The Smithsonian Institution
A Revelation
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1926
I
A UNIQUE LEGACY
TO A NATION
James SMiTHSON was an Englishman and an aris-
tocrat. He was also a scientist of note and he must
have been a prophet.   Though he knew little of
democratic young America, had never visited the
country, and lived in a day when Englishmen
prophesied the collapse of its Government, neverthe-
less, in 1826, he left his fortune of $550,000 in trust
to the United States "to found an establishment for the
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."
Of such faith and to so heavy a responsibility was born
the Smithsonian Institution.
The Government as Trustee
The Institution is generally but erroneously sup-
posed to be a Government bureau. Not only was it pri-
vately founded and privately endowed; it is privately
directed and privately financed as well. A Board of
Regents composed of the Chief Justice, the Vice-
President, three Senators, three Representatives, and
six private citizens, exercises oversight. Administra-
tion is in the hands of a permanent secretary, who is
always a scientist, acting with the Executive Commit-
tee of the Board.   The Government is merely the
guardian.
Private Maintenance of Public Services
The Institution is privately financed. Organized in
1846, it operated for 12 years—till 1858—before it
was charged with the expenditure of an appropriation
by Congress, and for 24 years—till 1870—before the
Government began to assist in any adequate way to
support the great collections of the National Museum
created by the Smithsonian. Later Congress recognized
that nine other outgrowths of Smithsonian researches
had become public necessities, and appropriated for
their support also from time to time, but never has it
made any grants for the Smithsonian itself. The
Smithsonian finances its pioneering work in science
from its private income.
One American's Endorsement
Thus the private nature of its purse gives the Smith-
sonian freedom of action and divorces it from political
influence ; Government guardianship gives it security
and stability. Time has tested this freedom and this
security. They have had such signal recognition as that
given by Charles Lang Freer in placing his rare collec-
tions of Oriental and American art in the keeping of
the Smithsonian, building a gallery to house them, and
bequeathing a substantial fortune to upbuild the
Oriental collections and to diffuse knowledge of
Asiatic art.
II
EIGHTY YEARS: WHAT THEY HAVE
MEANT TO THE NATION
The Smithsonian institution has had eighty
years in which to "increase and diffuse knowl-
edge among men." The extent of its success
can be read in the record of its completed
achievements and of its continuous services. The ma-
jority of these come under the three headings of re-
search,  cooperation with  governments,  institutions,
and individuals and publication and spread of knowl-
edge.
Forerunner of the Weather Bureau
The Smithsonian has held the promotion of research
in new fields to be a primary task. As a result of cer-
tain of its researches the Institution has initiated no
fewer than ten of the Government's scientific bureaus.
When meteorology was in its infancy, the Institution,
under the guidance of its first Secretary, Joseph Henry,
organized volunteer weather observers throughout the
country, supplied them where necessary with instru-
ments, and conscripted the telegraph to collect data
3
from them daily. The significance of this work met
with immediate recognition, and the Government at
length took it over and developed the United States
Weather Bureau.
The United States Fish Commission, now under the
Department of Commerce, sprang from the pioneering
activities in the study of food fishes and river and ocean
faunas of the second Secretary of the Smithsonian,
Spencer F. Baird.
Science Aids in Opening a Continent
When military expeditions and railroad surveys
began opening up the West, the Smithsonian organized
the scientific staffs of these enterprises into geologists,
botanists, zoologists and ethnologists. Thus it was the
Smithsonian primarily that made this continent's re-
sources available to science and to scientific develop-
ment and preserved records of their primitive state for
posterity. One feature of this Smithsonian-initiated
service graduated into a Government bureau as the
United States Geological Survey, others, into the
United States National Museum and the Bureau of
American Ethnology.
The National Museum stands as the most tangible
achievement of the Smithsonian Institution. It began
with a small collection of miscellaneous curiosities. It
now has over 10,000,000 specimens covering almost
the entire field of human interests. It preserves the
foundation of much of the world's knowledge, espe-
cially in the natural sciences and in the history of the
4
United States. It helps to enlighten i ,000,000 visitors
a year. It stimulates research and the discovery of new-
knowledge.
The end of the last century saw many of the larger
native American wild animals hunted to the point of
extinction. To assist in preserving them the Smith-
sonian Institution organized what later became the
National Zoological Park, which serves as an educa-
tional factor in displaying wild animals from all parts
of the world in a living state.
Dr. S. P. Langley, the third Secretary, created the
Astrophysical Observatory, and Smithsonian scientists
still direct it. The Observatory stands now as the pre-
eminent authority on the sun and its influence on life.
One feature of its investigations gives promise of ef-
fectively improving weather forecasting.
Uniting Peoples and Governments
If knowledge has advanced on seven league boots
in the last 75 years it is largely due to the universal
interchange of new discoveries and ideas. To that
interchange the Smithsonian has made the significant
contribution of the International Exchange Service.
The Smithsonian evolved this service to insure the
widest possible distribution of its own publications. It
soon became the channel for the distribution of Ameri-
can scientific writings abroad and foreign scientific
writings in America. Governments at length recog-
nized this idea as so sound that they adopted it and
enlisted the organization as a medium of exchange for
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their official publications. The Smithsonian still ad-
ministers this Government bureau. In 1924k sent and
received a total of 460,658 packages of scientific and
governmental literature. The shipments abroad went
to 80 distributing agencies in 54 different countries,
including Tasmania and Iceland, Liberia and Latvia.
In addition in that year it served as the receiving
agency for the restocking of libraries destroyed in the
Tokyo earthquake.
In a further attempt to make knowledge available
to all workers in science, the Smithsonian undertook
the United States Regional Bureau of the Interna-
tional Catalogue of Scientific Literature.
The Fine Arts
The nine services mentioned above are wholly or
partly concerned with scientific subjects. It is signifi-
cant of the Smithsonian's broad interpretation of the
spirit of its founder that the Institution also was given
charge of the administration of the National Gallery
of Art, in order that the fine arts might have their
proper place in the Institution's plan for the increase
and diffusion of knowledge.
Fruitful Researches—Aviation
Of the ten bureaus it has created the seven last men-
tioned are still administered by the Smithsonian for
the Government. But these ten bureaus represent only
a small portion of all the researches the Smithsonian
has initiated. It was the third Secretary of the Smith-
6
sonian, Langley, who rescued aviation from ridicule
by his profound study of the principles of aerodynam-
ics and who, in 1896, built the first flying machines to
make long flights under their own power.
With the Smithsonian's assistance Michelson made
his determination of the standard meter in wave
lengths, the basic measurement of the whole system of
wave lengths—radio, X-ray, spectroscopic rays, and
others. Likewise, Morley settled once for all the rel-
ative atomic weights of oxygen and hydrogen as basic
for the atomic weight of all chemical elements.
Ultra-violet Rays
Ultra-violet rays are now used to cure rickets. Their
importance and usefulness is only suggested by the
discovery that they insure life on earth because they
manufacture the layer of ozone in the upper air which
prevents the earth's heat from escaping into outer space.
It was the Smithsonian which subsidized Schumann—a
German living in Hamburg — in the classic experi-
ments by which these rays were brought into the service
of medicine and science.
The researches mentioned so far are of the past.
What of the present? The millions lost in fruitless
exploration for minerals and oils are beyond calcula-
tion. The Smithsonian is promoting researches on fossil
invertebrates which serve as a guide to the presence of
minerals and oils.
it is promoting a survey of the crustaceans, includ-
ing the lobster, the crab and the shrimp, which will
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lead to an increase in food resources and more efficient
exploitation.
Where Botanists Serve Industry
Important American industries depend upon the
trees and shrubs of Mexico and Central America for
their raw material. One industry imports raw gum 30
per cent, of which is waste, because it does not know
from which particular gum tree the commercial prod-
uct comes. Now, Smithsonian botanists are making the
first thorough study of the trees and shrubs of Mexico
and Central America. This is not only achieving the
elimination of the waste mentioned, but it is making
possible the commercial development of the hard-
woods, the fruits, the food, drug, oil and cordage plants
of the countries to the south of us.
Under Smithsonian direction, anthropologists are
discovering new facts concerning the origin and an-
tiquity of man in Java and South Africa ; ethnologists
are preserving the records of early Indian life on this
continent and turning buried cities into national parks
for the instruction and recreation of the nation. The
Smithsonian's record, past and present, shows hundreds
of such researches promoted.
Widespread Cooperation
An enumeration of all the types of cooperation in
which the Smithsonian engages could only be made at
the expense of brevity. The departments of the Gov-
ernment benefit by that cooperation. The fundamen-
tal research work of the Smithsonian in botany, for
instance, has been basic in the Department of Agri-
culture's efforts to improve and protect farming. It
was the work of a Smithsonian scientist during the war
which made available to the Navy the quartz essential
to the instruments used in the detection of the sub-
marine.
The foreign governments of China and Japan, of
Central and South America, have benefited through the
work of Smithsonian scientists in investigating their
natural resources.
Every recognized university, museum and scientific
institution in this country and many abroad have also
benefited. To them the Smithsonian has given over a
million specimens, it has supplied them with publica-
tions, even with instruments, and has lent them experts
from its staff for expeditions. The Institution has pro-
moted many expeditions in its own name, for instance,
the Roosevelt Expedition to British East Africa.
The Diffusion of Knowledge
It is probable that the Smithsonian's service in the
diffusion of knowledge has even surpassed its service in
the increase thereof. The Institution diffuses knowl-
edge by lectures, by exhibiting and lending its collec-
tions, by granting facilities to students, by a dozen lesser
means, but principally by its publications and replies to
questions. The publications include three different
series—the classic "Contributions to Knowledge," the
"Miscellaneous Collections," and the "Special Publi-
9
cations." In addition the administrative bureaus, under
the Smithsonian, publish seven other series. All these
are recognized as authorities on the varied subjects
with which they deal. The Smithsonian Annual Re-
ports present to the non-technical reader in a single
volume the outstanding scientific progress of each year.
The edition of 10,000 is soon exhausted ; 6,400 copies
are distributed free to libraries in 102 countries or de-
pendencies besides the United States and its territories.
The meaning of this is that the Smithsonian pub-
lications have the widest circulation, among scientists,
of any scientific papers in the world. In whatever
corner of the earth — in Borneo, in Siam — groups of
thinkers are organized, one finds the green covers and
golden torch of the various Smithsonian series holding
the place of honor on their library shelves.
Where All May Inquire
Because of its careful replies to inquiries on tech-
nical matters, the Smithsonian Institution has come to
be known throughout the world as a source of authentic
information for the identification of plants and ani-
mals, for the determination of minerals, and for the
solution of a thousand other scientific problems. In
1924, it answered 8,000 questions. A single answer
sometimes requires the time of a scientist for several
days.
10
Ill
CARRYING THE CREATIVE TRADITION
INTO THE FUTURE
Eighty years ago the Smithsonian Institution
initiated investigations which resulted in the
creation of the United States Weather Bureau;
thirty years ago, investigations which gave
great impulse to aviation. Today, the Institution plans
researches of no less importance and promise. In obedi-
ence to those principles of operation laid down by the
first Secretary, Joseph Henry, in 1847,tne Institution
in the course of recent years has been outlining a broad
program for the future.
Three Principles
James Smithson gave his fortune "to increase knowl-
edge." Henry's first principle, therefore, directs the
Smithsonian to investigation of problems of scientific
promise irrespective of apparent economic value. It
seeks facts. The fruitfulness of knowledge can always
be guaranteed. The application of a fact is a single
achievement. The discovery of a fact opens the door
to unlimited achievement. There are now, roughly,
30,000 workers in applied science as against 3,000 in
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pure research. And yet the economic scientist is help-
less without the research worker in pure science.
Henry's second principle permits the Smithsonian
to give attention to many branches of knowledge. That
is why its record includes accomplishments in varied
fields. The program it now proposes is the result of a
survey of the entire scientific front in an endeavor
to ascertain where best it may aid in filling gaps in
knowledge.
To avoid duplication of effort and to insure the
greatest advance in knowledge, a third principle for-
bids the Smithsonian to undertake or carry on work
with which any other agency is definitely and effi-
ciently occupied. Its proposed program will avoid
competition; it will be conducted on a basis of co-
operation.
The following paragraphs outline briefly the broad
scope of the program in pure research now proposed by
the Smithsonian. The specific projects mentioned are
merely illustrations of the work planned in each field,
which will be developed as funds become available.
Studies of the Sun
The studies of Smithsonian astrophysicists on the
quality and intensity of the light and heat given off by
the sun and stars stand alone. Scientists of the Institu-
tion discovered the fact of solar variation and the cor-
relation thereof with the weather. They have brought
their investigations to a point where the Argentine
Government bases weather forecasts upon their daily
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values of the solar constant. To perfect measurements
of the solar constant, the Institution needs a fourth
observing station in addition to those in Chile and
California, and that in the Eastern Hemisphere, for
which the National Geographic Society has just pro-
vided funds. To determine definitely the relationships
between solar variations and weather, in the hope that
long-range forecasting may become a fact, intensive
studies are needed. To investigate the quantity and
quality of the vital ultra-violet rays emitted by the sun ;
the intensity of sky radiation as well as of sun radia-
tion; the effect of the earth's atmosphere on the quan-
tity and quality of the ultra-violet rays; the effect of
the sun's rays on food plants—for these and similar
studies plans are ready.
The Oceans—a Fertile Field
The oceans help to distribute the heat of the sun;
circulation of the super-heated waters of the tropics
alone makes regions like Norway habitable to civilized
man. The oceans, further, enable plants to live upon
the earth for they are the source of most of the earth's
rainfall. They furnish nearly three billion pounds of
fish a year to the United States and Alaska alone. Yet,
in spite of their importance, no comprehensive, co-
ordinated study of them has been completed. The
Smithsonian has already made notable contributions
in marine biology, as in Secretary Baird's work in the
early days of the Bureau of Fisheries. With the co-
operation of existing agencies the Smithsonian now
13
proposes a comprehensive research program. To per-
fect methods the work will begin in a limited area,
where océanographie investigations are readily made
and will extend to wider fields. It is proposed to de-
termine first the basic plant foods of the sea on which
all sea life depends, and to determine the food value to
sea creatures of the bottom muds. From these biolog-
ical beginnings the work will expand to a survey of
physical and chemical conditions, and of the inter-
relation of the various forms to one another and to the
sea environment.
The Significance of Fossils
What are the steps in life's progress from the age of
trilobites to that of man? Do new forms of life appear
suddenly, and if so, what may we fear or expect of the
future? The answers to these questions lie imprisoned
in the rocks—the fossils of animals that have lived in
the past. But these extinct forms of life are more than
historians. They are the key to the location in the earth
of mineral and oil deposits, and their study will lead,
therefore, to important economic developments. For
30 years unequalled collections of fossil faunas have
been accumulating under the direction of the Smith-
sonian Institution. They include many forms new to
science. The Smithsonian desires to meet the obliga-
tion which rests upon it to investigate these as well as
to pursue investigations in the allied fields of geology.
The Story of the Indians
For the study of aboriginal man and the beginnings
of culture, the Americas with their numerous Indian
tribes provide an ideal field. But the fate of the Indian
in North America is sealed. Many tribes have disap-
peared -, others are constantly being drawn into the tide
of higher civilization and their story and identity lost
forever. The plough is burying traces of their past.
Before it is too late the Smithsonian proposes to con-
tinue its studies of the remains left by such peoples as
the Basketmakers, the Pueblo Indians and Cliff Dwel-
lers, the Mississippi Mound Builders, the Choctaw and
Natchez, to discover who constructed the shellheaps
which line our coasts and rivers, and to survey the sup-
posed routes through Alaska by which the first human
immigrants came to America.
Smithsonian anthropologists propose further to ex-
pand the work of 30 years past on the rise of man by
investigation of sites in Africa and Java where impor-
tant discoveries of primitive man have come to light.
Man's Chief Enemy
Man fights for his sustenance and health against
many living enemies. Chief of these are the insects.
There are now known 650,000 kinds of them. There
remain perhaps 3,000,000 more unknown to man. The
mere naming of them, which is the important prelim-
inary to dealing with them, at the present rate of about
6,000 a year, will require 500 years. In order that he
may combat injurious species, man needs to know their
physiology and structure. On a knowledge of their res-
piration, for instance, may depend the choice of chem-
ical sprays used to kill them. The Smithsonian program
includes a plan for such basic studies.
Groundwork in Zoology
New knowledge is reached from the stepladder of
the already known. The consolidation of existing facts
is as needful a task as the discovery of new ones, and
must precede such discovery. In the major groups of
animals from mammals to worms, existing information
must be gathered from many lands and many lan-
guages, checked with type collections of creatures, and
issued as basic monographs. Only so can wasteful du-
plication of effort be avoided. Only so can the basic
relation of one species to another and its position and
function in the world of other creatures be compre-
hended. The material under the direction of the Smith-
sonian Institution constitutes the largest and best bal-
anced representation of the animal kingdom of any
institution in this country. The preparation of mono-
graphs dealing with its zoological collections is there-
fore a duty.
To increase our knowledge of the animal kingdom
before man's encroachments wipe out many existing
groups, the Institution purposes to transform its past
sporadic explorations into intensive expeditions cover-
ing systematically those parts of the world where
knowledge of the fauna is incomplete.
Other projects contemplated in this field include
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studies in anatomy, in the diseases of wild mammals
and birds, and similar topics.
South American Plants
Less is known of the plant life of northern South
America than of almost any other section of the West-
ern Hemisphere. Before plants yielding drugs, gums,
fruits, fibres, dyes and oils can be efficiently made avail-
able to the world, they must be discovered, named and
described. In an expansion of work already begun, the
Smithsonian, in cooperation with four other institu-
tions, plans as part of its botanical program to study the
plants of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
Aids to the Engineer
Typical of projects in other fields, there are the
mathematical and physical tables, which would collect
in a form convenient for engineer and scientist mathe-
matical formulas and methods. The Smithsonian Phy-
sical Tables, which have gone through seven editions
since 19io, represent profitable work in this field
already begun.
So much for illustrations of some of the specific
projects in fundamental research proposed by the
Smithsonian. They are broad in scope. Their possibil-
ities are unlimited. For their successful promotion, the
Institution needs funds.
IV
TWENTIETH CENTURY WORK ON A
NINETEENTH CENTURY
ENDOWMENT
The Smithsonian's activities have increased a
hundred fold in eighty years ; its endowment
has doubled.   The endowment at present is
$1,200,000, from which the annual income
approximates $65,000. From that sum, in 1924, the
total available for research was $ 10,000, and for pub-
lications,  $5,000.   Compare these figures with the
$27,000,000 endowment of the Carnegie Institution
from which it derived in the year 1924 an income of
$1,400,000, permitting it to spend for research over
$ 1,000,000 and for publications, $ 100,000.
Major Activities Criffled
The Smithsonian's $65,000 a year is so inadequate
that since the War it has had to curtail its major services
of research and publication. It has had on hand for sev-
eral years many of the projects outlined above, with
no funds to undertake them.
It has been forced to suspend the "Contributions to
Knowledge" series, to reduce the "Miscellaneous Col-
18
lections" series to a third of the former size, to
delay printing such manuscripts as Dr. Joseph A.
Cushman's monograph on the Foraminifera, which
has, since its appearance, enabled the oil companies of
the country to save large sums, and to reject others
equally important, resulting in a handicap to science
and industry.
The loss here lies not only in the fact that certain
scientific papers miss publication. It means also that
scientific groups throughout the world fail to be in-
formed of developments on which to base further
advances in knowledge. For, equal in importance to
the fact of publication is the Smithsonian's principle
of free distribution to scientific organizations in every
land. Research without publication is largely futile,
both from the scientific and from the public point of
view.
In addition, lack of funds has curtailed to students
the usefulness of such essential parts of the Smith-
sonian's research plant as its library. No subject cat-
alogue exists y 8,000 volumes in current use need
binding; 30,000 lie uncatalogued and therefore inac-
The Solution
The Smithsonian has actively striven to balance the
deficit in its income, principally by securing private
gifts for the conduct of certain work. But since the War
these gifts have proved inadequate to carry on even the
most important of the Institution's activities. It now
seems wise to turn to the country for support.  The
Smithsonian has never made such a request before. It
does so now in the conviction that Americans, recog-
nizing the Institution as a national possession and a
national responsibility as well as a national servant, will
see here, not an appeal, but an opportunity to share in
an investment the returns from which, spiritual and
material, have already been beyond estimate. Who will
dare measure the value, for instance, of the weather
reports, which form an integral part of every news-
paper? The work of the Smithsonian in the past was
primarily responsible for the existence of these reports.
Furthermore, the Institution is an investment of rare
stability. Gifts made to it gain the Government as
trustee. So long as the United States Government en-
dures, the Smithsonian will endure. So long will gifts
and bequests made to it perpetuate the name of a
patron, in the largest sense, of mankind.
To carry out projects already entered upon, to under-
take the broad program proposed, to restore the effi-
ciency of its distribution of knowledge by the resump-
tion of publication on the pre-war scale, and to utilize
its unparalleled resources in collections and equipment
in stimulating and aiding the exceptional mind in
research, the Smithsonian Institution needs a mini-
mum addition of $ 10,000,000 to its endowment.
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