REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 23 



PUBLICATIONS. 



The publications of the Institution consist of three classes: The first, 

 the " Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge"; the second, the " Smith- 

 sonian Miscellaneous Collections'"; and the third, the "Annual Reports 

 of the Regents" of the Institution. The works of the first class, the 

 Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, are published in quarto form, 

 and are intended to embrace original memoirs, either the result of special 

 investigations authorized and directed by the Institution, or prosecuted 

 under other auspices and presented to it. The works of the second 

 class, the Miscellaneous Collections, are similar in plan and construc- 

 tion to the " Contributions," but are in octavo form, and embrace more 

 particularly monographic and descriptive papers in natural histoiy, for- 

 mal or systematic lists of species of animals or plants, physical tables, 

 reports on the present state of knowledge in some department of physi- 

 cal or biologic science, &c. As with the " Contributions," each volume 

 b composed of several distinct and independent papers, having no nec- 

 essary connection with each other, the combination being determined 

 chiefly by the aggregate number of pages suitable for a volume of average 

 size. The average number of pages in the quarto volume is about 000; 

 in the octavo volume, about 800. Each paper or memoir in either class 

 is separately paged and indexed, with its own title-page, so as to be 

 complete in itself, and separately distributed according to its subject. 

 Of the quarto " Contributions," twenty-one volumes, and of the octavo 

 " Collections," fifteen volumes have been published. 



The Smithsonian annual reports, commenced in 1S47, being made 

 to Congress, are published by that authority, and not at the expense of 

 the Smithson fund. The earlier reports of the Secretary were printed 

 in small pamphlet editions, but were collected and reprinted with the 

 report for 1853, and with this the series of bound volumes may be said 

 to have begun. The number, or edition, ordered by Congress has varied 

 from year to year, but the proportion of copies placed at the disposal of 

 the Institution has been distributed to its correspondents as fully and 

 liberally as possible. 



Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. — The Institution has now 

 enough material ready for two volumes of the quarto series of Contribu- 

 tions, the twenty-second volume of which will be issued early in the 

 year 1880, and will consist of the following memoirs: 



1. Antiquities in Tennessee. Joseph Jones. 



2. Sculptures of Santa Lucia. S. Habel. 



3. Archaeological Collections of the National Museum. Charles Rau. 



4. The Palenque Tablet. Charles Rau. 



5. Remains of Man in the Aleutian Islands. W. II. Dall. 



These papers have all been described in previous reports with the 

 exception of the one on the Palenque tablet, by Charles Rau. This 



