Report of the Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution 
LEONARD CARMICHAEL 
For the Year Ended June 30, 1959 
To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution: 
GENTLEMEN: I have the honor to submit a report showing the activ- 
ities and condition of the Smithsonian Institution and its branches 
for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1959. 
GENERAL STATEMENT 
The activities of the 113th year of the Smithsonian Institution are 
presented in this report. In many ways this has been an outstanding 
year at the Smithsonian. Once again the services rendered by the 
Institution demonstrate the wisdom of our distinguished founder 
and man of science, James Smithson, in establishing in Washington 
an institution for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge among 
men.” The increase in knowledge is embodied in research, and this 
year the investigations of the Smithsonian staff have been very fruit- 
ful, as the details given herein will indicate. The diffusion of knowl- 
edge has involved the answering of some 260,000 specific quiries re- 
lated to the fields of expertness found in the Smithsonian’s various 
divisions, laboratories, and libraries. The diffusion of knowledge 
has also been actively carried on by the publication of scholarly and 
semipopular works, which are also described elsewhere in this report. 
Possibly, however, the main means by which the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution diffuses knowledge is through its museum exhibits and the edu- 
cational and inspirational opportunity that these displays give to 
our millions of visitors each year. 
As pointed out in recent annual reports, real progress has been made 
in the past few years in transforming the old, outmoded museum dis- 
plays of the Smithsonian into modern, effective, teaching exhibits. 
The visitors who now come to the Smithsonian Institution are deeply 
grateful that Congress has made it possible to bring about this grad- 
ual transformation of Smithsonian exhibition halls from what in too 
many respects was until recently an old-fashioned place for “visual 
storage.” 
