REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 9 



The Secretary has pursued his studies in regard to aerodromic exper- 

 iments, and an account of many years' investigation of this subject 

 has been prepared and is nearly ready for the press, but publication is 

 deferred foi a time. 



The Institution subscribed for a considerable number of copies of 

 the Astronomical Journal and the Astrophysical Journal for distribu- 

 tion in the general interest of the diffusion of knowledge. 



The National Museum has been concerned in investigations relating 

 to anthropology, biology, and geology, and the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology has devoted its energies to inquiries into aboriginal cus- 

 toms and languages, while in the Astrophysical Observatory the Sec- 

 retary himself has continued his researches in connection with the 

 spectrum and solar radiation. The results of these several lines of 

 investigation are mentioned in the paragraphs devoted to those 

 bureaus or in the appendix to this report in detailed statements of 

 those in charge of the work. 



HODGKINS FUND. 



Since the last Report the Hodgkins memoir, "La Vie sur les hauts 

 Plateaux," submitted in collaboration by Prof. A. L. Herrera and Dr. 

 D. Vergara Lope, of the City of Mexico, has been published in French 

 by the authors, and a considerable nmnber of copies was secured by 

 the Institution for distribution to some of the principal libraries of the 

 country. This memoir, which was designated by the committee for 

 honorable mention, with silver medal, appears as a timely contribu- 

 tion to our knowledge of the atmosphere in connection with the wel- 

 fare of man. 



As mentioned in last year's Report, a memoir embodying the results 

 of a research to determine the ratios of specific heats, prosecuted by 

 Drs. Lummer and Pringsheim under a grant from the Hodgkins fund, 

 has been published in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge 

 and distributed in accordance with the established custom of the Insti- 

 tution. This important investigation is to be continued under the 

 direction of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt, of Berlin, with 

 which establishment Drs. Lummer and Pringsheim are connected. 



Although necessarih' limited in number b}^ the conditions of the 

 bequest, the investigations now in progress under grants from the 

 Hodgkins fund are reported as making satisfactory advance along 

 their special lines of research, among which the progress in the inves- 

 tigations of the higher regions of the atmosphere, made at the Blue Hill 

 Meteorological Observatory by means of kites ascending vertically 

 between 2 and 3 miles, are to be specifically mentioned. 



An additional grant of $500 to Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, the director, 

 was approved May 4, 1899, for a series of experiments in wireless 

 telegraphy by the use of kites at varying altitudes, a part of this sum 

 being for the purchase of apparatus, which on the termination of the 



