REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. Ibs) 
ing gases.” This paper is a report on researches carried on under a 
Hodgkins grant by Dr. Morris W. Travers, of the University College, 
Bristol, England. 
Two other papers are very nearly completed. One is a “ Report 
on the Crustacea of the North Pacific Exploring Expedition of 
1853-1856,” by the late Dr. William Stimpson. This manuscript 
has been in hand since 1872, but for various reasons could not here- 
tofore be published. The whole work was carefully gone over by 
Miss Mary J. Rathbun, Assistant Curator of Marine Invertebrates 
in the National Museum, who says in her preface: 
The . . . report has.been treated as an historical document, and is pub- 
lished substantially as it was written by the author, the only additions being 
the references to his preliminary descriptions, and the footnotes giving the 
current or accepted name where it differs from that used by Doctor Stimpson. 
It is hoped that the value of the descriptions will more than compensate for 
the antiquated nomenclature . . . there are very few students who have 
not felt the need of more light on those rare genera and species known only 
from brief Latin diagnoses. 
Another publication is a “ Catalogue of Earthquakes on the Pacific 
Coast from 1897 to 1906,” compiled by Mr. Alexander G. McAdie, as 
a supplement to the list of earthquakes from 1769 to 1896, compiled 
by Dr. E. S. Holden, and published in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous 
Collections in 1898. 
A new edition of the Smithsonian Meteorological Tables to meet the 
continued demand for this work is in press. The plates have been 
considerably revised by Prof. Cleveland Abbe to meet present re- 
quirements. : 
The Annual Report of the Board of Regents to Congress, which is 
printed at the Government Printing Office, has been the chief me- 
dium through which the Institution has been enabled to disseminate 
scientific information to the world at large. Besides the official 
account of the operations of the Institution, this report has for over 
half a century included a general appendix giving a record of the 
progress in different branches of knowledge, compiled largely from 
journals in foreign languages and the transactions of scientific and 
learned societies throughout the world. The considerable number 
of copies of this publication placed by Congress at the disposal of 
the Institution has rendered possible a wide distribution to important 
libraries and institutions of learning, but the allotment is wholly 
insufficient to supply more than a small fraction of the individual 
requests, and the popular demand for the volume has so constantly 
increased that the entire edition of each year’s report is exhausted 
within a few months of its appearance. 
The Institution proper distributed during the year a total of 
32,921 volumes and separates of Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- 
