236 EIGHTH ANNUAL iREPORT OF 



basement; these stories to be devoted to the library, the museum, 

 and a large and convenient lecture-i-oom. 



The business of the Institution would be much facilitated were this 

 part of the building com.pleted. Since Congress has authorized the 

 establishment of a library and museum, it will be well to place all the 

 objects of interest to the public in the main building, and make this 

 exclusively the show part of the establishment, devoting the wings and 

 ranges, and rooms of the towers, to the business operations and other 

 purposes of the Institution. In the present condition of affairs there is 

 no part of the edifice to which the public has not access, and, conse- 

 quently, business has to be transacted amidst constant interruptions. 

 The loss of time and effective lile to which all are exposed who occupy 

 a position of notoriety in the city of Washington, is truly lamentable ; 

 and where this is increased by facility of access to gratify mere curi- 

 osity, the evil becomes scarcely endurable. Progress in business, under 

 such circumstances, can only be made by an encroachment on the 

 hours usually allotted to rest, and that, too, at the expense of wasted 

 energies and shortened days. 



Publications. 



During tiie past year the following memoirs, described in the previ- 

 ous Reports, have been collected into volumes and distributed to public 

 institutions in this country and abroad : 



1. Observations on Terrestrial Magnetism. 



2. Researches on Electrical Rheometry. 



3. Contributions to the Natural History of the Fresh-water Fishes of 

 North America. 



4. First part of the Marine Alg;e of the coast of the United States. 



5. Planta3 Wrightiana^ Texano-Neo-Mexicanae, Part I. 



6. Law of Deposit of the Flood Tide, its d3aiamical action and 

 office. 



7. Description of Ancient Works in Ohio. 



8. Occultations visible in the United States during the year 1852. 



9. A Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota language. 



The memoir last mentioned occupies an entire volume, the fourth of 

 the Smithsonian series of Contributions. The other memoirs are con- 

 tained in the third volume of the same series. '' 



The remaining memoirs, described in the last Report, are still in the 

 press, the printing of them having been delayed by the exhaustion 

 of the appropriation for the year, and by several necessary corrections. 

 A sufficient number of papers will, however, be printed in the course 

 of a few months, with the new appropriation, to complete the fifth 

 volume of Contributions; and if the means pi'ove sufficient, we can 

 readily issue the sixth volume during the present year. 



The result of the plan of publication has fully realized the anticipa- 

 tions which w^ere entertained of its usefulness. It supplies the food 

 it feeds upon. The appearance in the Contributions of a memoir 

 on any subject immediately directs attention to tliat subject, and induces 

 other laborers to engage in the same field of exploration. This is par- 

 ticularly manifest in the interest awakened with regard to the anliqui- 



