9 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
S. Pepper, and of Senator Augustus O. Bacon, who died February 
14, 1914. Representative Maurice Connolly has been appointed to 
succeed Mr. Pepper and Senator Henry French Hollis to succeed 
Senator Bacon. Representative Ernest W. Roberts has been ap- 
pointed as successor to Representative John Dalzell, whose term of 
office as Member of Congress had expired. 
The roll of Regents at the close of the fiscal year was as follows: 
Edward D. White, Chief Justice of the United States, Chancellor ; 
Thomas R. Marshall, Vice President of the United States; Henry 
Cabot Lodge, Member of the Senate; Henry French Hollis, Member 
of the Senate; William J. Stone, Member of the Senate; Scott Fer- 
ris, Member of the House of Representatives; Maurice Connolly, 
Member of the House of Representatives; Ernest W. Roberts, Mem- 
ber of the House of Representatives; Andrew D. White, citizen of 
New York; Alexander Graham Bell, citizen of Washington, D. C.; 
George Gray, citizen of Delaware; Charles F. Choate, jr., citizen of 
Massachusetts; John B. Henderson, jr., citizen of Washington, D. C.; 
and Charles W. Fairbanks, citizen of Indiana. 
At its meeting on January 15, 1914, the board filled a vacancy in 
the Executive Committee by the election of Hon. Maurice Connolly. 
The annual meeting of the Board of Regents, adjourned from 
December 11, 1913, was held on January 15, 1914, and the proceed- 
ings of the meeting have been printed as usual for the use of the 
Regents, while such important matters acted upon as are of public 
interest are reviewed under appropriate heads in the present report 
of the secretary. The annual financial report of the Executive Com- 
mittee has also been issued in the usual form, and a detailed state- 
ment of disbursements from Government appropriations under the 
direction of the Institution for the maintenance of the National 
Museum, the National Zoological Park, and other branches will be 
submitted to Congress by the secretary in the usual manner in com- 
pliance with the law. 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
The “ increase of knowledge” is one of the fundamental objects of 
the Smithsonian Institution, and one of the first acts of the Board 
of Regents in 1847 was to formulate a general plan of operations to 
carry out that purpose. Among the examples of lines of work for 
which appropriations were to be made from time to time were the 
following: 
(1) System of extended meteorological observations for solving the problem 
of American storms. 
(2) Explorations in descriptive natural history, and geological, mathematical, 
and topographical surveys, to collect material for the formation of a physical 
atlas of the United States. 
