4 SMITHSONIAN MLSCFXLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 62 



Wa7' and Navy Departments. — These Departments, while especially 

 interested in aeronautics for national defense, can be of service in 

 advancing the general science. Each has an aeronautical library; 

 each has an official representative in foreign countries who reports 

 periodically on every important phase of the art, whether civil or 

 military ; each has an assignment of officers who design, test, and 

 operate air craft, and who determine largely the scope and character 

 of their development ; each has its aeronautic station equipped with 

 machines in actual service throughout the year. Besides various 

 aviation establishments, the War Department has a balloon plant at 

 Fort Myer, Va., and at Omaha, Neb. ; the Navy has its marine Model 

 Basin, useful for special experiments in aeronautics, its extensive 

 shops at the Washington Navy Yard, available for the alteration or 

 repair of air craft, or the manufacture of improved military types, 

 and at Fort Myer, three lofty open-work steel towers suitable for 

 studies in meteorology or aerodynamics in the natural wind. Further- 

 more, the Navy Department has detailed an officer for special research 

 in aeronautics at one of the principal Engineering Schools. 



Because of their fundamental interest in aeronautics, each of these 

 Departments has two representatives on the Advisory Committee, 

 and each will be able to place at the service of the Committee one or 

 more skilled aviators and aeroplanes for systematic experimentation. 



PRESENT NEEDS 



In presenting the needs of the organization, it is well to remark 

 that the Smithsonian Institution possesses the unique character of 

 being a private organization having Governmental functions and 

 prerogatives. It can receive appropriations directly from Congress ; 

 it can be the recipient or the custodian of private funds for the increase 

 and diffusion of knowledge; it can deposit such private fund^- with 

 the United States Treasury, or place them otherwise, as may be 

 required by the donor. Likewise, it can be the recipient or custodian 

 of material objects representing any province of nature, or any 

 branch of human knowledge or art. This unique character allows the 

 public to anticipate or supplement the cooperation of Congress in 

 promoting the aerodromical (aeronautical) work of the Institution. 



Endozwnent Funds. — Persons approving the pu'pose of the organi- 

 zation and desiring its continuity and permanence can not do better 

 than to provide for it a steady income, either for general or for 

 specific use. Individual endowment funds bearing the name of the 

 giver or other person, and presented to the Smithsonian Institution, 



