REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 11 



Wilkes: An American Who Discovered a Continent May 19 



Story of Airships May 26 



How Fossils Serve Mankind June 2 



Bats — Animals that Fly June 9 



Natives of Hawaii June 16 



Bering in the Far North June 23 



The Smithsonian Today June 30 



From the beginning an attempt has been made to supply listeners 

 who request it with supplementary information on the subject cov- 

 ered by each broadcast. This supplementary material has been is- 

 sued in a number of forms — mimeographed, multigraphed, and 

 printed — but the difficulty has been to print sufficient copies with the 

 funds available. In October 1939 a new method was tried — that 

 of publishing the "listener-aids" in magazine form through the coop- 

 eration of Columbia University Press and selling them to listeners 

 at cost. This method proved to be very successful and was con- 

 tinued through June 30, when publication of the magazine was sus- 

 pended for the summer months. After February, the articles printed 

 in the magazine were written by Smithsonian experts and were 

 illustrated with reproductions of photographs. The average cir- 

 culation over the 9-month period was between 3,000 and 4,000 per 

 week. 



The W. P. A. financial assistance given during the 4 years the 

 program has been on the air was withdrawn at the close of the past 

 year. The W. P. A. funds had been used to pay the salaries of 

 the production and music directors, a large proportion of the actors, 

 and all of the clerical force in Washington who handled "The World 

 is Yours" mail. Rather than let the program die for lack of funds, 

 N. B. C. generously agreed to finance all the production costs for 

 the coming year, so that hereafter "The World is Yours" will be pre- 

 sented as an N. B. C. public-service feature. The script writer will 

 be paid by the Smithsonian, as for the past 2 years. 



Much experience has been gained during the 4 years of the Smith- 

 sonian radio program. The quality of the broadcasts has been stead- 

 ily improved, and their popularity has continued unabated. It is 

 the hope of the Institution that "The World is Yours" may stay on the 

 air indefinitely. 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL. PUBLICATION IN HONOR OF JOHN R. SWANTON'S 

 FORTIETH YEAR WITH THE INSTTTUTION 



In 1900 Dr. John R. S wanton joined the scientific staff of the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, a branch of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution. The year 1940, therefore, marks the fortieth year of his 

 association with the Institution, and to commemorate the occasion, 



