THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 91 



been fully realized ; and after an experience of six years, there can now 

 be no doubt of the true policy of the Regents in regard to it." 



Reports of a more popular character have been published, or are in 

 preparation, which are well calculated to diffuse knowledge. Such is 

 the report on the recent improvements in the chemical arts, by Messrs. 

 Booth & Morfit, prepared and published under the direction of the In- 

 stitution. The Secretary has said of it " that though chiefly intended 

 to benefit the practical man, yet it will be found interesting to the gen- 

 eral reader, as exhibiting the cotemporaneous advance of science and 

 art, and the dependence of the latter upoi^the former for the improve- 

 menr of its most important processes." Among the subj(X'ts of which 

 it treats, may be mentioned fuel and furnaces, glass-making and pottery, 

 cements, metals and their manufacture, chemicals, textile fabrics, mineral 

 and organic manures. This work has been stereotyped, and besides 

 those which are distrit)uted on the plan of exchange. Copies are offered 

 for sale at the mere cost of printing, paper, and commissicni. Another 

 report which is in preparation, on the forest trees of North America, giv- 

 ing their economical and ornamental uses and values, their history, mode 

 of propagation, &c., &c., will supply to agriculturalists a work of great 

 interest and importance which has long been a desideratum. Other re- 

 ports have been prepared and will be ready for the press as soon as the 

 funds can be appropriated for printing them. 



The Committee need not repeat in detail all the parts of the plan of 

 organization, but may mention that it included the exchange of the 

 pubhshed transactions of the Institution, with those of literary and 

 scientific societies and establishments ; and provided for a museum and 

 library, to consist of a complete collection of the transactions and pro- 

 ceedings of all the learned societies in the world, of the more important 

 current periodical publications and of other works necessary to scientific 

 investigations, thus employing the instrumentalities pointed out in the 

 law, as means of increasing and diffusing knowledge, entirely consistent 

 with, and necessary to, the plan of research and publication. 



This plan is no longer experimental ; it has been tested by expe- 

 rience; its success is acknowledged by all who are capable of forming 

 a correct estimate of its results, and the Institution has every encour- 

 agement to pursue steadily its system of stimulating, assisting, and 

 publishing research. 



Whether the equal division of the income of the Institution, accord- 

 ing to the plan of the compromise resolutions, should be observed after 

 the completion of the building, is a question submitted to your Com- 

 mittee for report, and proper to be decided by the Board during the 

 present year. The Committee think that while moderate appropriations 

 should be annually made for the gradual increase of the library, and 

 for other objects specified in the fifth section of the act establishing the 

 Institution, so as to carry out in good faith the intention of Congress, 

 it is not advisable to make the equal division of the income as proposed 

 by the compromise resolutions. 



The public generally, and even the Regents, most probably, do not 

 know how small the funds of the Institution are in proportion to what 

 is required of it, and the expense necessarily connected with so large 

 a buildino;. 



