EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 21 



the elo-ctricians of the company, all the facilities and assistance neces- 

 sary to the undertaking. The report contains a series of investigations 

 relative to the time of transmission of signals, and other jioints, which 

 san only be properly understood by a study of the work itself. 



The Annual Report for the year 1SG8 was printed, as usual, by order 

 of Congress, and the extra number of ten thousand copies ordered. I 

 would again urge upon Congress the propriety of increasing the num- 

 ber of copies, since the demand has become so great that it is impossi- 

 ble, with the number above mentioned, to meet the applications for them 

 of the correspondents of the Institution or of the constituents of the 

 members of Congress themselves. 



In addition to the report of the Secretary giving an account of the 

 operations, expenditures, and condition of the Institution for the year, 

 and the proceedings of the Board of Eegents, it contains the following 

 articles : List of Smithsonian meteorological stations and observers in 

 Korth America and adjacent islands, from 1849 up to the end of 18G8; 

 IMemoirs of Cnvier, and history of his works, of Oersted, Schonbein, 

 Encke, and Hodgkinson ; Articles on recent progress in relation to the 

 theory of heat ; Principles of the mechanical theory of heat ; Continu- 

 ous vibratorj' movement of all matter ; Eadiation ; Synthetic experi- 

 ments relative to meteorites 5 Catalogue of meteorites in Yale College; 

 The electric resonance of mountains ; Experiments on aneroid barome- 

 ters ; Anniversary address of the president of the Eoyal Society of 

 Victoria; Eeport of the transactions of the Society of Physics and 

 Natural History of Geneva, and of the Authropological Society of Paris ; 

 An original comnumication on drilling in stone without metal, and on a 

 deposit of agricultural flint implements in Southern Illinois, by Charles 

 Eau; I»J'otice of the Blackmore Museum, England; Programmes of 

 several foreign societies ; An account of the assay of coins at the United 

 States Mint ; Table of foreign coins ; and a complete list of the publi- 

 cations of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Internationai, Exchanges. — The two objects of the bequest of 

 Smithson, as briefly, though clearly, expressed in his will by the terms 

 "increase" and "diffusion" of knowledge, are both fully provided for in 

 the plan of organization. The increase of knowledge is principally- effect- 

 ed by the researches that are instituted at the expense of the Smithson 

 fund in the various branches of science, and the diffusion of knowledge 

 by the publication of the results of these researches and their distribution 

 to all the principal libraries of the world, and still more generally by 

 the great system of international exchange which has been established. 

 The effect of this system, in its present enlarged dimensions, in the way 

 of facilitating direct correspondence between the scientific men of the 

 Old and ISTew World, can scarcely be overestimated. 



During the year that has just closed, 1,734 packages, containing many 

 thousand different articles, have been transmitted to 1,569 parties in 



