44 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



tally de]ajed, but the report for 1864 was finished and distributed 

 at an earlier period than had been possible for several previous 

 years. The demand for these reports is every year increasing, and we 

 learn from the members of both houses that no document printed by 

 Congress is more frequentl}' called for. 



It is greatly to be regretted that the extra copies of all the volumes 

 of the reports previous to 1863, which were stored in the rooms of 

 the towers, w^ere destroyed by the fire, and that we are therefore 

 unable any longer to furnish complete sets or to supply missing vol- 

 umes to various institutions and correspondents that have applied for 

 them. The reports since 18G1, inclusive, have been stereotyped, so 

 that at any future time an edition of any of these volumes may be 

 printed; but with the high price of paper and press-work, and with 

 the heavy demands on the Institution, this is at present impracti- 

 cable . 



The report for 1864 contains in the appendix a eulogy of Delambre, 

 the eminent astronomer, translated by C. A. Alexander, esq., and a 

 continuation of the series of memoirs of distinguished members of the 

 French Academy of Sciences; an essay on the velocity of light, b^^ 

 M. Delaunay, translated by Professor A. M. Mayer; an original com- 

 pilation on ozone and antozone, made for the Institution by Dr. Charles 

 M. Wetherill; translation of Jamin's essay on vegetation and the at- 

 mosphere; extract of a memoir on the preservation of copper and 

 iron in salt water, by M. Becquerel, furnished by Admiral C. H. 

 Davis, United States navy; translations of articles on the preservation 

 of wood and caoutchouc and gutta-percha, from the German periodi- 

 cal " Aus der Natur;" an article on gun-cotton by Lieutenant Von 

 Karolyi, with notes by Dr. B. F. Craig, of this city; a translation by 

 Professor Ten Brook of a description of Pettenkofer's apparatus for 

 testing the results of perspiration and respiration; a translation by the 

 late Professor Hubbard, of the Naval Observatory, of Lament's report 

 on the solar eclipse of July 18,' 1860; a report of the transactions of 

 the Society of Physics and Natural History of Geneva, 1861 and 

 1862, translated by C. A. Alexander; a letter from F. Troyon on the 

 crania Helvetica, with illustrations; a continuation of Plateau's 

 researches on the figures of equilibrium of a liquid mass withdrawn 

 from the action of gravity, with numerous illustrations; an original 

 article on the artificial shell deposits in Monmouth county. New Jer- 

 sey, and a continuation of Baegert's account of the aboriginal inhabi- 

 tants of the California peninsula, translated by Professor Charles Rau; 

 an article on the "intermixture of races," by George Gibbs; a lee- 



