EEPORT OF THE ACTING SECRETARY. 17 



life. It is interesting to note that a work of this character, issued 

 by the Smithsonian nearly fifty years ago, should still remain a 

 standard of authority. 



In view of the increased interest and importance attaching to 

 the subject of earthquakes on account of the disaster to San Fran- 

 cisco and its vicinity on April 18, 1906, it has been decided to pub- 

 lish a supplement to the " Catalogue of Earthquakes on the Pacific 

 Coast from 1769 to 1897," compiled by Dr. E. S. Holden and pub- 

 lished in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections in 1898. The 

 work will be prepared by an official of the United States Weather 

 Bureau, and will bring the subject down to date. Through the 

 courtesy of the Department of State and of the Hydrographic Office 

 of the Navy Department, the Institution has also received informa- 

 tion regarding recent earthquakes in Venezuela and other regions, 

 which is available for publication. 



The annual report of the Board of Regents to Congress, which is 

 printed at the Government Printing Office, has been the chief 

 medium through which the Institution has been enabled to dissemi- 

 nate scientific information to the world at large. Besides the offi- 

 cial 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 num- 

 ber of copies of this publication placed by Congress at the dis- 

 posal of the Institution has rendered possible a wide distribution 

 to important libraries and institutions of learning, but the allot- 

 ment 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 Proceedings of the United States National Museum, the first 

 volume of which was issued in 1878, are intended as a medium for 

 the publication of original papers based on the collections of the 

 Museum, setting forth newly acquired facts in biology, anthropology, 

 and geology, or containing descriptions of new forms and revisions 

 of limited groups. A volume is issued annually or oftener, for dis- 

 tribution to libraries and scientific establishments, and in view of 

 the importance of the more prompt dissemination of new facts, a 

 limited edition of each paper is printed in pamphlet form in advance. 

 The dates at which these separate papers are published are recorded 

 in the table of contents of the volume. The Museum Bulletins, 

 publication of which was begun in 1875, comprise a series of more 

 elaborate papers, issued separately, and, like the Proceedings, based 

 chiefly, if not wholly, on the collections of the Museum. A quarto 



SM 1906 2 



