CONTENTS 



Pag« 



List of oflBcials ix 



Outstanding events 1 



Summary of the year's activities of the branches of the Institution 2 



The establishment 7 



The Board of Regents 7 



Finances 8 



Matters of general interest 8 



The Smithsonian Gallery of Art 8 



Smithsonian radio program 10 



Walter Rathbone Bacon traveling scholarship 12 



Smithsonian Institution Employees Retirement System 13 



New Exhibits in the Smithsonian main hall 13 



Eighth Arthur lecture 14 



Explorations and field work 15 



Publications 16 



Library 17 



Appendix 1. Report on the United States National Museum 19 



2. Report on the National Gallery of Art 32 



3. Report on the National Collection of Fine Arts 47 



4. Report on the Freer Gallery of Art 52 



5. Report on the Bureau of American Ethnology 56 



6. Report on the International Exchange Service 65 



7. Report on the National Zoological Park 76 



8. Report on the Astrophysical Observatory 106 



9. Report on the Division of Radiation and Organisms 112 



10. Report on the library 119 



11. Report on publications - 126 



Report of the executive committee of the Board of Regents 133 



GENERAL APPENDIX 



Is there life in other worlds? by H. Spencer Jones, F. R. S - 145 



Use of solar energy for heating water, by F. A, Brooks 157 



The fringe of the sun; nebuhum and coronium, by C. G. James 183 



Our knowledge of atomic nuclei, by G. P. Ham well, Ph. D 189 



Spectroscopy in industry, by George R. Harrison, Ph. D 203 



Physical science in the crime-detection laboratory, by J. Edgar Hoover 215 



Physical interpretation of the weather, by Edgar W. Woolard 223 



Hurricanes into New England: meteorology of the storm of September 21, 



1938, by Charles F. Brooks 241 



Humanity in geological perspective, by Herbert L. Hawkins, D. Sc, 



F. R. S., F. G. S 253 



Geologic exhibits in the National Zoological Park, by R. S. Bassler _ 265 



The structure of the earth as revealed by seismology, by Ernest A. 



Hodgson 281 



V 



