45 2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Publications. There are three distinct sets of publications 

 issued as serials, directed by the Smithsonian Institution : 



1. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, a quarto series 

 begun in 1848, and comprising thirty-two volumes to date. In 

 these volumes are placed the monographs, articles, and papers 

 offering positive additions to human knowledge, either under- 

 taken by agents of the Smithsonian Institution or by persons 

 encouraged by. its assistance. These contributions correspond to 

 the more elaborate memoirs of learned societies, and comprise 

 treatises on anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, elec- 

 tricity, ethnology, geology, mathematics, meteorology, natural 

 history, paheontology, physics, and zoology, in all their ramifi- 

 cations. 



3. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, begun in 1862, 

 thirty-five volumes, octavo. These contain bibliographies, tables, 

 proceedings of Washington societies, and papers on scientific 

 topics of value to scholars, yet not forming, as a rule, positive 

 additions to the sum of human knowledge. These papers vary in 

 size from a leaflet of four pages to a stout volume of twelve hun- 

 dred pages. The individual articles are first issued independ- 

 ently, each receiving a number in course, and afterward they are 

 bound up in volumes of suitable size, which themselves also bear 

 numbers. This plan of publication also applies to the Contribu- 

 tions. The editorial work of this and the preceding series was 

 long under the care of the late Mr. William B. Taylor, whose 

 great erudition and skill in book-making proved invaluable to 

 the institution. 



3. Annual Reports of the Board of Regents forty-nine vol- 

 umes, octavo. These are submitted to Congress, in accordance 

 with a clause in the act of incorporation. They contain the Jour- 

 nal of the Proceedings of the Board of Regents, the Report of 

 the Executive Committee, the reports of the Secretary and of the 

 directors, curators, or managers of the important departments 

 controlled by the institution. In these reports are exhibited the 

 financial affairs of the institution, its condition, its operations, 

 and statistics of every kind connected with the same. Following 

 the official part is a General Appendix containing a selection of 

 memoirs of interest to collaborators and correspondents of the 

 institution, teachers, and others engaged in the promotion of 

 knowledge. These essays are generally reprints from divers 

 sources, but they also include original translations and occasion- 

 ally contributed articles. From 1880 to 1889 this General Ap- 

 pendix was chiefly devoted to an Annual Record of Scientific 

 Progress prepared by specialists. 



Library. By exchanging the publications of the institution 

 for transactions of learned societies, and for productions of for- 



