THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 149 



over 8,000 correspondents, but for the world, has throughout Europe, 

 Asia, Africa, and the islands of the sea, nearly 28,000 correspondents 

 more without the United States than within — justifying the words 

 "Per Orbem," as the device on the Smithsonian seal. 



Other work has been intrusted to the Institution by the Govern- 

 ment, such as the Bureau of American Ethnology, for studies relating 

 to the aborigines of this continent; the Astrophysical Observatory, 

 which for ten years has been chiefly devoted to the enlargement of 

 Newton's work on the spectrum, and the National Zoological Park. 

 The establishment of the latter was intended primarily to preserve the 

 vanishing races of mammals on the North American continent; but it 

 has also assumed the general features of a zoological park, afford- 

 ing the naturalist the opportunity to study the habits of animals at 

 close range, the painter the possibility of delineating them, and giving 

 pleasure and instruction to hundreds of thousands of the American 

 people. These two latter establishments are due to the initiative of 

 the present Secretary, Mr. S. P. Langley, elected in 1887; a physicist 

 and astronomer, known for his researches on the sun, and more 

 recently for his work in aerodynamics. While the fund has been 

 increased of later years by a number of gifts and bequests, the most 

 notable being that of Mr. Thomas G. Hodgkins of a sum somewhat 

 over $200,000, its original capital, once relatively considerable, has 

 now, in spite of these additions, grown relatively inconsiderable where 

 there are now numerous universities having twenty times its private 

 fund. It threatens now to be insufficient for the varied activities it 

 has undertaken and is pursuing in eveiy direction, among these the 

 support of the higher knowledge by aiding investigators everywhere, 

 which it does by providing apparatus for able investigators for their 

 experiments, etc. Investigations in various countries have been stimu- 

 lated by grants from the fund. It has been the past, as it is the 

 present, policy of the Institution to aid as freely as its means allowed, 

 either by the grant of funds or the manufacture of special apparatus, 

 novel investigations which have not always at the moment seemed 

 of practical value to others, but which subsequently have in many 

 instances justified its discrimination in their favor and have proved of 

 great importance. 



The growth of the Institution has been great, but it has been more 

 in activity than in mere bigness. The corner-stone was laid fifty } T ears 

 ago. In 1852 the entire staff, including even laborers, was 12. In 

 1901 the Institution and the bureaus under it employed 64 men of sci- 

 ence and 277 other persons. These men of science in the Institution 

 represent very nearly all the general branches, and even the specialties 

 to some extent of the natural and physical sciences, besides history 

 and the learning of the ancients; and it may perhaps be said that the 

 income of the Institution (which, relatively to others, is not one-tenth 



