24 REPORT OF THE ACTING SECRETARY. 



tokens received by him in recognition of his contributions to the ad- 

 vancement of knowledge, including the Rumford gold medals from 

 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society 

 of London, the Henry Draper gold medal from the National Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, and the gold medal from the Academy of Sciences 

 of the Institute of France, and also the Rumford silver medals from 

 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society 

 of London. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



One of the important duties of the Institution is the conduct of its 

 correspondence, not alone such as relates to its administrative ailairs, 

 but likewise to the mass of inquiries received from all parts of the 

 country and indeed from every quarter of the globe, regarding al- 

 most every conceivable subject. It is not the policy of the Institu- 

 tion to encourage such requests unless they pertain to matters in- 

 cluded within its scope, in which event, however, every effort is made 

 to improve the opportunity for increasing or diffusing knowledge in 

 accordance with the prime purposes of its foundation. Inquiries 

 relating to subjects within the scope of other governmental agencies 

 are referred to the proper sources of information and the writers so 

 informed, but the amount of correspondence along legitimate lines of 

 inquiry is very great and entails much labor upon both the scientific 

 and the clerical staffs. 



In addition to the correspondence handled directly from the offices 

 of the Institution proj)er, each of the bureaus under its direction con- 

 ducts its own correspondence with large numbers of individuals and 

 institutions desiring information upon the subjects to which their 

 activities relate. The National Museum, for example, sends out 

 annually thousands of letters concerning specimens transmitted for 

 identification and a knowledge of their characteristics, while the 

 National Zoological Park disseminates much valuable data regarding 

 living animals. A large amount of authentic information about the 

 American Indian, present and past, emanates annually from the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology of this Institution. There is also a 

 growing public interest in matters relating to astrophysics, and to the 

 component elements in the sun and other celestial bodies, as mani- 

 fested in a rapid increase in the amount of correspondence received 

 by the Institution regarding this branch of scientific investigation. 



Numerous letters are received from inventors making application 

 for grants of money with which to develop their various devices, or 

 asking an expression of the Institution's opinion as to the merits of 

 their respective inventions. The Institution has no fimds from 

 which such aid can be given, and the Secretary is, moreover, obliged 



