12 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



EXPLORATIONS. 



The Institution has continued to carry on various biological and 

 ethnolog-ieal explorations through the medium of the National Museum 

 and the l^ureau of American Ethnology, and has also cooperated with 

 the Executive Departments in these directions. The details of most 

 of these explorations tire given in the paragraphs devoted to the sev- 

 eral bureaus. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



In the pal)lications of the Institution the double aim of its founder 

 is represented — that it should exist for (1) the ''increase" and ('I) the 

 "diti'usion" of knowledge. 



The recording- of results of original I'esearches, the increase of 

 knoAvledge, is chietly through the series of Contributions to Knowd- 

 edge, a quarto work begun in IS^S, and in which more than 140 valu- 

 able memoirs, collected in 32 volumes, have so far been published. 

 To this series has been added during the year a memoir l)y Dr. Carl 

 Barus giving the results of his experiments in ionized air, the investi- 

 gation having I)een aided by a grant from the Hodgkins fund, as 

 mentioned above. 



The lirst edition of one of the memoirs of Contributions, published 

 in 181)1, showing the results of the 8ecretar3''s experiments in aero- 

 dA'namics, having become exhausted, a second edition has been printed 

 from the stereotype plates, with a few additional observations. 



To the s(n-ies of Miscellaneous Collections, in octavo form, have 

 been added a List of Observatories, a work on the Literature of 

 Manganese, and an Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope. 



The Contributions and Miscellaneous Collections, being printed at 

 the expense of the Smithsonian income, are necessarily published in 

 limited editions of 1,500 copies, which are distributed as widely as pos- 

 sible to the larger libraries and institutions of the woild. The total 

 distribution of these during the year was 11,645 volumes and memoirs. 



The Smithsonian Report is the only publication issued in large num- 

 bers, the edi ion being at present ai)out 12,000 copies, 7,000 of which 

 are placed at the disposal of the Institution, the remaining- 5,000 being 

 distril)uted })y Congress or to depositories designated by law. This 

 work is published at the expense of the Government and has come to 

 be in such great popular dcMuand that th(^ (Mitir<> edition of the 1900 

 re])orl, of which the general distribution was made in Octol)er, 1901, 

 was exhausted in a few months, ev(Mi before the 1901 report could 

 be mack' ready for tlu^ printer. 



The volume is primarily a Report of the Uoard of Regents to Con- 

 gress concerning the operations and expenditures during the 3'ear, and 

 includes the Proceedings of the Regents'' meeting in January of each 

 year, the financial report of the executive committee, the report of 



