38 EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



within the District of Columbia because of the defective condition of 

 the houses in which they live. 



The main features of a comprehensive scheme adequate to the im- 

 provement required are stated by Mr. Waring to be — 



1. The flats and marshes to be reclaimed by embanking and pumping. 



2. The discharge of the lateral streams and of storm-water sewers to 

 be carried beyond these defenses and delivered into the main channels 

 of the river. 



3. The complete underdraining or subsoil drainage of the site of the 

 city. 



4. The separate removal of the foul drainage. 



5. The abolition of privy vaults and cesspools and the complete 

 reformation of the interior drainage of houses. 



Physical Tables. — Among the earliest publications of the Institution, 

 one now exhausted, but which has ever since been in great demand both 

 at home and abroad, is the very full series of meteorological and phys- 

 ical tables prepared by Prof. Arnold Guyot. This work (No. 31 on our 

 list), published in 1852, constitutes the principal portion of the first 

 volume of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, and is universally 

 recognized as a standard work of reference on the subjects to which it 

 is devoted. 



The expansion of certain branches of physical inquiry has made some 

 supplementary tables desirable, and Professor Giiyot was invited by 

 my predecessor to prepare the material for a new series. The greater 

 part of the work will of course be unchanged, and will be printed from 

 the original electrotype plajtes. But some modification of certain tables, 

 together w^ith a number of new ones, has been arranged for. 



Professor Guyot's laborious duties at Princeton have interfered with 

 the speedy completion of the new edition ; but the material is now 

 nearly ready, and the additional pages will be put in tyi)e at an early 

 day. 



Bidletins of the National Museum. — In addition to the regular series 

 of publications printed entirely at the expense of the Smithsonian fund, 

 several series prepared under the direction of the Institution have the 

 expense of the printing of a small edition ijrovided for from other sources. 

 Stereotype plates of these issues are preserved, and are afterward in- 

 cluded in the Miscellaneous Collections. These consist especially of the 

 Bulletins and Proceedings of the National Museum, the printing of which 

 is authorized by the Department of the Interior, and paid for out of its 

 fund. An edition of one thousand copies is published, of which one-half is 

 distributed by the Department of the Interior and one-half by the Insti- 

 tution. As the pages are stereotyped, the cost of additional copies is 

 slight; and for the purpose of making sure that a sufiicient number of 

 sets will be accessible forever to students in all parts of the world, it has 

 been considered expedient to print fifteen hundred additional copies of 



