CONTENTS 



Page. 



List of officials ix 



Outstanding events 1 



Summary of the .year's activities of the branches of the Institution 2 



The establishment 6 



The Board of Regents 6 



Finances 8 



Matters of general interest 8 



The Smithsonian Gallery of Art 8 



Smithsonian radio program 9 



Walter Rathbone Bacon Traveling Scholarship 11 



Smithsonian Institution exhibit at the Paris International Exposition, 



1937 11 



Seventh Arthur lecture 12 



Explorations and field work 12 



Publications 14 



Library 14 



Appendix 1. Report on the United States National Museum 17 



2. Report on the National Gallery of Art 29 



3. Report on the National Collection of Fine Arts 37 



4. Report on the Freer Gallery of Art 43 



5. Report on the Bureau of American Ethnology 49 



6. Report on the International Exchange Service 57 



7. Report on the National Zoological Park 67 



8. Report on the Astrophysical Observatory 99 



9. Report on the Division of Radiation and Organisms 105 



10. Report on the library 109 



11. Report on publications 115 



Report of the executive committee of the Board of Regents 121 



GENERAL APPENDIX 



New conceptions of the universe and of matter, by Gabriel Louis-Jaray. - 129 



The nature of the nebulae, by Edwin Hubble 137 



The sun and the atmosphere, by Harlan T. Stetson 149 



Cosmic radiation, by P. Mi S. Blackett 175 



A world of change, by Edward R. Weidlein 187 



Transmutation of matter, by Lord Rutherford , 201 



Science and the unobservable, by H. Dingle '-'09 



Some aspects of nuclear physics of possible interest in biological work, by 



L. A. DuBridge 227 



Electron theory, by R. G. Kloeffler 241 



Geology in national and everyday life, by George R. Mansfield 257 



The floor of the ocean, by P. G. H. Boswell 275 



Ice ages, by Sir George Simpson.. 289 



v 



