THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 137 



The experiment was tried, and the anticipated result was obtained. It 

 is this exact agreement of the deduction with the actual result of ex- 

 perience that constitutes the verification of an hypothesis, and which 

 alone entitles it to the name of a theory, and to a place in the transac- 

 tions of a scientific institution. It must be recollected that it is much 

 easier to speculate than to investigate, and that very few of all the hy- 

 potheses imagined are capable of standing the test of scientific verifi- 

 cation. 



For the practical working of the plan for obtaining the character of a 

 memoir, and the precaution taken before it is accepted for publication, 

 I would refer to the correspondence, given in a subsequent part of this 

 report, relative to the memoir now in process of publication by the In- 

 stitution. As it is not our intention to interfere with the proceedings of 

 other institutions, but to co-operate with them, so far as our respective 

 operations are compatible, communications may be referred to learned 

 societies for inspection, as in the case of the above mentioned memoir, 

 and abstracts of them given to the world through the bulletins of these 

 societies, while the details of the memoirs and their expensive illustra- 

 tions are published in the volumes of the Smithsonian Contributions. 

 The officers of several learned societies in this country have expressed 

 a willingness to co-operate in this way. 



Since original research is the most direct way of increasing know- 

 ledge, it can scarcely be doubted that a part of the income of the be- 

 quest should be appropriated to this purpose, provided suitable persons 

 can he found, and their labors be directed to proper objects. The 

 number, however, of those who are capable of discovering scientific 

 principles is comparatively small; hke the poet, they are "born, not 

 made," and, hke him, must be left to choose their own subject, and 

 wait the fitting time of inspiration. In case a person of this class has 

 fallen on a vein of discovery, and is pursuing it with success, the better 

 plan will be to grant him a small sum of money to carry on his inves- 

 tigations, provided they are considered worthy of assistance by compe- 

 tent judges. This will have the double eflfect of encouraging him in 

 the pursuit, and of facilitating his progress. The Institution, however, 

 need not depend upon cases of this kind, even if they were more numer- 

 ous than they are, for the application of its funds in the line of original 

 research. There are large fields of observation and experiment, the 

 cultivation of which, though it may aflbrd no prospect of the discovery 

 of a principle, can hardly fail to produce results of importance both in 

 a practical and theoretic point of view. As an illustration of this 

 remark, I may mention the case of the investigations made a few 

 years ago by a committee of the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia. 

 The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States placed at the dis- 

 posal of this society a sum of money, for the purpose of making expe- 

 riments with reference to the cause of the explosion of steam boilers. 

 A committee of the society was chosen for this purpose, which adopted 

 the ingenious plan of writing to all persons in the United States 

 engaged in the application of steam, and particularly to those who had 

 observed the explosion of a steam boiler. In this way opinions and 

 suggestions in great variety, as to the cause of explosions, were ob- 

 tained. The most plausible of these were submitted to the test of ex- 



