be gathered at the Capitol and thrown open to the people, with such indignity as to subject them to injury and destruction, or to equally repre- hensible exclusion from their benefits. Of the mode and The Institution and the Library of Congress 829 manner of providing for the care and permanent preservation of this treasury of l^nowledge, Congress is properly the sole judge ; but should another session of that body be suffered to pass without proper provision being in some way made for its protection, Congress will hardly be held to discharge the trust reposed in it as the custodian of what President Jefferson called, with prophetic wisdom, "the Library of the United States." The provision for a library building, a want so pressing and so universally acknowledged, was deferred from year to year by difficulties and dissensions about a site, about plans, about architects, and about cost, until in 1886 an act was passed for the construction of a fire-proof edifice of ample dimensions, upon ground adjacent to the Capitol. The new building, which is recognized as a model of architectural and artistic beauty, and in its interior arrangements is adapted to the highest utility and facility of administration, was completed for occupation in the spring of 1897. I'"" '^'^^ ^W2\ and long-deferred result, Congress acted with praiseworthy and far-sighted liberality, and erected a fitting home for the nation's books in this noble temple dedicated to literature, science, and art. In the new library edifice ample shelf-room is provided for the Smithsonian Library collections, and a spacious room ad- joining the eastern book-stack will be placed at the disposal of the secretary for occupancy as an office, or record and reception room. In its new and commodious quarters it is expected that the complete and thorough arrangement of the Smithsonian books upon the shelves, allowing an adequate space for expansion, will be followed by completion of the catalogue and by the binding for ready use of all completed serials and other works in the collection. Thus the utility of the 53* 830 The Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Library will be immeasurably increased, every volume being rendered immediately available, instead of being piled in compulsory disorder upon the floors, in the absence, for years past, of any shelves to arrange and classify them. And the conjunction of the great library of reference in the reading-room of the public library adjoining will enable all students, in whatever department of science, or literature, or art, to prosecute their investigations with every facility close at hand. The Smithsonian Institution will for the first time be enabled to secure for its rich col- lections in scientific knowledge a maximum benefit to the world of readers who will resort to it for instruction in years that are to come. APPENDIX APPENDIX PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE INSTITUTION Compiled by William Jones Rhees 1826 Oct. 2j, James Smilhson's will made. 1829 Jitne 2"/, Death of James Smilhsoa in Genoa, Italy. 1835 July 28, United States Government advised that it was entitled to bequest of Smithson. Dec, ly. Congress notified by President Jai kson of the bequest. 1836 July r, Act passed by Congress authorizing appointment of agent to prosecute claim of the United States for the legacy. July II, Richard Rush appointed agent to prosecute the claim of the United States to the bequest of Smithson. Nov, 14, Richard Rush, as agent for the United States, entered suit in the British Court of Chancery to obtain possession of the bequest. 1837 Feb. I, First hearing of the suit before Court of Chancery in London. 1838 May g, Chancery suit decided in favor of the United States. June [5, Smithson bequest transferred to Mr. Rush. Sept. I, Smithson's personal effects deposited with Collector of Port of New York. Sept, I, Bequest deposited in the United States Mint in Philadelphia. Dec, 6, President Jackson announced to Congress tiie receipt of the Smithson bequest and asked for adoption of a plan to carry out the intentions of Smithson. 1841 July 12, Minerals, books, manuscripts, and other articles forming part of the Smithson be- quest deposited in Patent Office by the Secretary of the Treasury. 1846 Feb. 2S, Bill passed House of Representatives organizing the Smithsonian Institution. Aug. 10, Act of organization of Smithsonian Institution passed by Senate. Aug. 10, Act of Congress organizing the Smithsonian Institution approved by President Polk. Sept. 7, First meeting of the Board of Regents held, at which George M. Dallas was elected Chancellor of the Institution. 833 Jan. 28, Feb. s, Feb. ^S, March ig, Apri in. May Sept. Dec. I, 9. 834 TJie Sinifhsonian Institution Dec. J, Joseph Henry elected Secretary of the Institution. Dec. 4, Board of Regents adopted a plan of organization for the Institution. Dec. 2j, Site for the Smithsonian building selected. 1847 Jan. 26, Board of Regents " requested the Secretary to nominate an assistant who shall be librarian." The Secretary nominated Charles C. Jesvett for Assistant Secretary acting as librarian, who was then elected. Plans of Architect James Renwick, of New York, for the Smithsonian building adopted. Publication authorized by Regents of" Hints on Public Architecture," by Robert D. Owen, a work cliiefly descriptive of the Smithsonian building. Lectures "On the construction and use of the Rosse telescope," by William Scoresby, begun in Odd Fellows' Hall, being the first delivered under the auspices of the Institution. Contract for construction of building awarded. Work begun on laying out and beautifying the grounds (nineteen acres) by plant- ing trees and shrubs, and erection of fences. Corner-stone of the Smithsonian building laid. Seal of the Institution, with likeness of James Smithson, adopted. Program of organization proposed by Secretary Henry adopted. 1848 Atig. 7, Collection of chemical and physical apparatus of Robert Hare presented by him to the Institution. Aug. 12, Act for the improvement and care of the Smithsonian grounds by the Govern- ment, passed by Congress. Dec. 7, "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," the first volume of the Smith- sonian Contributions to Knowledge publisiied and distributed. It was decided that no copyright should be taken of the publications. July I, System of meteorological observations established, in connection with which it was proposed by Secretary Henry to use the magnetic telegraph in the in- vestigation of atmospherical phenomena, and the notice of approaching storms given to distant observers. 1849 March 7, Vice-President Millard Fillmore elected Chancellor. April 6, Course of four lectures on " Modern Athens " by Professor Koeppen of Denmark begun. They were delivered in Carusi's Hall. April JO, East wing of the building completed and occupied by the lecture-room and lab- oratory, and apparatus rooms. April 10, Library transferred to eastern range of the Smithsonian building from the Patent Office. April JO, Course of six lectures on "Geology" by Edward Hitchcock begun; being the first given in the building of the Smithsonian Institution. .System of international exclianges inaugurated. May II, Reports on the progress of science begun. June 2^, Appropriation made for collections in natural history. Aug. I, First meeting of the " Establishment of the Smithsonian Institution " held. Presi- dent Zachary Taylor in the chair. 1850 Jan. 22, Explorations under the auspices of the Institution, or aided by its funds, insti- tuted, especially in Oregon, California, and Mexico. Jt'h' J", Nomination by Secretary Henry of Spencer Fulierton Daird as Assistant Secre- tary in the Department of Natural History, to take charge of the Museum and aid in the publications, etc., approved by the Regents. Sept. JO, Smithsonian grounds laid out anew, under the direction of Andrew J. Downing. Dec. ji. East and west wings and ranges of the building finished, and the lecture-room enlarged in the east wing so as to accommodate one thousand persons. 1851 Jan. 7, Chief Justice Taney elected Chancellor. Jan. 18, Memorial to Congress presented by the Regents asking permission to increase the permanent Smithsonian fund to $715,000. Dec. JI, Exterior of the Smithsonian building, including tiie towers, completed. Events in History of Institution 835 1852 Feb. 14, British Government admits free of duty, books, etc., sent by the Smithsonian Institution to libraries in England. 1853 Feb. J, Magnetic observatory on the Smithsonian grounds authorized by the Board of Regents. March j. Congress appropriated $3000 to begin prejiaration of a catalogue of its library on the Smithsonian stercotyjie plan pro]iosed by Charles C. Jewett. March 12, Alteration ordered in the east wing of the l)uilding to convert it into a residence for the Secretary. March 12, Resolutions ado])tcd by the Board of Regents referring the subject of the distri- bution of the income of the Institution to a Select Committee. June /J", Distribution of duplicate specimens to other museums begun. 1S54 Jan. 28, District of Columbia Court decided that the Board of Regents could not be sued. May 20, Special committee of the Board of Regents reported. "The law is declaratory and positive in cliarging the Secretary with the enumerated duties, and therefore invests him and him alone with the corresjionding powers. . . . lie is not required to employ any f)ne, but is ])ermitted to em|)Ioy persons to assist him, ])rovidcd he satisfy the Board that their services arc necessary as aids to him. This view of the intention of Congress so clearly expressed in the law would be directly contradicted by the plan which has been suggested of organizing the Institution definitely into several departments, placing at the head of these departments different assistants, establishing their relative positions, describing distinct duties for them, assigning certain shares of the income to be dis- bursed by them, and staling their authorities, privileges and remedies for the infringement of their official rights or of the interests entrusted to their care. All this would tend not to secure a loyal and harmonious cooperation, to a common end, of the assistants with the Secretary, but to encourage rivalry, to invite collision, to engender hostility, to destroy subordination, to distract the operations of the Institution, to impair its efficiency and to destroy its usefulness." Jiilv S, Preamble and resolution from the Select Committee adopted as follows: "The Secretary of the Institution and of this Board is, by the seventh section of the Act ' to establish the Smithsonian Institution,' required to discharge the duties of 'librarian and Keeper of the Museum, having, with the consent of the Board of Regents, power to employ assistants, the better to enable him to discharge those duties; for a better construction whereof — Be it resolved, that whilst power is reserved in the said section to the Board of Regents to remove both the Secretary and his assistants, in the opinion of the Board, power, nevertheless, remains with the Secretary to remove his said assistants." December, Main portion of the Smithsonian Building completed. 1S55 Bancroft library Jan. 12, Jan. I J, Jan. /J, Jan. IS, Jan. /J-, Jan. ij, Resolutions of the Select Committee adopted, repealing the equal distribution of the income and providing that appropriations should be sjiecific. Secretary Henry, at meeting of Board of Regents, stated that he had deemed it his duty to remove Charles C. Jewett from the office of Assistant to the Secre- tary. Rufus Choate resigned his office of Regent, stating that he had done so because of his inability to acquiesce in the interpretation, by a majority of the Board, of the Act of Congress organizing the Institution. Judiciary committee of the Senate instructed to inquire and report whether any action of the Senate was necessary and proper in regard to the Smithsonian Institution. The following resolutions were adopted by the Board of Regents : " Resolved, That while the Board regret the necessity of Mr. Jcwett's re- moval, they approve of the act of the Secretary. " Resolved, That the approval by the Board is not deemed by them to be es- sential to the validity of the act of the Secretary in so removing Mr. Jewett." Mr. Choate's letter of resignation was referred, in the House of Representatives, to a Special Committee of five, to inquire into the management of the Institu- tion, and with power to send for persons and papers. 836 The Smithsonian Institittion Jan. 26, Committee of the House called upon Secretary Henry and on other officers of the Institution for a statement of their acts, investigated the claim of an em- ployee for additional remuneration for services, etc. Fel>. 6, Unanimous report of the Senate Judiciary Committee served to establish the legality of the action of the Regents, and the policy of the Board has since been continued without objection, in the same line as that which was originally marked out l^y Henry when he accepted the secretaryship of tlie Institution in 1846. Feb. 24, Board of Regents "resolved that all correspondence of the Institution shall be conducted by tlie Secretary, and no assistant or employee shall write or receive any official letter or communication pertaining to the affairs of the Institution, except under the authority and by the direction of the Secretary, and all such corresjjondence shall be duly registered and recorded." March j, Numerous meetings of the House Committee were held, and finally two reports were presented, with the testimony taken. March j, Act passed by Congress allowing all copyright publications to be sent to the Institution free of postage. March j. Annual report for 1854 ordered by Congress, bemg the first to contain the lectures, extracts from the correspondence, and miscellaneous papers in the form of a General Appendix. 1856 March S, Free transportation of freight granted to the Institution by the Mexican Culf, Pa- cific Mail, South American, and United States Mail Steamship Companies, and by the Panama Railroad Company. September, Monument erected in Smithsonian Park to the memory of Andrew Jackson Downing, architect and landscape gardener. 1857 March j, Congress appropriated $2000 for the transfer of the collections of the Government from the Patent Office to the Institution, and $15,000 for the construction of cases. A/arch j/, Personal effects of James Smithson removed from the Patent Office and de- posited in the Regents' room at the Institution. 185S May 79, Sjiecial committee of the Board of Regents made a report relative to Joseph Henry's connection with the invention of the electro-magnetic telegraph. J/nie 2, Congress appropriated $4000 for care of the Government collections, and $1000 for transfer from the Patent Office. Ai/^^. 8, Government collections were transferred from the United States Patent Office to the Institution. Daily weather-map, from telegraphic reports received every morning at 10 o'clock, exhibited in the Smithsonian building. 1859 Jan. 2^, Free transportation granted to the Institution by the North German Lloyd steamers. Feb. J, Congress amended copyright law, and on the recommendation of the Board of Regents repealed the requirement that copies of all copyrighted books, maps, charts, etc., be sent to the Institution, i860 Feb. 2^, Free transportation of freight granted by the Cunard Steamship Line to England. Dec. ji, Magnetic observatory discontinued, and the instruments sent to Fort Taylor, Key West, in care of the tidal station of the United States Coast Survey. 1861 June /J, Balloons sent up from the Smithsonian grounds by Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, to test practicability of their employment for military purposes. Oct. 21, Free transportation of freight granted by the Hamburg-American Packet Company. Events in History of Institution 837 1862 Feb. 28, Institution co6[)Lrated willi Surgeon-General of tlie United States Army, and with Sanitary Commission, in the improvement of the health and comfort of the soldiers during tlie civil war. April /J", Daily telegraphic bulletin of the weather, which had been discontinued for some time on account of the demands of public business, partially resumed. June 2, Series of publications in (;clavo called " Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections" begun. July sy. Charter of the National Institute expired, and in accordance with its act of in- corporation its property was delivered by Secretary of the Interior to Smith- sonian Institution. 1863 March j. Congress having incorporated the National Academy of Sciences, rooms were furnished to it by the Institution for its meetings and library. 1864 June II, Residuary legacy of Smithson, on account of the death of the annuitant, Madame La Batut, received by the Institution. Aug. I, Application made to tlie North American Telegraphic Association, covering the entire United States and Canada, for free use of its lines for the scientific ob- jects of the Institution, which was subsequently granted. 1865 Jan. 9, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chnse elected Chancellor. Jan. 10, Act establishing the Institution amended by Congress, repealing the section that required two of the Regents to be members of the National Institute in the city of Washington. Jan. 24, Fire destroyed the j^rincipal part of the contents of the rooms in the upper story of the Smithsonian building and the adjacent towers, including the per- sonal effects of Smithson. July I, Reconstruction of the building with fueproof materials begun, in accordance with the plans and under the superintendence of Adolf Cluss, architect. 1 866 April ^, Act passed by Congress transferring the custody of the library of the Smith- sonian Institution to the Library of Congress. 1867 Feb. 8, Act passed by Congress providing that the residuary legacy of Smithson should be received and added to the Smithson Fund, and allowing the Regents to increase that fund in the Treasury of the United States by savings, donations, and otherwise, to one million dollars. March 2, Act passed by Congress to provide for fifty copies of all documents printed by either House of Congress, or by any Department or Bureau, to be exchanged through the agency of the Smitlisonian Institution for similar works published in foreign countries, and especially by foreign governments. 1S6S Jan. I, National Herbarium transferred to the Department of Agriculture. July 2^, Amendment to the law relative to the exchange of documents with foreign gov- ernments passed by Congress. 1869 July 7, West range of the Smithsonian building, in addition to the main halls, assigned to the use of the Museum. 1S70 June I, Secretary Henry visited Europe in behalf of the interests of the Institution, and testified before an Fnglisii government Scientific Commission regarding the objects and methods of the Institution. Aug. 8, Secretary Henry represented the United States, by appointment of President Grant, at the international Commission invited by the Emperor of France to 838 The Smithsonian Institntion Oct. 20, consider the best means of multiplying copies, for distribution, of the original meter preserved in the archives of the government in Paris. Leonard Case, of Cleveland, Ohio, contributed $1200 in aid of publications. 1871 Feb. o> Spencer F. Baird, Assistant Secretary of the Institution, appointed United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries by President Grant. March j. Appropriation for continuing the survey of the Colorado River of the West by John W. Powell, under direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- tion, made by Congress. March /j", Act establishing the Institution amended by Congress, by substituting the " Governor of the District of Columbia " for the " Mayor of the City of Wash- ington," as one of the Regents ex officio of the Institution. Nov. 20, James Hamilton, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, made a will bequeathing $1000 to the Institution. 1872 June 8, July g, Jan. 20, June 1 8, Dec. Dec. 19, Law passed l)y Congress that " all publications sent or received by the Smith- sonian Institution, marked on each package, ' Smithsonian exchanges,' shall be allowed to pass free in the mail." Collection of minerals, ores, and geological specimens which had been formed by Joseph Wilson, Commissioner of the General Land Office, embracing samples from every State and Territory in the Union, transferred to the Institution by the Secretary of the Interior. 1873 Various ocean cable and inland telegraph companies granted the Institution the privilege of tiansmitting without charge, between Europe and America, an- nouncement of astronomical discoveries. Exchange of sets of United States Government documents with foreign govern- ments begun. Justice Nathan Clifford elected Chancellor. Smithsonian meteorological work transferred to the signal office. War Depart- ment, under "the policy that the Institution should devote its energies to no field of research which can be as well cultivated by other means." 1874 Jan. I, Annual income and receipts of the Institution deposited with the Treasurer of the United States, who makes payments on checks signed by the Secretary. Jan. 26, Secretary authorized by Board of Regents to receive aid from societies and in- dividuals in defraying part of the expense of the exchange system. Feb. ij, Paintings, statuary, engravings, and books on art belongmg to the Institution deposited in the Corcoran Art Gallery. Feb. 24, Bequest of James Hamilton of $1000 deposited in United States Treasury to credit of Smithson fund. March 2^, Assistant Secretary Spencer F. Baird appointed by the President a member of the Government Board for the Centennial Exhibition to be held in Philadelphia. April 27, Chief Justice Waite elected Chancellor. March j, March j, Nov. 2J, July jr, Oct. iS, May May ^3, n, 1875 Act passed by Congress extending the use of the Library of Congress to the Regents of the Institution. Appropriation by Congress to aid in making an exhibit at the Centennial Exhibi- tion in Philadelphia. A series of publications entitled " Bulletin of the United States National Mu- seum " begun. 1876 Use of the Armory Building in the Mall granted by Congress for temporary storage of collections received from the Centennial Exhibition. Medals, etc., awarded by the United States Centennial Commission to the Smith- sonian Institution for certain of its exhibits in the Exhibition in Philadelphia. 1878 Death of Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Institution. Spencer F. Baird elected Secretary. Events in History of Institution 839 Jtme 12, Telephones introduced. Dec. ij, East wing of the Smitlisonian building converted into offices and work-rooms. 1S79 Jan. 16, Memorial services in honor of Secretary Henry held in tlie U. S. Capitol. Jan. 24, Act passed by Congress authorizing the Ciiancellor of the Smithsonian Insti- tution to appoint an acting Secretary in certain cases. Alarch /j", Bequest of $500 received from Doctor Simeon Habel of New York. March j. Congress ajipropriated $250,000 for a fireproof building for llie National Museum. March j, All official mail matter sent from the Smithsonian Institution allowed transmission free of postage by Act of Congress. March j, Congress ordered "all the archives, records, and materials relating to the Indians of North America, collected by the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, turned over to the Smithsonian Institution, that the work may be completed and prepared for publication under its direction." March j, Congress provided that books or documents from the Smithsonian Institution should not be restricted to four pounds for each package to be sent through the mails as fourth-class matter. March j, Congress ordered " all collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and ob- jects of natural history, arch;eology and ethnology made by the Coast and Inte- rior Survey, the Geological Survey, or by any other parties for the Government of the United States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress, to be deposited in the National Museum." July J, Secretary Baird designated John W. Powell to take charge of the Ethnological work, as ])rovided liy Congress. Aug. I, Series of publications entitled " Proceedings of the National Museum " begun. 1880 June I, Congress ajipropriated $15,000 for a bronze statue of Professor Joseph Henry, by W. W. Story. June 14, First report of the Bureau of Ethnology ordered to be published by Congress. 1881 March 4, Reception and ball in connection with inauguration of President Garfield held in the National Museum building. Sept. I to Sept. JO, Smithsonian Institution participated in the International Geographical Congress in Venice. Sept. 75" to Oct. J, Smithsonian Institution participated in the International Electrical Con- gress in Paris. October, Smithsonian National Museum Building occupied. 1882 Jan. 4, Midshipmen of the United States Navy assigned by the Navy Department to the temporary service of the National Museum. Nov. 3, Smithsonian Institution made a co-partner in the administration of a beneficiary trust of a million dollars by Reverenil Alexander G. Mercer, of Newport, Rhode Island, a Board being constituted of the Presidents of Harvard College, and Vale College, and the Secretary of the .Smithsonian Institution, with three other individuals, to establish scholarships in such colleges as they may select for the education of " such poor students as have passed through public schools with the best reputation for character and ability." 1883 Jan. 10, System of telegraphic announcement of astronomical discoveries inaugurated by the Institution in 1S73 transferred to Harvard College Observatory. March j, Congress appropriatetl $50,000 to reconstruct in a fire-proof manner the eastern portion of the Smithsonian building. April ig. Bronze statue of Joseph Henry erected in the Smithsonian grounds by order of Congress, unveiled. Alay I to Noi>. i, National Museum participated in International Fisheries Exhibit in London. May ig, Washington relics transferred from Patent Oftice to National Museum. July I, Publication of the Bulletin and Proceedings of the National Museum discontinued as parts of the series of" Smithsonian Sliscellaneous Collections," and ordered to be carried on independently. July 2j, Electric lighting introduced in ^luscuni. 840 The Smithsonian Institntion 1884 May 13, Act passed by Congress to provide for the appointment of an Acting Secretary of Smithsonian Institution. Jii/v V Franking privilege extended to all official mail matter of Smithsonian Institution by order of Congress. St'pt. 2, Participation in the International Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pa. Participation in the Louisville, Kentucky {August 16-October 2j), and Cincinnati, Ohio {September j-October 4), and New Orleans, Louisiana {December 16, 1884, {oMayji, 1885) Expositions. 1885 Jan. 21, Regents decided that " the fiscal year of the Institution shall terminate on the 30th of June of each year, and that the annual meeting of the Board of Regents shall be held on the second Wednesday of January in each year." March 3, By order of Congress, "The annual reports of the Institution shall be hereafter printed at the Government Printing Office, in the same manner as the annual reports of the Heads of Departments are now printed, for submission in print to the two Houses of Congress." 1886 Au'-^. J, Congress ordered the Grant medals and objects of value and art to be deposited in National Museum. 1887 Jan. 12, Secretary Baird appointed Samuel P. Langley as Assistant Secretary in charge of Exchanges, Publications, and Library, and G. Brown Goode as Assistant Secretary in charge of the National Museum, which appointments were approved by the Board. March j. Congress provided that the Secretary of State, the Librarian of Congress, and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and their successors in office, be constituted a Commission, whose duty it shall be to report to Congress the character and value of the historical and other manuscripts belonging to the Government of the United States, and what method and policy should be pur- sued in regard to editing and publishing the same, or any of them. April J, New regulations made by the Secretary for the library, and efforts begun to compiete imperfect sets of transactions of learned societies and to increase the number of periodicals in all departments of knowledge. July 7, " The Director of the National Museum directed to report annually to Congress the progress of the Museum during the year, and its present condition." Aug. ig. Death of Spencer F. Baird, Secretary of the Institution. Aug. 31, Participation in the Minneapolis Industrial Exposition. Nov. 18, Samuel P. Langley elected Secretary. 1888 Jan. II, Regents decided that all estimates for appropriations should be sent direct by the Secretary of tlie Institution to the Secretary of the Treasury for trans- mission to Congress. Oct. 4, Disbursing Officer was appointed, duly qualified and bonded to the acceptance of the Secretary of the Treasury, for the disbursement of all sums appropriated by Congress to the Smithsonian Institution for the National Museum, Ex- changes, Bureau of Ethnology, Zoological Park, and Astrophysical Observatory. March 27, Justice Samuel F. Miller elected Chancellor //v? tern. July 4 to Oct. 7, Participation in the Ohio Valley and Central States Exposition in Cincinnati, Ohio, and July 16-21, the Marietta Exposition, Marietta, Ohio. Oct. 2, Congress ordered that the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution should submit at the beginning of each session a detailed statement of expenditures of the ap- propriations of the several bureaus under its direction. 1889 Jan. 4, American Historical Association incorporated by Congress and ordered to report annually to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who shall com- municate the whole or parts of such reports to Congress ; the collections, manuscrijits, books, jiamphlets, and other material for history to be deposited in the Smithsonian Institution or National Museum. Events in History of histitution 841 Jan. g. Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller elected Chancellor. March 2, National Zoological Park established by an Act of Congress. 1890 Jan. 8, Time of annual meeting ot Board of Regents changed to the fourth Wednesday in January. March i, Astrophysical Observatory established in a wooden edifice built at the cost of the Smithsonian Institution, on the grounds south of the Smithsonian building. April 26, Bequest of Jerome H. Kidder of S5000 and June 5 a gift from Alexander Graham Bell of $5000 for astro])hysical research received. April JO, National Zoological Park placed under the direction of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution by order of Congress. Aug. JO, Congress appropriated $25 000 to make the west wing of Smithsonian building fireproof. 1891 March j, First appropriation ($10,000) made for the maintenance of the Astrophysical Observatory by Congress. Sept. 22, Gift of $200,000 received from Thomas G. Hodgkins of Setanket, New York. 1892 Oct. ji, i8g2, to Jan. ji, i8gj. Participation in the Columbian Historical Exposition m Madrid. Nffv. 2j, Death of Thomas G. Hodgkins, who left by will additional gifts to the Institution. 1893 Jan. 2J, New seal, designed by A. St. Gaudeiis, adopted by the Institution. May I to Oct. ji. Participation in the World's Columl)ian Exposition in Chicago. June I, Study table maintained at the Naples Zoological Station for occupancy by a stu- dent in Biology designated by the Smithsonian Institution. Oct. 2^, Received $42,000 West Shore Railroad four per cent bonds from bequest of Thomas G. Hodgkins. 1894 March 12, Act amending Revised Statutes, title 73, relative to constituent members of the " Establishment," and providing that the Institution may have power to receive money or other property by gift, bequest, or devise, passed by Con- gress. May ig. An additional sum of $8000 received from the Hodgkins estate. July 28, National Herbarium recalled from the Department of Agriculture. Sept. 12, Death of Robert vStanton Avery, who bequeathed his property to the Institution. 1895 Jan. 28, Hamilton Fund increased to $2000 by deposit of accrued interest, in the United States Treasury. Aug. g, Award of prizes from the Hodgkins Fund made. Sept. 18 to Dec. ji. Participation in the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. Dec. 2j, Complete set of the publications of the Institution deposited in the Library of Pembroke College, Oxford, the college from which Smithson was graduated. 1896 June 18, President of the United States directed the application of the Civil Service rules from July I, 1896, to all persons in the Bureaus under the Institution whose salaries are paid out of government ajipropriations. July iS, Paintinj^s, engravings, and other art works, deposited in the Corcoran Gallery ol Art in 1874 and later, returned to the Institution at the request of the Regents. Sept. 6, Death of G. Brown Goode, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in charge of the National Museum. Nov. 18, Bronze tablet directed to be placed on Smithson's tomb by the Institution, and a replica in the English Church in Genoa, Italy. 54 INDEX Abljott, Win. L., 337, 338, 341, 346, 356; explorations of, in Africa and Asin, 480 Abort, J. J., 309, 352 Act of Congress, removing Library of Institution to Library of Congress, 82- of James C. Welling, 76; remarks by General Joseph Wheeler on resolutions at death of, 77 ; resolutions on death of, by Senator John B. Henderson. 77 Coquillet, P. W., 346 Corcoran -Art Gallerj-, transfer of art objects to, 324 Corcoran, W. W., 324 Corporation of City of Washington presents memorial concerning Smithson bequest, 36 Correspondence, system of, in Smithsonian Institu- tion, 807 Cory, C. B., 33g Cones. Elliott, characterization of Bairdian School of ornithologists by, 170, 336, 469; on Bairdian Period in ornithology, 169 Couch, D. N., 181 54* 846 Index Court of Chancery, decree of, giving Smithson be- quest to the United States, 30 Coville, F. v., on Department of Botany, National Museum, 350, 351 Cox, Samuel Sullivan, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 63, 87 ; report of committee on death of, 75 Craig, Benjamin F., work in Smithsonian chemical laboratory by, 617 Crawford, Thomas, 361 Crittenden, Senator, John J., views of, on formation of library;, 267 Cross, Whitman, 347, 348, 352 Culbertson, Thaddeus, explorations by, 463 Culin, Stewart, 356 Cullom, Shelby Morse, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, S8 Curtin, Jeremiah, 370 Cashing, Frank Hamilton, 370, 386, 387, 388; assists on Smithsonian exhibits at Centennial Exposition, 327 Custine, Comte de, 360 Cutter, Charles A., remarks of, on Jewett's catalogue plan, 279 Cyclopaedia of Indian Tribes, 395 Dall, Wm. H., 170, 343, 35^, 356; account of corre- spondence of Professor Baird with the officers of the Hudson Bay Company, iSi ; on Department of Mollusks, National Museum, 342-344 ; on Miocene Faunse, 683 ; surveys of, 182 Dallas, George Mifflin, Chancellor and Regent, Smith- sonian Institution, 64, 62, 88 ; delivers address at laying corner-stone of Smithsonian Institution, 256; endorses the election of Henry as Secretary of Smith- sonian Institution, 141 Dana, James Dwight, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 88, 163, 164 Darwin, Charles, 150 Davenport, Thomas, experiments with Henry mag- nets, 139 ; makes engine to run on circular track, 139 Davis, C. H., translation of Gauss's Theoria Motus Corporum Coelestium by, 566 Davis, David, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 88 Davis, Garrett, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 89 Davis, Henry Winter, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 89 Davis, Jefferson, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 89 ; favors acceptance of the Smithson bequest, 26 ; on Committee on final organization of Smithsonian Institution, 51 ; secures return of money lost in State bonds, 78, 483 Davis, John, influence in final organization of Smith- sonian Institution, 55 Dayton, William Lewis, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 8g Dean, George W., longitude observations made by, 599 Deane, James, on Fossil Foot-prints in Connecticut Valley, 693 Decorative Art among American Indians, investiga- tions by W. H. Holmes on, 382 Deep Sea Fishes of the North Atlantic Basin, 499 Deering, Nathaniel Cobb, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, C5, 90 Delafield, Richard, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 90, 261 Delano, Columbus, honorary member of Smithsonian Institution, 60 Delaunay, Charles, on Velocity of Light, 535 De St. Fond, F,, tour of, with Smithson, 10 Devens, Charles, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 90 Devonshire, Duke of, 406 Dewar, James, lecture on Magnetic Properties ol Liquefied Oxygen, 531 Dewey, Frederic P., chemical work for the Institu- tion, 621 Dickinson, Henry Louis, half-brother of Smithson, 22 Dolphin, Baird's, 193 Domestic wares, collections of native, 386 Donaldson, Thomas, assists on Smithson exhibits at Centennial Exhibition, 327 Dorsey, J. Owen, 370, 381 Douglas, James, 352 Douglass, Stephen Arnold, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 65, 91 Downes, John, prepares tables ol occultations, 576 Downing, Andrew J., design of, for planting the Mall, 263 ; vase erected to memory of, 263 Draper, Henry, on construction 01 a silvered-glass telescope, 603 Draper, John W., 432 Dresden Royal Library, gifts of, to Institution Library, 295 Drummonds, Messrs., of Channg Cross, bankers to Smithson, 19 Duchemin, Emile, 225 Dunglison, Robley, Professor of University of Virginia, plan of, for the organization of Smithsonian Institu- tion, 32 Duponceau, Peter S., 481 ; reasons for change of name of National Institute, 44 Dupreez, F., on Atmospheric Electricity, 532 Easter Island, collection from, 755 Edmunds, George Franklin, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 64, 91 ; introduces bill for National Zo- ological Park, 449 Ehrenberg, Christian G. , work of, translated by Baird, 164 Electricity, discoveries of Michael Faraday in, 527; discoveries of Henry in, 527 EUet, Charles, 462 Elliott, J. D., 360 Elsdale, Lieut.-Col. H., on Aerial Navigation as studied by Langley, 224 Emery, Matthew Gault, Regent, .Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, 91 Emory, W. H., 466 Emory, William H., 181 Emmons, George T., 356 Emmons, S. F., 347 Emperor Frederick does honor to Baird in Berlin, i8q Endlich, Frederic M., work of, in Smithsonian chemical laboratory, 620 English, Wm. Hayden, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, 91 ; remarks in Congress on value of Smith- sonian Contributions to Knowledge, 493 Espy, James P., Memoirs on Meteorology, by, when published, 496; pleads for the establishment of a meteorological bureau through Smithson bequest, 35 ; work in meteorology by, 649 "Establishment" of the Smithsonian Institution, changes in membership of, 60; duties of, 59; hon- orary members of, 60; meetings of, 60; statutory members of, 59 Ethnographic collections in the Smithsonian Institu- tion, 765 Ethnology of Thibet, by W. W. Rockhill, 480 Evans, French S., 256 Evans, George, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 62- 64, 92 Evans, John, 465 Everett, Edward, 273 ; on Jewett's catalogue plan, 278 Exchange bureaus, international, 411 Exchange of books, by Royal Library of France, 398; by United States Government, 398, 406-408; efforts of Alexandre Vattemare to promote, 398 Exchange office of Smithsonian Institution, clerical work of, 417 Exchange of publications by American Philosophical Society and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 397 Exchange of specimens by the National Museum, 364 Exchanges, History of the Smithsonian, 397 Exchange system of the Smithsonian Institution, agencies of, in Europe, 404 ; appreciation of, by American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 405 ; appropriations of Congress for, 413; co-operation 01 Royal Society of London in, 400, 401 ; cost of 413 ; description of, by Henry, 397, 406 ; distribution of Government publications through, 405; influence of Poinsett in inaugurating, 55 ; methods of, 414 ; records of, 417; statement of Baird regarding, 408 ; statistics of, 416, 417 Exchange systems, early efforts to establish, 398 ; in- ternational conferences relative to, 410 Executive Committee becomes Advisory Committee, 63; duties of, 63; number of meetings held by, 63; residence of members of, 63 Exhibition work of National Museum, 332 Expedition, to Africa, National Museurii sends a nat- uralist with, 480; to Alaska and Siberia to establish telegraph, 476 ; to Commander Islands, under Leon- hard Stejneger, 479 Index 847 Experiments at Albany Academy, important connec- tion of, with history of the telegraph, 126; on trans- mission of signals, date of, 126 Exploration of California, by E. Samuels, remarks of Henry on, 475; of mounds of Wisconsin, 473; of northern South America, 479 Explorations by the Smithsonian Institution in British America and Alaska, 475,477; cited in plan of or- ganization of Institution, 461 ; connection of, with Government surveys, 4C0; in liritish Honduras, 478 ; in Korea, 475 ; in Mongolia and Thibet, 479, 480 ; in Texas, 462; ui the West, 478; in Yucatan, 478; of im- portance to pakontology, 462; varied character of, 459 Exploring Expeditions, aid to geology and mineralogy by, 6^0-643 Extinction of animals, 446 Fahie, J. J., 136 ... Faraday, Michael, 141 ; discovers magneto-electnc in- duction, 127 ; first to print the discovery, 128 ; influ- ence of discoveries of Henry on, 124 Farmer, Moses E. , 530 Farnsworth, John Franklin, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 65, 92 Felton, Cornelius Conway, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 64, 92; on foreign appreciation of Smithso- nian Contributions to Knowledge, 492 Fenckncr, Governor of Greenland, 356 Ferry, Thomas White, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, 92 Fessenden, William Pitt, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 64, 93 Fewkes, J. Walter, 356, 370, 386, 388, 395 Fillmore, Millard, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, ^.63. 93 Fire m Smithsonian building, results of, 323 Fish Commission. See United States Fish Commis- sion Fish Hawk, steamer, cruises of; designed by Baird, 186 Fish, Nicholas, 410 Fisher, Wm. J., 356 Fishery Industries of the United States, Report of loth Census on, 174 Fishes, publications by the Smithsonian Institution on, 736-739 Fitch, Asa, 345 Fitch, Graham Newell, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, 93 Fitz, Henry, constructs refracting telescope for use in Chile, 504 Fitzall, John, sers'ant to Smithson, 19 Flcischmann, Charles L., Royal School of Agriculture, Bavaria, favors establishment of experimental farms through Smithsonian bequest, 35 Fleming, J. \., tribute of, to discoveries of Henry, 131 Flint, J. Sl., on collection of cinchona products, Na- tional Museum, 363 Floras, exotic, papers on, published by Institution, 705 Fliigel, Felix, agent in Leipsic for Smithsonian ex- changes, 404 Folsom, Charles, on Jewett's catalogue plan, 278 Foreman, Edward, assists on Smithsonian exhibits at Centennial Exhibition, 327; construction of meteor- ological map by, 657 Fossil Flora of United States, Smithsonian publica- tions on the, 679 Fossils, collections of, in Smithsonian Institution, 694, 696 Foster, John W. , 465 Foster, La Fayette Sabine, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 64, 93 Fox, G. V. , gift of works to Smithsonian Library by, 296 Fox, William J., 346 Francis, Joseph, 360 Franklin, I'.enjamin, 134 Frederick II., zoiilogical collection of, 443 Fremont, John C, iSi, 350 French, Benjamin B.,256 Fuller, Melville Weston, Regent and Chancellor, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 94 G.abb, Will i.am M., 856 G.tUatin, Albert, Honorary Member of Smithsonian Institution, Co, 373, 461 Galvanic Current, tmnsmission of, without loss offeree, 125 Garfield, James Abram, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, 94 ; efforts of, to increase number of copies of Smithsonian Reports, 484 ; his services recorded by Chancellor Waite, 73 ; his tribute to Henry, 73 ; speaks on the death of Chief Justice Chase, 72 Garttell, Lucius Jeremiah, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 64, 94 Gatschet, Albert S., 370, 381 Gauss, Carl F., 138 Geographical publications, issued by Smithsonian In- stitution, 783 Geography, knowledge of, advanced by Smithsonian Institution, 773 Geography of Africa, Smithsonian connection with exploration of, 781 Geography of Asia, Smithsonian aid given to study of, 779 Geography of North America, expeditions increasing knowledge of, 775 Geology and ^Iineralogy, aid from exploring expedi- tion to, 640-643 ; lectures on, under auspices of Insti- tution, 645; Reports of Progress in, published in .Smithsonian Reports, 637; reprints in Smithsonian Reports on, 638-640 ; short papers on, published in Smithsonian Reports, 635 German Fishery Union, circuLir issued by, in memory of Baird, 189, 190, 191 Germany, Emperor oC 360 Gibbes, Robert W., on Mososauru.s, 686 Gibbs, George, 356 Gibbs, Wolcott, on Platinum Metals, 618 Gibson, Randall Lee, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, ^4. 95 , ^ . Gilbert, Davies, President of Royal Society, eulogy on Smithson by, 15 Giles, William E., 482 Gill, Theodore, librarian of Smithsonian Institution, 289; extract from biographical sketch of Goode, by, 508 ... Gilliss, J. M., 356, 467; astronomical expedition to Chile by, 593 ; reports solar eclipses of 1858 and i8co, 573 Gilman, Charles, 256 Gilman, Daniel Coit, on work of Henry and Baird, 805 ; on retirement of Charles C. Jewett, 284 ; on system of correspondence in Smithsonian Institu- tion, 807 Gir.ird, Charles, assistant to Baird in classifying rep- tiles, 172; on ichthyology, 714 Girard College Magnetic Observations, by A. D. B.achc, published in Contributions to Knowledge, 531 Glover, Townend, 346 Godman, F. D., 339 Goode, George Brown, ancestry of, 501 : appointed assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 503; Catalogue of the Fishes of the IScrmudas, 510; catalogues of collections by Institution in Ex- hibitions, 727 ; college life of, 502 ; connection of, with American Historical Association, and Southern His- torical Society, 505 ; connection of, with U. S. Fish Commission, 503 ; dateof birth and death of, 501; de- grees conferred on, 506 ; domestic hfe of, 515 ; expo- sition work of, 515: honors received for exposition work of, 504 ; ichthyological work of, 511 ; interest of, in general natural historj', 514 : investigation of .'\m- erican fisheries for the Tenth Census by, 511 ; note on royal descent of Smithson by, 2 ; on American Fishes, 512; personal characteristics of, 506; personal qual- ities of, remarks of Langley and Gill on. 5 1 5 ; proposed work in ichthyology of, 514; recognition of early American scientists by, 505 ; special adaptation of, to museum work, 508 ; work at Wesleyaii University by, 502; work in bibliography by, 514. Gould, A. A., 342 Gould, Benjamin A., history of discovery of Neptune, 580; Memoirs on Transatlantic Longitude, 596; sends out time signals, 212 Government Explorations, list of, prior to 1856, 465, 467 Graham, J. D., iSi, 466 Grammar of the Mutsun language, extract from pre- face of, 497 Grant, Ulysses S., 360 Gravity-work, in Smithsonian Institution, 554 Gray, Asa, Regent, Smithsoni.in Institution, 64, 95, 150, 273; botanical work of, for Smithsonian Institu- tion, 698 ; letter of, on Smithsonian exch.inge of publi- 848 Index cations, 405 ; 011 life of Henry at Princeton, 120, 121 ; report of committee of Regents on death of, 75 Gray, George, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 95 Gray, Thomas, physical papers by, in Smithsonian Report, 1896, 546 Grayson, A. J., 337 Great Britain, facsimiles of national manuscripts of, pre- sented to Smithsonian Library, 297 Gregory, Rev. George, influence of, on Henry, 119 Gunnison, J. W., 466 Guyot, Arnold, meteorological work of, in connection with Smithsonian Institution, 655 ; on Advantages of the Metric System in Scientific Investigation, 544 Habel, Simeon, bequest of, 237 ; biographical sketch of, 237 ; on the Sculptures of the Santa Lucia Cos- umalwhuapa, 237 Hague, Arnold, 348 Haldeman, Stephen S., 163, 164 Halderman, J. A., 357 Hale, Edward Everett, on Jewett's catalogue plan, 279 Hall, Charles F., 357; Expedition aided by Smith- sonian Institution, 595 Halliwell, J. O., gifts to Smithsonian Library by, 295 Hallock, William, on Flow of Solids, 554 Hamilton College equatorial telescope, 601 Hamilton, James, bequest of, 236 Hamlin, Hannibal, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 95; on publication of Smithsonian Report, 485 Hancock, Winfield S-, 360 Hare, Robert, 141 ; Honorary Member of Smithsonian Institution, 60; gift of physical apparatus by, 617 ; on explosiveness of niter, 612 Harkness, William, on Progress of Science as Exem- plified in the Art of Weighing and Measuring, 545 Harvey, Wm. H., on Marine Algte, 703 Hawes, Geo. W., 347, 352 Hawley, Gideon, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 62, 63. 96 Hayden, F. V., 357, 468 ; collections of, 682 ; surveys under, 182 Hayes, I. I., 357 : Expedition, aided by Smithsonian Institution, 595 Hazleton, Gerry Whiting, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 65, 96 Heck's Bilder-Atlas, 166 Helmholtz (von), H. L. F., 126; paper on electricity by, reprinted in Smithsonian Report for 1873, 532 Henderson, John Brooks, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 65, 96 ; resolutions of, on death of Henry Cop- pee, 77 Hendricks, Thomas Andrews, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 96 Henry, Joseph, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- tion, 261, 291, 362 ; account of life of, in Princeton, by Asa Gray, 120, 121 ; address of, on The Im- provement of Mechanical Arts, 145; address of, on Thoughts on Education, 146 ; address of, to National Academy of Sciences, 154 ; adds one thousand dol- lars to the Smithson Fund, 236 : an English authority on discoveiies in electro-magnetism of, 137; annual reports of, to Board of Regents of Smithsonian Insti- tution, 145; application of magnet to the separation of magnetic iron from other substances by, 139 ; ap- pointed Professor of Mathematics in the Albany Academy, 120; approval of theory of evolution by, 150; capacity of, for work, 119; changes during life of, 115; circular of, on lightning rods, 532; circu- lar of, relative to earthquakes, 547 ; connection of American science with life of, 115 ; connection of, with invention of the electric telegraph, 525 ; connection of, with mathematical work, 567; construction of electro- magnetic engine by, 128; construction of first elec- tro-magnetic motor by, 138; contributions of, to me- teorology, 130; contributions of, to physics, 522; credit due to, in construction of electro-magnetic telegraph, 133, 134; daily weather map due to, 146; date of birth of, 1 17 ; date ofelection as Secretary 58; date ofelection as Secretary of the Smithsonian In- stitution, 141: discoveries by, in connection with the Ley den jar, 129; discoveries by, on connection of electricity with magnets, 122, 123 ; discovers mag- neto-electric inducticm, 127 ; early childhood of, 117; elected Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Col- lege of New Jersey, 120; election of, as Secretary of Smithsonian Institution, 141 ; eulogy of, on Alex- ander Dallas Bache, 71, 72; experiments of, on illu- minantsfor lighthouses, 151 ; extracts from note-books of, on meteorology, 145, 146; father's name, 117; greatness of, shown in philosophical comprehen- sion of Nature, 130; home-life of, 153; import- ance of discoveries of, in electro-magnetism, 123; Investigations relative to Illuminating Material, 557; later studies of, in induction, 1 29 ; Lectures on Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy, and Chem- istry, 119; letter of, to Asa Gray on the theory of evolution, 150 ; letter of, to Joseph Patterson, on ex- istence of a Creator, 155; letter of, to Rev. S. B. Dod, on the first actual line of telegraph, 135; liter- ary tastes of, as a boy, 117, 118 ; long term of service, 58; marriage of, 121 ; memberof Lighthouse Board, 151; memorial service for, 156; mode of testing building materials by, 555; monument to, 156; mother's name, 117; name of, given to the Unit of Inductive Resistance, 126; On Acoustics Applied to Public Buildings, 538 ; on aeronautic machinery, 550; on aid rendered by the government to explora- tions by Institution, 478; on correlation of physical, chemical, and vital forces, 147; on desirabihty of forming a government meteorological system, 676; on exchange of Smithsonian publications, 400, 401 ; on expenditure of Smithsonian fund for inter- national exchanges, 406, 407 ; on explorations by Thaddeus Culbertson, 462 ; on Instructions for Me- teorological Observers, 147 ; on Jewett's plan for furnishing catalogues to individual libraries, 277 ; on lightning-rods, 130; on meteorology, 650; on phenomena of light and heat, 130; on physical ob- servatory, 556 ; on publication of Smithsonian Con- tributions to Knowledge, 490 ; on signaling during Civil War, 152; on Smitlisonian Meteorological System, 674; on the theory of the Smithsonian Re- port, 485 ; on transfer of linguistic manuscripts to John W. Powell, 471; on transfer of Smithsonian library to library of Congress, 286, 287; on transfer of Smithsonian meteorological work to Weather Bureau. 677 ; on weather maps, 658 ; on work of bib- liography in Smithsonian Institution, 785 ; on work of tj. S. Fish Commission, 469; opposition of, to use of Smithson Fund for local expenditures, 143 ; orig- inates public fish-culture, 187; oscillating machine of, 139; papers of, in Smithsonian Publications, 555; period of experimental work of, 122; plan of, for utilizing power of quantity magnet through agency of intensity magnet, 135; plan of organization pre- sented to Board of Regents of Smithsonian Institu- tion by, 142; Port Henry, N. Y., named in honor of, 139; possibilities of the rotary motor as foreseen by, 139 ; President of Philosophical Society of Wash- ington, 153; production of mechanical power by elec- tro-magnetism by, 138 ; professes to be a discoverer, not an inventor, 132; publishes paper in American Journal of Science, 120; refusal of, to engage in controversies on the beginnings of the telegraph, 131; remarks of, before American Association, 145; re- marks of, on services of William W. Seaton, 69, 70; remarks on discovery of transmission of galvanic cur- rent by, 125 : reports of 1850-1851 by, concerning care of government collections, 311, 312 ; reports of, on character of Smithsonian library, 291 ; researches of, on fog-signaling, 151 ; residence of, in Smithsonian building, 261 ; results of the policy of, 143; sacrifice of, in abandoning investigation for administration, 144; school-life of, 120; second President of National Academy of Science, 152; sends circular letter to foreign governments on international exchanges, 409 ; service of, as first Secretary of tlie Institution, 527; similarity of opinions of, with Michael Faraday and J. Clerk Maxwell and H. Hertz, shown by W. H. Preece, 149; special work of, in connection with Smithsonian Institution, 232 ; statement of, in fifth report concerning Baird's qualification for As- sistant Secretary of Smithsonian Institution, 166; statement of, on use of two batteries and two mag- nets, 124; statue of, date of unveiling, 263 ; statue of, in National Library, 156: statue of, in Smithsonian grounds, 263 ; studies in electiicity of, 122; success of, as an administrator, 115 ; syllabus of a course of lectures in physics by, 555; tablet to memory of, 121 ; taste for books aroused in, ii8; teacher in Al- bany Academy 122; testimony of, in Supreme Court, 132 : tribute of, to Rev. (jeorge Gregory, 119; use by, of the earth for a return circuit, 134; views of, on importance of a National Museum, 313 ; work of, at Index 849 Albany Academy, 523; work of, for Government of United States in testing building materials, and on new process for procuring alcohol, 151; work of, on meteorology in connection with agriculture, 146 Henry and the Royal Society, work in bibliography, 789 . . . Henry, Mary A., gives date of experiments in Albany Academy in transmission of signals, 126 Henry, William, father of Joseph Heniy, 117 Henshaw, Henry W., 370 Herndon, William L. , 357 Herschel, Sir John, 223 Hertz, Heiiirich, 148; experiments of, 150 Hewitt, J. N. B., 370 Hilgard, Eugene W. , on carbon disulphide, 616; on Geology of Lower Louisiana, 634; on prevention of counterfeiiing bank notes, 616 Hilgard, J. C, on Tides and Tidal Action, 548 Hill, Benjamin Harvey, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 97 Hill, Nathaniel Peter, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 97 Hillebrand, W. F., 352 HiUiard, Henry Washington, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 62, 64, 78, 97 Hints on Pubhc Architecture, by Robert Dale Owen, first publication of the Institution, 496 Hitchcock, Edward, on Surface Geology, 632 Hitchcock, Romyn, 357 Hitt, Robert Roberts, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 3, 97 Hoar, Ebenezer Rock wood, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 64, 98 Hoar, George Frisbie, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 98 Hodge, Frederick Webb, 370 Hodgkins fund prizes, papers submitted for, 623-626 Hodgkins medal of the Smithsonian Institution, 245 Hodgkins, Thomas George, bequest of, to Smithson fund, 241 ; biographical sketch of, 241 Hoffman, W. J., 357, 370, 381; on Indian jugglery, 388 Holmes, Wm. H., 370, 385, 395; on costume among American Indians, 385 Holmgren, F., on Color Blindness in its Relations to Accidents by Kail and Sea, 535 Hornaday, Wm. T., 446 Hornblower, Josiah, 361 Horsford, Eben N., lectures on Munitions of War by, 618 Hough, Franklin H., 250; on Periodical Phenomena in Plants and Animals, 663, 664 Hough, William Jarvis, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 51, 62, 63, 98 House of Representatives shows generous apprecia- tion of Smithson bequest, 26 Howard, L. O., on Department of Insects, National Museum, 344-346 Hoy, Philo R., 163 Hubbard, Gardiner Greene, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 65, 98 Huggins on Results of Spectrum Analysis Applied to the Heavenly Bodies, 535 Hungerford. Henry James, nephew of Smithson and principal legatee, 19, 20, 25; place and date of death of, 25 ; title of, 25 Hungerfords of Studley, ancestors of Smithson's mother, i Hunt, T. Sterry, on relation of Chemistry to Geolog>', 615 Hunter, Henry C, assists J. M. Gilhss m expedition to Chile, 594 Huxley, Thomas H., 406; Jubilee Year Address by, 558; remarks of, on Fish-culture in America and Great Britain, 1S8 Hyatt, Alpheus, on Genesis of the Arietidae, 685 Hydrography of the Ohio River, treatise on, published by Institution, 462 Hypsometric Map of United States, prepared by Charles A. Schott, 784 Ilarregui (y) Salazar, Governor of Yucatan, 478 Immediate Exchange of the Official Journals, Par- liamentary Annals and Documents, provision for a convention to consider the, 411 Indexes to Chemical Literature published by Institu- tion, 623 Indian Lingubtic Collections, plan by Wm. W. Turner for, 379 Indians, American, beliefs among, 392 ; ceremonials of, 394 ; classification of, by Bureau of Ethnol- ogy. 373. 374. 376 ; classification of linguistic char- acters of, 377 ; collection of vocabularies of, by the Smithsonian Institution, 757; collections relating to, made by J. W. Powell, 394 ; costume among, 385; games of, 388; habitations among, 584; handi- craft among, 385 ; hieroglyphic system of, 383 ; idea of property right among, 392; investigation of, 372; laws of marriage among, 391 ; quarrying and min- ing among, 387 ; sign-language among, 381 ; social organizations among, 388; stocks, table of, of North American, J77; symbols of belief among, 393 ; syn- opsis of, by Gallatin, 379 ; system of trioal laws among, 390; tribal society among, 389 Induction, discovery of, by Michael Faraday, 526; dis- covery of, by Henry, 526 ; magneto-electric, date of discovery of, 127 Ingalls, John James, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, , 65, 99 IngersoU, Joseph R., 47, 269 Insects, publications by the Smithsonian Institution, on, 730-732 International Congress of Electricians, name of Henry given to unit of inductive resistance by, 126 International Exchange Conferences at Brussels, 410 International Exchange of Official Documents, Scien- tific and Literary Publications, provisions of con- vention for, 411 International Exchanges, 23; J. S. Billings on, 819; D. C. (;ilnian on, 8oq International Fishery Exhibition of Berlin, 288 International Geographical Congress, in Paris, plan of, for international exchanges, 409, 410 Introductions to North American Ethnology, 395, 499 Invertebrate Animals, Smithsonian publications on, 681-686, 728 Invertebrate Paleontology, list of memoirs on, 692 Irving, Washington, Honorary Member of Smithso- nian Institution, 60 Ives, Joseph C, expedition of, 180 Jackson, Andrew, 361 Jackson, Charles T., 465 Jackson, T. C, 349 Janssen, J., 421 Jardin des Plantes, origin of, 444 Jefferson, Thomas, 360 Jeffreys, J. Gwyn, 343 Jenkins, Timothy, member of committee on final or- ganization of Smithsonian Institution, 61 Jenney, W. P., 352 Jewett, Charles C., becomes Superintendent of Boston Public Library, 284 ; biographical sketch of, 274, 275; library work of, 816; method proposed by, for securing complete catalogue of all libraries in LJnited States, 276: Notices of Public Libraries of the U. S. of America by, 277 ; on apian for a general catalogue, 787 ; on the construction of catalogues of libraries, 278 ; plan of, for Smithsonian Library, 272 ; retire- ment of, from the Institution, 283 Jillson, Joseph, 357 Joad, George, 351 Johnson, Andrew, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 99, 483 Johnson, Samuel W., on Agricultural Chemistrj', 615 Johnson, Walter R., pleads use of Smithsonian be- quest in fostering researches in physical science, 35 Johnston, Joseph Eggleston,"" Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 90 Johnston, William Preston, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 64, 100 Joessel, J. G,, 225 Joule. James P., 148, gives priority to Henry in con- struction of electro-magnetic engines, 138 Jouy, P. L., 357; work in Korea of, 479 Judd, Orange, 515 Kalb, Baron de, 361 Kane, Elisha Kent, 467 ; observations on terrestrial magnetism by, 530 ; on Tidal Observations in the Arctic Seas, 548 Keate, Luniley Hungerford, brother of Elizabeth Keate Macie, 8 850 Index Keate, Penelope, grandmother of Smithson, will of, 8 Kelvin, Lord, on Boscovich's Theorj-, 553 Kennicott, Robert, 339, 357, 475, 476; snrvey by, 182 Kidder, Jerome Henry, 340; bequest of, 237, 424; biographical sketch of, 237 King, Clarence, 347; on Age of the Earth, 550; su--- vey under, 182 King, C. B., collection of engravings presented to Institution by, 298 King, Henry, curator in charge of Exploring Expedi- tion Collections, 306 King, William Rufus, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 100 Kirchhoff, G. R., 219, 421 Kirtland, Jared P., 163 Koehler, S. R., on Section of Graphic Arts, National Museum, 363 Kumlien, Ludwig, 357; explorations of, 182 Kummer, Ernst E., 225 Kung, Prince, 360 Laboulaye, Edouard R. L., 403 Lacoe, R. D., 353 Lamansky's curve, illustration of, 431 Langley, John W., on early studies of Secretary Langley in astronomy, 204 Langley, Samuel Pierpont, Secretary of the Smith- sonian Institution, 58; accompanieseclipseexpedition to Spain, 214; administrative work of, at the Smith- sonian Institution, 230-231 ; aerodome constructed by, 227; ancestors of, 206 ; becomes Assistant at the Observatory in Cambridge, 202 ; becomes Assistant Professor of Mathematics in U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, 202 ; becomes Director of Allegheny Observatory, 203 ; builds a telescope, 201 ; character- istics of, 210 ; connection of, with scientific societies, 233 ; contributions of, to science, 233 ; data and place of birth of, 201 ; degrees conferred upon, 233 ; early de- velopment of mechanical taste by, 205 ; early interest of, in question of flight, 205 ; expedition of, to Mount Whitney, 221 ; First Assistant Secretary of Smith- sonian Institution, 203 ; first contribution to science by, 214; founder of Smithsonian Asttophysical Ob- servatory and National Zoological Park, 232 ; in- augurates system of time signals for Pennsylvania railroads, 212-213; increase in funds in Smithsonian Institution under administration of, 232 ; invents the bolometer, 217; measurements upon the light of the glow-worm, 150; measures of the energy of light with bolometer, 223 ; medals received by, 234 ; ob- servations at Mount Etna by, 221; observations on solar eclipse at Pike's Peak by, 220; observations upon the spectrum of the fire-fly by, 223; on Lunar Photography, 577 ; on Selective Absorption of the Solar Rays by the Earth's Atmosphere, 220 ; on The Internal Work of the Wind, 552; on The Minute Structure of the Solar Photosphere, 215; origin of "time service" systems by, 212; practice of, as an architect, 201; rapid progress of, in astronomical studies, 202 ; reminiscences of boyhood of, 203 ; re- searches of, on the solar atmosphere, 214; researches of, on temperature of the moon with bolometer, 223; results obtained in use of bolometer and holo- graph, 218, 223 ; school life of, 201 ; special work of, in connection with Smithsonian Institution, 232 ; studies of, on disk of the sun, 214 ; study of sun- spots by, 214; study of the distribution of heat by, with thermopile, 215; study of the physics of the atmosphere and conditions of artificial flight by, 223 ; succeeds Baird as Secretary of Smithsonian Institu- tion, 203 ; work of, at Allegheny Observatory, 211 Lapham, I. A., 474 Latimer, Geo., 357 Lawrence, Abbott, of Boston, signs circular of invita- tion to found the National Institute, 47 Lawrence, George N., 163, 169 Lea, Isaac, 343, 351 Le Conte, John, 164 Le Conte, Joseph, on flying-machines, 226 Lefroy, John Henry, gives collection to Smithsonian Library, 297 Leidy, Joseph, 163 ; on Extinct Sloth Tribe of North America, 088; on Extinct Species of American Ox, 686 ; on Flora and Fauna within Living Animals, 704 ; on Fossil Reptiles, 690 Leigh, Senator Benjamin W., favors acceptance of the Smithson becpicst, 26 Lenox, Walter, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 100 Lepsius, Carl Richard, gifts of, to the Institution Li- brary, 295 Lewis, James, 343 .. . Librarian of Smithsonian Institution, date of appoint- ment of first, 274 Librarians, first conference of, 281 Librarians, resolutions passed by first convention of, 282 Libraries, public, of United States, growth of, 818 Library catalogues, plan of printing, by stereotyped titles, proposed by Jewett, 277 ; cause of failure of, 2S0 Library of Congress, catalogue of, begun on Jewett's plan, 280 Library of Smithsonian Institution, transferred to Con- gressional Library, 817, 825; of office of Smithsonian Institution, 299; policy toward formation of, 810; Secretary's, Smithsonian Institution, 299 Library work of C. C. Jewett, J. S. Billings on, 816 Life Histories of North American Birds, published by National Museum, 499 Light, cheapest form of, researches on, 442 Lilienthal, Otto, 226 ; on Practical Experiments in Soaring, 553 ; on Problems in Flying, 553 Lincoln, Abraham, companionship of, with Henry, 152 Linell, M. L., 345 Linguistic Collections of Indian tribes in Bureau of Ethnology, extent of, 380; plan extended, to include sign-language, etc., 380 Linguistics, publications on, by Institution, 497, 7s8, 762 Lining, John, first meteorological observations in United States, 647 Linn, Senator Lewis F., promotes interests of National Institution, 41 List of Foreign Correspondents of the Smithsonian Institution, by Geo. H. Boehmer, 418 Livermore, George, on Jewett's catalogue plan, 279 Locke, John, invents chronograph, 529 Lockhart, James, 339 Lockyer, Joseph Norman, 219 Lodge, Henry Cabot, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 100 Lodge, Oliver, on Henry's discoveries in connection with the Leyden Jar, 129; on Modem Theory of Light, 536 ... Loew, Oscar, work in Smithsonian chemical labora- tory, 620 Longifellow, Henry Wadsworth, 273 Longitude calculations by Coast Survey campaign, 598 Longitude, campaign in, made by George W. Dean, 599 Longitude, transatlantic, determinations by American astronomers, 596 Longstreet, Augustus B., Honorary Member of Smith- sonian Institution, 60 Loomis, Elias, on The Aurora, 532 ; work in meteor- ology by, 649 Lovering, Joseph, remarks on Henry by, 148 ; on Michelson's researches in optics, 536 Lowell, James R., story of Percy at Concord, 5 Lubbock, Sir John, 406 Lunar Photography, work of the Institution in con- nection with Lick Observatory, 578 McCall, G. A., 181 McClellan, George B., expeditions of, 180; makes col- lection of reptiles, 181 McClelland, Robert, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 101 McCrary, George Washington, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, loi McGraw, Doctor, instructor of Professor Baird, 162 Mcjilton, J. N., Grand chaplain, 256 McKay, Charles L., 357 McKenzie, A., 339 McLeod, M., 339 McPherson, Edward, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, lOI MacFarlane, Robert, 339, 357 Mac Rae, Archibald, assists Gilliss in Chile, 594 Macie, Elizabeth Keate, mother of James Smithson, i Macie, James, i Macie, James Lewis, early name of James Smithson, i ; entered at Pembroke College, O.xford, 8 Index 851 Maclean, John, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, lOI Magnet, intensity, creator of, 125; quantity, 125.; quan- tity, of Sturgeon, 125; quantity, perfected by Henry, 124 ; quantity, plan of Henry for using at great dis- tances, 135 Magnetic Induction, lectures by J. A. Ewing on, re- printed in Smithsonian Report, 531 Magnetic Observatory, removal from the Institution, Magneto-electric Induction, date of discovery of, 127 Magneto-electricity, connection of Michael Faraday and Henry in disco ver>' of, 128 ; date of discovery of, 126 Magowan, D. J., on modes of keeping time known among the Chinese, 544 Magruder, William Bean, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 65, 102 Mallery, Garrick, 370, 381 ; memoirs of, on Rictogra- phy, 382 Mallet, Robert, On the Observation of Earthquake Phenomena, 547 Mammals, collections of, in National Museum, 336, 337; publications by the Smithsonian Institution on, 743 Marcy, R. B., 180, 466, 467 Marey, E. J., lectures of, on flight in animal kingdom, 551 ; on " Le vol des oiseaux," 225 Mariette, Bey, gives facsimiles of Egyptian papyri to Smithsonian Library, 297 Marsh, George Perkins, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 102 : arguments in favor of the library plan. 269 ; collection of engravings of, purchased by the Institution, 298 ; collection of engravings of, trans- ferred to Library of Congress, 324 ; connection of, with Baird, 166; member of c'immittce on final or- ganization of Smithsonian Insiitulion, 51; offers amendments having important influence on organi- zation of Smithsonian Institution, 50 Marshall, J. W., 349 Mary, George, 345 Mascart, M., name of Henry for unit of induction pro- posed by, 127 : on The Age of Electricity, 533 Mason, James Murray, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 102 Mason, Orme, on Solution, 553 Mason, Otis T., on Department of Ethnology, Na- tional Museum, 355-358 : on characteristics of Dr. Goode, 507 ; on Comparative Technology, 768 Mathematical Science, progress of, in last half-century. Mathematical work of Smithsonian Institution, char- acter of, 563 Matteucci C, on Earth Currents, 532 Matthews, Washington, 357 Maury, John Walker, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 102 Ma.xey, Samuel Bell, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 103 Meacham, James, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 103 Mearns, Edgar A., 336 Meech, L. W. , memoirs by, 533 Meigs, Josiah, early collection ol meteorological data by, 648 Meigs, ISIontgomcry C-, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, 103, 329; member of E.xecutive Committee of Smithsonian Institution, 76 ; memorial record by Henry Coppee, 76 Melsheimer, f. E., 163. 164 ISIendenhall, T. C, on FundamentalUnits of Measure, 545; on "The Henrj'," 533 Merrill, George P., on Department of Geology, Na- tional Museum, 347-350; work of, in Smithsonian chemical laboratory, 621 Meske, O., 345 Meteoric Fire Ball, account of a, 589 Meteorites, work of the Institution on, 591 Meteorological investigations, special, carried on by Institution, 668; in connection with Patent Office, 661 Meteorological memoirs and monographs in Smithso- nian publications, 671 Meteorological observations in Arctic regions, reduced by Charles A. Schott, 671; list of papers on, 671; loss of appropriations for, 672; origin of American, 647 Meteorological publications of the Institution, 543-546 Meteorological records of Institution, transferred to Weather Bureau by Langlcy, 678 Meteorological tables by Arnold Guyot, 670 Meteorological work, three classes of observers m, 653 ; aid from newspapers, telegraph reports, 659 ; of Smithsonian Institution, an aid to agriculture, 661 ; use of telegraph by Henry in, 656 Mexican Boundary Commission, 350 Mexican Boundary Surveys, 180 Michelson, A. A., on the Applicatinn of Interference Methods to Spectroscopic Measurements, J36 Miller, Samuel Freeman, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 65, 103 Mills, Robert, assistant architect of Smithsonian build- ing, 256 MindcleflT, Cosmos, 385 Mindeleff, Victor, 370, 386 Mitchell, Maria, recognition of work of, by the Smith- sonian Institution, 588 Mitsukuri, K., 346 Mohun, R. Dorsey, 357, 457 Mollusks, publications oy the Smithsonian Institution on> 733. 736 Mooney, James, 356, 370, 388, 395 Moore, H. C., 457 Morgan, Lewis H , on Cons.anguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, 763; on American Houses and House-life, 385 Morin, A., on Warming and Ventilating Occupied Buildings, 557 Morlcy, Edward W., on Densities of Oxygen and Hy- drogen and the Ratio of their Atomic Weights, 554 ; physico-chemical investigations by, 627 Morocco, Emperor of, 360 Morrill, Justin Smith. Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 104; favors Zoological Park, 449 Morris, John G., 163, 164 Morrison, H. K., 345 Morrison of Greenock, Scotland, 132 Morse, S. F. B., 362 Morton, Henry, deposits Ramsden dividing engine in National Museum, 546 Morton, Levi Parsons, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 104 Motor, electro-magnetic, construction of first, 139, 159 Mounds of Wisconsin, exploration of, by American Antiquarian Society, remarks of Henry on, 473, 474 Miiller, J., on Principles of the Mechanical Theory of Heat, 534; on Recent Progress in Physics, 530: reports on Galvanism and Electricity, published in Smithsonian Report, 530 Museums of the Future, by G. Brown Goode, 503 Myriapods, Charles Har\-ey BoUman on, 732 Napier, John, 226 National Academy of Sciences, establishment of, 152; National Herbarium, transfer of, to Agricultural De- partment, 708 ; work of Institution on, 707 National Institute, appropriations lost, 48; attempts by, to secure Smithson legacy, 41 : bill of incorpora- tion of, 305 : bill to incorporate and unite with Smith- sonian Institution, 41, 43; bills to give management of Smithsonian foundation to, 41; cause of decline of, according to Goode, 310; change of name to, 44; collections of, deposited in Smithsonian Institution, 305 ; collections of, reports of committee in 1842, 307; constitution of. 37; date of organization of, 39; dissolved, 305; division of. into classes, 52; first meeting of, under new name. 45; gradual decjine of, 48 ; incorporated. 43 ; influence of, on organization of Smithsonian Institution, 49 ; influence of. on science, 49; John Tyler's endorsement ^^i, 46; library of, presented to Institution, 295; members and offi- cers of, 37; memorial to Congress, recommending appropriation for, 48; memorializes Congress, 45; or- ganization of, 305; plan for, by Joel Bariow. 304; Senator Rufus Choate recommends an appropriaiion by Congress for, 45 ; sends out circulars to secure funds, 45; system of exchange of specimens by, 44 National Library, development of, due to Rufus Choate, 56 National Museum Building Commission, 329^ National Museum, building pro^^ded for, by Congress, 329 852 Index National Museum, collections of, in mineralogy and ge- ology, 643; connection of, with Institution, early his- tory of, 717-722; date of erection of building for, 329; design of building for, 329; development of, commensurate with activities of the Government, 333; development of, under Goode, 330,331; dis- tribution of specimens by, 364 ; double origin of, 183; exchange of specimens by, 364; exhibition work of, 332; functions of, 335; Gilman on formation of, 810; influence of, 331 ; nucleus of, in Institute Collections, 306; nucleus of, in Patent-Office build- ing, 306; papers relating to geological collections in, 637; publications of, 365-366, 498; synopsis of collections of, 336-364; working plan of, 300 National Museum Library, gift by Baird to, 290 National Zoological Park, buildings in, 452; collections made in Yellowstone Park for, 455 ; date of formation of, 450; development of, 451 ; difficulty of procur- ing specimens for, 454; gifts of animals to, 453; material derived from death of animals in, 457; origi- nal number of animals in, 453; popular interest in, 455; restrictions by Committee on Appropriations upon, 453; salubrity of conditions of, 456; selection of site for, 448 ; site of, transferred to Regents of Smith- sonian Institution, 450 Natural Cabinet of Curiosities, attempt to join it with Smithsonian Institution, 51 Naval Observatory, first site of, 248 ; site of second, 248 Needle-telegraph, forms of, 133 Nelson, E. W., 355, 357; explorations of, 182 Neptune, computations on the orbit of, 579 Newberry, John S., 163; eulogy of Baird, 194-197 Newcomb, Simon, investigations of orbit of Neptune by, 580; on General Integrals of Planetary Mo- tion, 593; on Investigation of the Orbit of Uranus, Newton, H. A., on metric tables, 544; preparation of metric tables by, 567; work on star-maps by, 591 Newton, Sir Isaac, 156, 226 Niles, Senator, John Tvl., views on formation of library, 268 North American Birds, History of, by S. F. Baird, T. M. Brewer, and R. Ridgwaj^, 170 ; Review of, 171 North Pacific Exploring Expedition, 350 Northumberland, Duke of, presents library to Institu- tion, 295 Northumberland, Hugh Smithson becomes first Duke of, I Ober, F. A., 337 Occultations visible in the United States and elsewhere, List of, 576 Oceanic Ichthyology, by Goode and T. H. Bean, 341, 509 Oersted, Hans Christian, 133 Office Libraiy of the Institution, 299 Ohm, George S., confirmation by Henry of mathe- matical theory of, 125 ; formula of, adopted by Sir Charles Wheatstone, 137 Olmstead, Frederick L., 451 Order of St. Olaf, Baird made Knight of, 192 Organization Committee, resolution of, concerning character of Secretary of Smithsonian Institution, 57 Organization of Smithsonian Institution, how attained, 57 ; plans of, similarity of National and Smithsonian Institutions, 51 ; suggestions offered as to, 32 Owen, David Dale, 465 Owen, Robert Dale, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 62, 65, 104, 250, 269; activities of, 78; adoption of bill of, for erection of Smithsonian building, 248; chairman of building committee, 78, 253; chairman of organization committee, 57; denounces use made of Girard fund, 250; introduces bill in Congress, on publications, 482; Irish elk described by, 354; member first Board of Regents, 57 ; on Hints on Public Architecture, 253; on style of building desired for Smithsonian Institution, 250; prepares final act of incorporation for Smithsonian Institu- tion, 57 ; reports final bill for incorporation of Smith- sonian Institution, 51; secures passage of Organiza- tion Act, 78 Pacific Railroad surveys, 180, 350 Page, James Page, 256 Page, T. I., 467 Paleontology, explorations aiding, 462 Palmer, Edward, 357 Palmieri on electro-magnetic seismograph, 547 Panizzi, Sir Anthony, on first conference of librarians, 282 Parke, J. G., 466 Parker, Peter, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 104, 329; resolutions at his resignation, 74 Patent office destroyed by fire in 1836, 303 Patterson, Joseph, 154 Patterson, James WilUs, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 64, 105 Paul, G. R., 360 Paulding, James K., 306 Pearce, James Alfred, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 105 : eulogy of, by A. D. Bache, 67 ; ideas of, on formation of library, 267 ; remarks of, on the death of Richard Rush, 65 Peary, Mrs. R. E., 456 Peirce, Benjamin, 273; aid from Institution in distn- buting treatise on Analytical Mechanics by, 566 Pendulum Observations at Smithsonian Institution, 606 Penfield Iron Works, use of Henry's system for separa- tion of iron from other substances at, 139 Pennsylvania Gazette, 178S, contains suggestion for a National Museum, 304 Pennybacker, Isaac Samuels, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 62, 64, 105 Penrose, R. A. F., 348 Percy, Dorothy, half-sister of Smithson, leaves him a legacy, 22 Percy, Elizabeth, wife of Hugh Smithson, i Percy, Lord, command of camp at Boston, 6, 7 ; at Concord, 5 Perry, Commodore, M. C, 356, 357, 467 Perturbations of Planets, Tables for Determining, pub- lished by Institution, 592 Pettigrew, James Beel, on the Various Modes of Flight, 551 ,.,.,. Phelps, William Walter, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 105 Phelps, S. I.., assists Gilliss in expedition to Chile, 594 Philadelphia Museum receives first collections of United States Exploring Expedition, 306 Phillips, J. S., 226 Photography, index to the literature of, by Alfred Tuckerman, 608 Physical sciences, development of, during last half- century, 519 ; promoted by Institution through Henry, 519 Physics, papers on, published in Smithsonian Reports, 546-554 Pickering, Charles, 163; appointed curator by Library Committee of Congress, 309 ; on Egyptian Archae- ology, 757 Pilling, J. W., 370 Plateau, J., on Liquid Films and Figures of Equilibrium in Liquid Masses, 553 Poggendorff, J. G , on The Use of the Galvanometer, as a Measuring Instrument, 532 Poincare, M., on Light and Electricity, 533 Poinsett, Joel R., address of, on Objects and Aims of the National Institute, 40; attempts of, to secure Smithsonian legacy for National Institute, 38, 39; efforts of, to secure U. S. Exploring Expedition Collections, 306 ; influence of, on final organization of Smithsonian Institution, 55 Poland, Luke Potter, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 106 Poole, Wm. F., remarks on Professor Jewett's cata- logue plan, 279 Pope, Franklin L., on testimony of Henry in case of Morse sv^f. O'Reilly, 132; writes of the possibilities of the rotary motor as foreseen by Henry, 139 Pope, J., 466 Port Henry, named in honor of Joseph Henry, 139 Porter, Noah, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 106, 264; points out relation between Henry's early life and later career, 118 Powell, Baden, on State of Knowledge of Radiant Heat, 534 Powell, J. W., 355, 357, 381 ; connection of, with U. S. Geological Survey, 369 ; explorations in Colorado by, 367 ; explorations of Colorado River by, 642 ; survey by, 182 Powers, Stephen, 357 Precipitation, tables of, by Lorin Blodgett, 669 Index 853 Preece, W. H., points out the connections of the early opinions of Henry, 140 Preston, William Campbell, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 42, 47, 64, 106; antagonizes acceptance of the Smithson bequest, j5 ; promotes interests of Na- tional Institute, 41, 42 Priestley, J. R., gives instruments used in discovery of oxygen, 618 Priestley, Airs., presents chemical apparatus used in discovery of oxygen, 622 Princeton University, tablet erected to Henry at, 121. See College of New Jersey Principles of Museum Administration, by G. Brown Goode, 503 Proceedings, of National Museum, 365 ; character of, 498 Pruyn, John Van Schaick Lansing, Regent, Smithso- nian Institution, 63, 107 Public I'ish-culture, definition of, 188 Publications of the Smithsonian Institution, extent 01 distribution of, 500 Pueblo Area, collections from, in the Smithsonian In- stitution, 765 Pumpelly, Raphael, 349; on Geological Researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, 634 Quadrupeds of North America, Audubon on, 167 Radiant Energy, Light, and Heat, papers on, published by the Institution, 533-537 Rahts, Johannes, work on comet-orbits by, 589 Ralph, William L., 338, 340 Rainsdcn Dividing Engine, paper by J. Elfreth Wat- kins on, 546 Ramsey, William, on Solutions, 553 Rau, Charles, assists on Smithsonian exhibits at Cen- tennial Exhibition, 327; on Archa;ological Collections of the U. S. Museum, 755 ; on Indian Potteiy, 768 ; on Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and America, Raveret-Wattel, M., on care for fisheries in America, 188 Ray, P. H.. 357 Rayleigh, Lord, 150 Reading-room of the Institution, contents of, 300 Record of Progress, appendix to Smithsonian Re- port, 184 Records of Progress in Science, list of topics in, 792 Redfield, William C, work in meteorology, 649 Regents, Board of, adopts plan for library, 270; an- nual meetings of, when held, 62 ; authority given by Hough bill, 51 ; citizens of Washington mem- bers of, 65; Congressional members of, 60; date of first meeting of, 58 ; duty of, 60 ; executive committee of, 62 ; executive officer of, 61 ; Ex-officio members of, 6c; first meeting of, 6.'; first treasurer of, 69; how constituted, 60 ; Journal of Proceedings of, 66 ; mayors of Washington formerly members of, 65 ; members of, 60; number of meetings held by, 62 ; on character of library for Smithsonian Institution, 270, 271; persons present at first meeting of, 62 ; presiding officer of, 61 ; record of, 62 ; reports to Congress of, 62; resolution of, requesting Henry to continue his re- searches in physics, 144; resident members of, 60; resolution passed at election of Henry as Secretary of Smithsonian Institution by, 141 ; roll of, 66; state- ments of Henry to, in reference to beginnings of the telegraph, 131 ; lime and place of appointment of, 53 ; total number of names on roll of, 63 Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, biographical notices of, by William Jones Rhees, 80-114 ; list of, 63-66 ; longest in service, 66 Regents, term, when and by whom suggested, 52 Reid, John, 339 Reis, Johann Philipp, 362 Ren wick, James, Jr., architect of the Smithsonian building, 251 Reports of Progress begun on Smithsonian Report for 1880, 4S7, 557 Reports of the National Museum, contents of, 498 Reports of the Smithsonian Institution, value of, in aiding mathematical science, 568 Reptiles, publication by the Smithsonian Institution on, 740 Results of Meteorological Observations made under the Direction of the U. S. Patent Office and the Smithsonian Institution, where published, 496 Review of American Birds, by Baird, 169 Reynolds, H. L., 370 Rhees, William Jones, Biographical Notices of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, 80-114; "i transfer of exploring expedition collections to Smith- sonian Institution, 317; work in bibliography, 791 Rhett, Senator Robert B , on printing Smithsonian Report, 483 Ridgway, Robert, 170 Riley, C. V., 344, 345 Ringgold, Cadwalader, 350, 467 Ripley, E. W., 360 Ritchie, John, cipher-code for astronomical telegrams, 600 Rives, Senator, William C, 47; views on formation of library, 267 Robbins, Senator, Asher, defeats plan for establish- ment of an observatory through Smithson bequest, 56 ; favors establishment of a university through Smithson bequest, 34 Rockliill, W. W., 357; his Diary of a Journey through Moui^olia and Tibet, 480, 497 ; explorations in Mongolia and Tibet, 479 Rock wood, C. G,, Jr., on volcanology and seismology, 548 Rodgers, John, Jr., 350, 357, 467 Rodgers, John, .Sr. , 360 Rogers, Fairman, lectures on " Roads and Bridges," 555 Rogers, Joseph A., on Correction of Sextants for errors, 602 Ross, B. K., 339, 357 Rosse, Lord, 223 Royal Society of London, cooperation of Smithsonian Institution in cataloguing scientific literature, 818 Ruckcr, Arthur W, address on Terrestrial Magnetism, 533 Rumford, Count, 217 Runkle, J. S., prepares tables on Perturbations of Planets, 592 Rush, Richard, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 62, 64, 107; agent to prosecute Smithson claim, rea- sons for his success, 29; influence of, in final or- ganization of Smithsonian Institution, 56; letter of, concerning erection of Smithsonian building by, 247; proposes plan for organization of Smithsonian Insti- tution, 33 ; remarks of Senator James Alfred Pearce on death of, 67; submits paper favoring National Institute, 47 Sabine, Sir Edward, on exchange of publications, 401- 403 ; on magnetic storms, 531 ; on Jewett's cata- logue plan, 279 Safford, W. E., 357 Sailly, Henry HonoriS, servant to Smithson, 19 St. (.Jaudens, Augustus, designs tablet commemora- tive of Henry, 121 Salva, Francisco, of Barcelona, 132 Salverda, Doctor J. G. W. Fijnje Von, 224 Salvin, Osbert, 339 Samson, George W., 357 Samuels, E., 474 Sargent, Aaron Augustus, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 65, 107 Sartorius, C, 337 Say, Thomas, on Marine Invertebrates, 728 Sayers, J. I)., 426 Schaeffer, George C, work in chemical laboratory of Institution, 616 Schilling, Baron, 133 Schoolcraft, Henry R., presents books to Smithsonian Library, 298 Schott, Arthur, 478 Schott, Charles A., discussion of E. K. Kane's expe- dition by, 59s: work in terrestrial magnetism by, 566 Schuchert, Charles, on Department of Paleontology, National Museum, 352-354 Schuster, Arthur, on Atmospheric Electricitj-, 533 Scientific Collections, the first, belonging to the Gov- emnient, 304 Scientific Memoirs, published by the Institution, 49^ Scientific Writings of Henry, published by the Insti- tution, 522 Sclater, Philip Ludey, 339 ; bibliography of, by Goode, 514 Scott, Winfield, makes collections of reptiles, 181 854 Index Seaton, William Winston, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 62, 65, 107, 254; remarks of Henry on ser- vices of, 69 Secchi, P'ather, astrophysical work of, 529 ; on Electri- cal Rheometry, 529 Secretarj', acting, of Smithsonian Institution, how chosen, 61 Secretary of Smithsonian Institution, assistants of, how appointed, 61 ; duties of, 61; significance of name, 61 Secretary's Ubrary, Smithsonian Institution, 299 Seely, F. A., on Time-keeping in Greece and Rome, 544 Self-induction, date of discovery of, 126 Senate Committee on Judiciary reports in favor of ac- cepting the Smithson bequest, 26 ; discusses the Smithson bequest, 26 Serials, check-list of, published by Institution, 791 Shea, John G. , editor of The Library of American Lin- guistics, 497 Shepherd, Alexander Roby, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 65, 108 Sherman, John, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 108 Sherman, William Tecumseh, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 108, 329 Shoemaker, Paul, 357 Silhman, Benjamin, 141; Honorary Member of Smith- sonian Institution, 60 Silliman, Benjamin, Jr., lectures on Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, 614 Simpson, Charles T., on Fossil Unionidse, 685 Sims, Alexander D., member of committee on final organization of Smithsonian Institution, 51 Singleton, Otho Robards, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 64, 108 Smith, Herbert H., 346 Smith, John B., 345 Smith, J. Lawrence, lectures on chemistiy, 614 Smithson Almanac, plans for printing of, 481 Smithson bequest, acceptance of, by Congress, 28 ; an- nouncement to Congress of, 26 ; appreciation shown by House of Representatives, 26 ; bill concerning, with Museum clause, passes the Senate, 50; bill to prosecute claim for, passed by Congress, 28; decree of Court of Chancery concerning, 30; deliberations of twenty-eighth Congress on, 49 ; discussion by Committee on Judiciary on, 26 ; how invested, 31 ; knowledge of, received in this country, 25 ; probable source of, 8; proposed applications of, 32-36; total amount of, 31 Smithson estate, claims to, 25 ; securities obtained by Richard Rush deposited in Bank of England, 30; securities transferred to U. S. Mint, 30 Smithson, half-brother of, fought at Lexington, 5 Smithson, Hugh, succeeds to title of Baronet, 4; be- comes Duke of Northumberland and takes name of Percy, i ; death of father of, 7 ; epitaph in West- minster Abbey, 7 ; life at Alnwick Castle, 4-5 ; story of his courtship, 2 Smithson, James, admitted Fellow of the Royal So- ciety, 11; applies to the Crown to change name — time first used, 12; as a chemist, 611 ; born in France, 9; burial-place of, 22; bust of, 17; cabinet of min- erals of, 305; contemporary portrait of, 10; date and place of death of, 22 ; date of birth of, 7 ; date of| matriculation of, in Pembroke College, 9; description of himself in his final will, i ; early name of, i ; ed- ucation in England, 9 ; geological tour of, 10 ; im- portant fact relative to change of name of, 8 ; industry of, 16; lodgings in Beutinck Street, 11; mother of, inherits the property of the Hungerfords of Studley, 8; motives for making the United States his residu- ary legatee, 22 ; overthrows Abbe Haiiy's opinion on calamines, 12; Pembroke College record of birth of, 7; prepares first scientific paper, 11; published pa- pers of, 13 ; residence of, in Paris, 17 ; royal descent of, 2 ; son of first Duke of Northumberland, 3 ; story of his mother's marriage, 1 ; takes degree i>f Master of Arts, 4: traditions of College life of, 10; visits Fiance, expresses sentiments favoring Jacobin- ism, 11-12; will of, 19; will of, proved in Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 22 Smithson Langdale, father of Hugh Smithson, 3 Smithsonian almanac proposed, 49, 481 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatoi-y founded by Langley, 232 Siniths(jnian building, 260; annex of, 261; architect of, 251 ; ceremonies connected with laying of corner- stone of, 255; chemical laboratory, establishment of, 614; committee on, 253, 254; committee on recon- struction of, 261 ; cost of construction of, 254 ; cost of reconstruction of, 261 ; date of a fire in, 261 ; date of laying of the corner-stone, 255 ; date of location of, 255 ; date of occupancy of, 256 ; date of re-occu- pancy of, 261 ; design of, 252; loss from fire in, 260; objections to site of, 249 ; original plan of interior arrangements, 258, 259 ; reconstruction of, 261 ; re- port of building committee, 257; site of, 248; size of, 252 ; stone used in construction of, 254 ; style of architecture of, 252 Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 320, 488 ; contents of, 494; first distribution of, 416; Henry's plan of, 4S9 ; origin of, 488 ; policy on question of copyrighting, 492 Smithsonian fimd, bequest of James Hamilton, 236; bequest of Simeon Habel to, 237; bill in Congress for investing, in State stocks repealed, 36 ; earliest addition to, 235; gift of A. G. Bell to, 239; gifts of Thomas George Hodgkins to, 241 ; repeal of bill for investing, in State stocks, 36 Smithsonian grounds, date of planting, 262; original plan of planting of, replaced, 263 Smithsonian Institution, act of incorporation of, date of> 53> 31° '' Acting Secretary of, how chosen, 61 ; ac- tivities of, 23 ; advantages of close connection of, with the Government, 7c); aid given to governmental bu- reaus by, 564 ; aids in disseminating abstract scientific works by, 567 ; appropriations for maintenance of collections in, 322 ; assistants of Secretary of, how appointed, 61 ; chancellor of, 61 ; committee of, on Hamilton College equatorial telescope, 601 ; connec- tion of, with scientific discoveries, 519; cooperative spirit of Secretaries of, D. C. Gilman on, 813; dis- astrous fire at, 16 ; Establishment of, 59 ; first trans- mission of documents by, 183; governing principle of, 521 ; manager of, term changed to regent of, 52 ; motive of creation of, 2; officers of, 61; present amount of fund of, 235 ; promotes physical science by stimulating original research, by distribution of its pubhcations, 528 ; proposition to purchase the City Hall as site for, 250 ; relation of, to scientific ex- ploration, 179; resolution of committee concerning character of Secretary of, 57 ; Secretary of, duties of, 61 ; significance of name of secretary of, 61 Smithsonian Library, character of, expressed in report of Board of Regents, 270, 271 ; commencement of, 271 ; copyright system of, 285 ; early date of proposal for, 265 ; gifts to, 294-298 ; Henry on the organization of, 272; increase of, from 1887-1894, 294; increase of, under Jewett's care, 285; most important idea of, 273 ; periodical literature in, 301,302; policy of Langley in regard to, 291 ; present character of, 291 ; publications received by, 294 ; Jewett's plan for. 272 ; special aim of, 301 ; transfer of, to Library of Con- gress, 286 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 495 Smithsonian publications, 4S1 ; first, 496; Gilman on, 809, 810; plan of R. D. Owen for, 482; special, 496; use of, in increasing library, 302 Smithsonian Report, 482; appendices to, 486; distn- bution of, 483; epitome of contents of, 486-88; Henry on the theory of, 485 ; plan of the first, 482 ; plan of the second, 483 ; size and cost, 484 ; value of, stated by Senator Hamlin, 485 Smithsonian Tables, issued by Institution, 794 Societe d'Acclimatation de France, Baird receives gold medal from, 192 Solar eclipse of 1851, daguerreotype 0^573; of 1854, experiments on, by Institution, 573; of 1858, report of, in Contributions, 573; of i860, observations by Smithsonian Institution, 573; of 1889, photographs of, by p. P. Todd, 574 Solar eclipses, work of Institution in connection with, 573; of nineteenth century, map of, 573 Somatology, publications on, by Institution, 767 Somerset, Charles, Duke of, i Sonntag, August, on Observations on Terrestrial Mag- netism in IVtexico, 531 Sound, audibility of, discussion by Henry and John Tyndall, 541; audibility of, summary of experiments by Henry, in connection with U. S. Lighthouse Board, 541 ; papers on, published by the Institution, . 537-54^. Spnrk-i, Jared, 273 Index 855 Special Bulletins, of the National Museum, 366 Special Publications of Siiiitlisonian Institution, 496 Species, named for military heroes, 181 Specimens, distribution of, in first twenty years by In- stitution, 321 Spcctro-bolometer, di;scription of working of, 439, 441 Spectrum, as known to Sir Isaac Newton, 441 ; increase of knowledge of, by use of bolometer, 441 Spencer, Jolin C, Secretary of Treasury, 47 Spofford, A. R., report of, on J. H. Lefroy collection in Smithsonian Library, 297 ; on Smithsonian Library, 293, 294 ; remarks of, on international exchanges, 407 ; report of, to Congress on necessity for new li- brary building, 827 Sijuier, E. G., on anlitiuities of New York, 4'>2 Squier, K. G., and l>avis, E. H., 474; on Ancient Monuments of Mississippi Valley, 398, 461 .Stansbury, Howard, expeditions of, iSo Stanton, Benjamin, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 109, 26^ Star-maps, ciiculalion of, by the Institution, 591 Stearns, Robert E. C, 343 Steinheil, C. A., credit given to, in the use of the earth for a return circuit, 134, 135 Slcjneger, Lconhard, 470; characterization of Bair- dian School of Ornithofiigy, 170; on I )cpartnieiit of Reptiles and Batrachians, National .Museum, 341 Stephens, Alexander Hamilton, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 109 Stevens, I. I., 466 Stevens, John M., 361 Stevenson, Adlai Rwing, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 109 Stevenson, James, 386, 388 Stevenson, John White, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, log Stevenson, NIrs. James, 370, 386 Stimpson, William, 342; work on zoological collec- tions, 721 Stokes, Sir Geo. G., on the Luminiferous Ether, 537 Stone, Ormond, work done by, on comet-oibits, 589 Stoney, G. M., 357 Storm-warning, development of, by Institution, 660 " Stourbridge Lion," 362 Stroud, Mary, 352 Stuart, David, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, no Sturgeon, William, 122; construction of first rotary motor by, 138 ; estimate of, on discoveries of Henry, 124; gives priority to Henrj' in construction of electro- magnetic engines, 138; power of quantity magnet of, 125 Sumichrast, K., 337 Sun, effects of the, on life, 429; determination ol power of light and heat of, by Langley, 233 Supreme Court, case of Morse vs. O'Reilly in, 132 Surveys, government, collections made by, aided by Smithsonian Institution, 314: West of tlie One Hun- dredth Meridian, aid of Institution to, 599 Swan, James G., 355, 357; on Indians of the North- west coast, 763 SystcmsofConsanguinity and the Affinity of the Human Family, by Lewis H. Morgan, 390 Tables of Weights and Measures, 544 Tablets erected in memory of Sniithson, 22 Taney, Roger Brooke, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 62, 64, no Tapir, Baird's, 193 Tappan, Benjamin, 248; defeats aspiration of National Institute, 56; presents bill for Smithsonian Institu- tion, 50; views of, on formation of library, 260, 269 Tassin, Wirt, on Department of Minerals, National Museum, 351, 352 Taunt, E. H., 358 Taylor, Ezra B., Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, no Taylor, F. W. , work in Smithsonian chemical labora- tory, 620; last official chemist to the Institution, 620 Taylor, Wm. B., description by, of researches carried on by Henry at Princeton, 129 ; Historical Sketch of Henry's Relation to the Telegraph by, 559 ; Kinetic Theories of Gravitation by, 554; on Nature and Ori- gin of Force. 554; paperon acoustics by, 538; remarks on importance of the intensity magnet by, 124 Taylor, Zachary, Chairman of first meeting of the Es- tablishment, 60 Telegraph, connection of Henry with the invention of, 525; form of, used by Henry, 133; history of the invention of, 531 Telegraph, electro-magnetic, first use of, 133; credit due to Henry in construction of, 134 Telephone, discovery of, announcement of, 153 Temperature Tables, 668 Thaw, William, 213; maintained observatory at Pitts- burg, 422 Theoria Motus Corporum Coelestium, by C. F. Gauss, translation aided by the Institution, 591 Thomas, Cyrus, 370: on Indian hieroglyphics, 383 Thomas, G H., on the Mountain Sheep, 181 Thomson, Sir William, 148, 240 Thomson, Wm. M., 358 Thomp'-on, S. P., on Kocnig's researches on The Phy- sical Basis of Musical Harmony and Timbre, 543 Time Service, income from, gives means for original research, 213 Time signals, first use of, in America, 212 ; service of, in Great Britain, 212 Tisdell, W. P., 358 Todd, D. P., on ancient eclipses, 574 Torrey, John, 163; on botany of California, 4'''2 Totten, Joseph Gilbert, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 62, 65, no, 254 Tower Menagerie, origin of, 444 Towers, John Thomas, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, III Transits, American Method of observing, 529 Tree, Lambert, 410 Trenchard, S. D., 360 Triboaillct, Victor, de St. Amand, 133 Trumbull, John, 360 Trumbull, Lyman, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, III • I • Tubingen, University of, gift from, to Institution Li- brary, 296 Tunzelmann, G. W. de, account of H. Hertz's re- searches in Smithsonian Report, 1889 by, 532 Turner, Lucien RL, 358; explorations of, 182 Turner, William W., plan of, for Indian linguistic col- lections, 379 Tyler, John, President, endorses National Institute, 46 Tyndall, John, on Radiation, 534 United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, work of Institution in connection with. 715 United States Coast and Cleodetic Survey, research in terrestrial magnetism, 566 United States Exploring Expedition, collections de- posited in National Institute, 306; complications in the control of the collections of, 308, 309 : suggestion relative to, report of, 496 ; transfer of collections of, to Smithsonian Institution, 317 United States Fish Commission, establishment of, 325; explorations of, connection of Institution with, 469; summer stations of, 186 United States Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, 367 United States Geological Survey aided by Smithsonian Institution, 565 : first Director of, 369 ; formation of, 717 : union of four bureaus in, 369 United States Lighthouse Board, Henry's researches in sound in connection with, 540 United States National Museum. See National Mu- seum . United States Naval (Observatory, help obtained from Smithsonian Institution, 564 United States Weather Bureau aided by Smithsonian Institution, 565: formation of, 676: receives the manuscripts relating to meteorology, 29S Vail, Aaron, sends information of the Smithson be- quest, 25 Van Braam, M., 360 Van Buren, Martin, President, message of, concerning Smithson legacv, 31 Van Geersdale, Father J., on the Infra-red Spectrum and Bolometer, 219 Van Vliet, Stewart, 181 Vasey, George, 350 Vattem.are, Alexander, originates system ol interna- tional exchauc'-s of books, 55 ; result of eflorts of, in exchanges with French Government, 408; system of exchanges by, 398 Vatterville, Baron de, 410 856 Index Vaughan, Samuel, 360 Vertebrate paleontology, Smithsonian publications on, 686 Vertebrates, Smithsonian collection of, described by Baird in 1856, 320 Virginia Cousins, by G. Brown Goode, tos Volk, Leonard W., 361 Volta Bureau, founding of, by A. G. Bell, 241 Volta Prize received by A. G. Bell, 240 Wade, Benjamin Franklin, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 65, III Waite, Morrison Renwick, Regent and Chancellor, Smithsonian Institution, 65, in ; addressof, at unveil- ing of Henry statue, 263 ; resolutions of Regents on death of, 74 Walcott, Charles D., 353 ; on Cambrian and pre-Cam- brian Faunae, 683 Walker, Robert J., Senator, 47; director of National Institute, 46; promotes interests of National Insti- tute, 41 Walker, Sears C, observation of, on orbit of Neptune, 579; tabulation of Leverrier co-efficients in perturba- tions of planets by, 592; work on longitude by, 596 Wallach, Richard, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 65, 112, 261 Ward, Lester F., 351 Warner, Hiram, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 112 Warren, G. K., 467 Washington, George, 359, 360 Watkins, J. E., on Sections of Transportation, Engi- neering, Naval Architecture, and Physical Appa- ratus in National Museum, 361, 362 Watson, Sereno, botanical work of, for Smithsonian In- stitution, 700 Watt, James, 361 Wayland, Francis, suggestion of, on organization of Smithsonian Institution, 32 Weather map, description of, in Smithsonian Report, 658 ; issued by Smithsonian Institution, 568 Weber, William E. , 133 Weinbeck, L., work of, on lunar photography, 577 Weller, J. B., 4C6 Welling, James Clarke, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 65, 112; remarks of Henry Coppee on resolu- tion by, 76; remarks of, on election of Henry as Secretary of Smithsonian Institution, 141; tribute to memory of, by Secretary Langley, 77 Wenham, F. H., on aerial locomotion, 551 Wesley & Son, London agency for Smithsonian ex- changes, 404 Wetherill, Charles M., work in Smithsonian chemical laboratory by, 617 Wheatstone, Sir Charles, claims of, in electric discov- eries visited by Henry and A. D. Bache, 1 36 ; admits priority of Henry in discoveries concerning electro- magnets, 137; the first to bring the telegraph into commercial use, 136 Wheeler, George M., 358 ; survey under, 182 Wheeler, Joseph, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 112 Wheeler, William Almon, Regent, Smithsonian Insti- tution, 63, J 13 Whipple, A. W., 358, 466 White, Andrew Dickson, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 113 Whitney, J. D., 465 Whittlesey, Charles, on Glacial Drift, 633 ; on Fluctu- ations of Level in North American Lakes, 548, 633 Wildman, Rouncevelle, 358 Wilkes, Charles, 306; Exploring Expedition, 180, 350, 358 ; gatlierings of, form nucleus of National Mu- seum, 183 Williams, George H., 348 Williams, Talcott, 358 Williamson, S. R., 466 Williston, S. W., 345 Wilmot, David, committee on final organization of Smithsonian Institution, 51 Wilsing, J., on Density of the Earth, 554 Wilson, Henry, Regent, Smithsonian Institution, 64, 113 Wilson, Thomas, on Department of Prehistoric Anthro- pology, National Museum, 354 Wilson, William Lyne, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 66, 113 Wind, on Internal Work of, by Langley, 224 Winlock, Joseph, 202 Winthrop, John, meteorological observer, 647 Withers, Robert Enoch, Regent, Smithsonian Institu- tion, 64, 114 Woodbury, Levi, Senator, Second President of Na- tional Institution, 38 ; favors National Institute re- ceiving Smithsonian trust, 46 ; remarks on charter of National Institute, 43 Woods Hole, marine biological laboratory at, 187 Woodward, R. S., on Mathematical Theories of the Earth, 550 Woolsey, Theodore Dwight, Regent, Smithsonian In- stitution, 64, 114 Word, H. C, Jr., on Fresh-water Algse, 704 Wright, Charles, works of, in botany for Smithsonian Institution, 699 Wurtz, Henry, lectures on gunpowder by, 618 Zirkel, Ferdinand, 347 Zoological collections, origin of, 443 Zoological Garden, advantages of a, 448 ; of Cincin- nati, 445 ; of Europe surpass those of New World, 444; of Philadelphia, 445; of United States, recent origin of, 444. See National Zoological Park. Zoological Park of New York City, 458 Zoology, collections in, for the Smithsonian Institution, from governmentexplorations, 71? ; collections in, for the Smithsonian Institution from railroad surveys, 713 ; publications on, by Institution, 722