RECORD OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS FOR 1883. 





INTRODUCTION. 



While it has beeu a prominent object of the Board of Regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, from a very early date in its history, to enrich 

 the animal report, required of them by law, with scientific memoirs illus- 

 trating the more remarkable and important developments in physical 

 and biological discovery, as well as showing the general character of 

 the operations of the Institution, this purpose was not carried out on 

 any very systematic plan until the year 1880. Believing however that 

 an annual report or summary of the recent advances made in the lead- 

 ing departments of scientific inquiry would supply a want very gen- 

 erally felt, and would be favorably received by all those interested in 

 the diffusion of knowledge, the Secretary had prepared for the report 

 of 1880, by competent collaborators, a series of abstracts showing con- 

 cisely the prominent features of recent scientific progress in astronomy, 

 geology, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, zoology, and anthro- 

 pology. 



The same general programme has been followed in the subsequent 

 reports, with the inclusion of geography and meteorology in the list 

 of subjects. The contributors to this record for the present year, and 

 their several departments or topics, remain the same as in the last 

 report. 



With every effort to secure prompt attention to all the more impor- 

 tant details of such a work, various unexpected delays frequently render 

 it impracticable to obtain all the desired reports in each department 

 within the time prescribed. In such cases it is designed, if possible, to 

 bring up deficiencies and supply them in subsequent reports. 



The value of this annual record of progress would be much enhanced by 

 an eulargementof its scope, and the inclusion, not only of such branches 

 as mathematics, physiology, pathology and medicine, microscopy, &c, 

 but also of the more practical topics of agricultural and horticultural 

 economy, engineering, mechanics, and technology in geueral ; but the 

 space required for such larger digest seems scarcely available in the 

 present chanuel. The scientific resume, which in 1880 occupied 260 

 pages, in 1881 extended to 330 pages, in 1882 to -400 pages, and has this 

 year reached 426 pages. An efficient condensation of this matter does 

 not seem easily practicable. 



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