REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 

 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



C. G. ABBOT 



FOR THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1938 



To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Gentlemen : I have the honor to submit herewith my report showing 

 the activities and condition of the Smithsonian Institution and the 

 Government bureaus under its administrative charge during the fiscal 

 year ended June 30, 1938. The first 15 pages contain a summary ac- 

 count of the affairs of the Institution, and appendixes 1 to 11 give 

 more detailed reports of the operations of the National Museum, the 

 National Gallery of Art, the National Collection of Fine Arts, the 

 Freer Gallery of Art, the Bureau of American Ethnology, the In- 

 ternational Exchanges, the National Zoological Park, the Astrophysi- 

 cal Observatory, the Division of Radiation and Organisms, the Smith- 

 sonian library, and of the publications issued under the direction of 

 the Institution. On page 121 is the financial report of the executive 

 committee of the Board of Regents. 



OUTSTANDING EVENTS 



The past year witnessed a further stimulus to the art feature of the 

 Smithsonian Institution in the passage by Congress of a resolution 

 authorizing the President to designate a tract of land on the Mall for 

 a Smithsonian Gallery of Art and authorizing an appropriation of 

 $40,000 to obtain preliminary plans for such a building. It is the 

 expectation that the building itself will be financed by private funds. 

 The year also marked the completion of the foundations of the new 

 National Gallery of Art now under construction which is to house 

 the Andrew W. Mellon art collection given by Mr. Mellon to the 

 Nation through the Smithsonian Institution. The building is ex- 

 pected to be completed in 1940. The Smithsonian solar observing 

 station on Mount St. Katherine in Egypt was abandoned owing to the 

 excessive isolation of that station and other cogent reasons, and con- 

 struction of a new station on Burro Mountain near Tyrone in New 

 Mexico was begun. June 1938 marked the completion of 2 full years 

 of the Smithsonian radio program in cooperation with the United 

 States Office of Education. These educational broadcasts have con- 



