KKl'OUT OF THE SKCKKTARY. 17 



Miscollan(M)us CoUoctioiis, Ki^ports and publications not iii('Iu(l(Ml in 

 the ro^-uhir seiios." 



In the publications of the Institution (lie double aim of its founder is 

 represented, in that it should exist botli for the '" increase" and the 

 "ditt'usion" of kno\vl(Hlt>e. 



The reeordinjj- of results of orig-inal researclu»s, the "■ increase" of 

 knowledo-o, is chiefly through the Contribution to Knowledge, atjuarto 

 s(>ries bet^'un in 184S, und in which 145 memoirs, collected in 83 vol- 

 umes, have so far been published. 



Three memoirs have been add(>d to this sei-ies, one on the moon, one 

 on retlectin<^ telescopes, and one on whalebone whales. 



The moon memoir, by Prof. N. S. Shaler, entitled "A Comparison 

 of the Features of the Earth and Moon," is a work of 79 pages of text, 

 with ;^5 full page illustrations, each of them accompanied by a descrip- 

 tion of the principal objects shown. 



As stated in my last report, T have for more than twelve years past 

 been preparing the material for the publication of a work, on the part 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, which it was hoped would consist essen- 

 tially of photographic views of the moon, so complete and, it was 

 expected (with the advance of photography), so minute, that the fea- 

 tures of our satellite might be studied in them by the geologists and 

 the selenographer, nearly as well as ])y the astronomer at the telescope. 

 This hope has only been partially fulfilled, for photography, which 

 has made such eminent advances in the reproduction of nebuhe and 

 like celestial features, has indeed progressed in lunar work, but not to 

 the same extent as in other fields. The expectation that such a com- 

 l)lete work could be advantageously published for this purpose has, 

 then, been laid aside for th(> present. 



It was decided to draw from the material prepared for this larger 

 w^ork, some photographs taken at the Lick Observatory and the 

 Paris Observatory, and i)articularly some recently obtained by Pro- 

 fessor Kitchey at the Yerkes Observatory, for which I have to express 

 the thanks of the Institution. These illustrations are attached to the 

 present paper l>v Professor Shaler, and may, then, l)e considered to be 

 a separate contril)ution by the Institution to the study of selenography. 



Professor Shaler's memoir gives the results of personal studies car- 

 ried on for a third of a century. He has devoted about one hundred 

 nights to telescopic study of the moon with the Mertz equatorial of 

 I^ar^-ard College Observatory, his later researches having been chiefly 

 by means of photographs at Harvard rniv(M-sity. with which he has so 

 long been connected. 



A memoir of 106 pages, with 13 full-page illustrations and many 

 text figures, consists of a reprint of a work by Professor Draper on 



« Contributions to Knowledge, 3,148; MiscellaneouH Collections, 7,819; Reports, 

 31,202; publications not in regular series, 3,536. 

 8M 1904 2 



