KEiPORT OF THE SECRETARY. l7 



make the table available for the use of a greater number of investi- 

 gators than could otherwise be accommodated. 



In the past fifteen years only one instance has occurred in which 

 an investigator has applied for the Smithsonian seat after having 

 asked the privilege of occupying another table for the same period. 

 The confusion which necessarily results from such action will be 

 readily appreciated. To meet the wish of the director, a double ap- 

 pointment on behalf of the Institution, for even a limited time, is not 

 approved without inquiry as to the convenience of the station in the 

 matter. It should be again noted, however, that the director of the 

 station is always most courteously ready to arrange for the accommo- 

 dation of more than one appointee when, on being notified in advance, 

 he finds such action practicable. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



Three series of publications are maintained by the Institution 

 proper, (1) the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, (2) the 

 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, and (3) the Annual Reports 

 to Congress; while under its auspices there are issued Annual Re- 

 ports, Proceedings, and Bulletins of the National Museum, Annual 

 Reports and Bulletins of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and 

 Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory. 



The Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge are restricted to 

 positive additions to human knowledge resting on original research, 

 unverified speculations being excluded therefrom. The Smithsonian 

 Miscellaneous Collections contain reports showing progress in partic- 

 ular branches of science, lists and synopses of species of the organic 

 and inorganic world, accounts of explorations, and aids to biblio- 

 graphical investigations. 



Three memoirs of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 

 which were in press at the close of the last fiscal year, have been com- 

 pleted and distributed. One of these is a memoir of 147 pages and 42 

 plates by Dr. William Hittell Sherzer, giving the results of his stud- 

 ies of the glaciers of the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks. Doctor 

 Sherzer explains the physiographic changes of the jDast and those 

 now in progress in these regions, and gives the results of his observa- 

 tions on the structure of glacial ice and movements of the glaciers. 

 The second completed memoir of 79 pages and 10 j)lates is by Prof. 

 E. A. Andrews, on " The Young of the Crayfish Astacus and Cam- 

 barus," and the third memoir of 231 pages and 13 plates is by Prof. 

 Hubert Lyman Clark, on " The Apodous Holothurians, a Monograph 

 of the Synaptida? and IMolopodiida?," including a report on the repre- 

 sentatives of these families in the National Museum collections. 



