THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 223 



physical Observatory, the Zoological Park, the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology, and the International exchange 

 of public documents and scientific publications. These 

 bureaus are supported by public money derived from 

 taxation and appropriated annually by Congress at its 

 discretion. The Smithsonian Institution is supported by 

 the interest of its own funds which are partly in the 

 United States Treasury and, in the case of some private 

 donations contributed since the original organization, 

 partly in the form of investments by the Board of Regents, 

 whose discretion, guided by the special knowledge of the 

 Secretary, is final in the matter of disbursements. The 

 whole board meets only two or three times a year; an 

 executive committee of members resident in Washington, 

 supervises accounts and can in any emergency be con- 

 vened by request of the Secretary, who otherwise decides 

 all matters relating to the policy and action of the Insti- 

 tution. The successful carrying out of the intentions of 

 the testator, limited only by the Congressional act creating 

 the Institution, obviously depended upon the wisdom and 

 foresight of the Secretary. 



Providentially for Science and the future of the 

 organization the right man was found in Professor Joseph 

 Henry of Princeton University. Known among scientists 

 as the foremost physicist of America, and to the people 

 of the United States as the man whose experiments made 

 possible the magnetic telegraph, his fitness for the post 

 was universally recognized. What no one perhaps could 

 at that time foresee was the statesmanlike ability and 

 tact with which he steered the Institution safely amid 

 the rocks and shoals which beset it in the early years of 

 its history. His incorruptible probity and high ideals won 

 the respect and admiration of Congress; his known unself- 



