REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 13 
It is the earnest hope of the Institution that these proposed build- 
ings will become actualities in the near future to the end that the price- 
less national collections may be properly safeguarded and exhibited to 
the ever-increasing number of visitors from all parts of the country. 
CANAL ZONE BIOLOGICAL AREA 
Under the President’s Reorganization Plan No. 3, the biological sta- 
tion on Barro Colorado Island, known as the Canal Zone Biological 
Area, was placed under the administration of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution on July 16, 1946. This area in Gattn Lake was set aside by a 
1940 act of Congress in order to preserve in its original state the fauna, 
flora, and other natural features for study by scientists, particularly 
those from North, Central, and South America. 
The Barro Colorado station has been maintained as a Federal agen- 
cy since 1940 by contractual arrangements with other Federal agen- 
cies and by fees subscribed by American scientific institutions. The 
income from this method of support has not, however, been suflicient 
to maintain the laboratories and other facilities in good condition, 
and the Institution’s first concern upon taking over this new respon- 
sibility will be to obtain funds for rehabilitation of the physical plant 
and the proper equipping of the laboratories and other buildings. 
The reorganization plan was not actually approved until shortly 
after the close of the fiscal year, so that further discussion of the proj- 
ect will be reserved for the next report. 
FOURTEENTH ARTHUR LECTURE 
Under the terms of the will of the late James Arthur, of New York, 
the Smithsonian Institution received in 1931 a fund, part of the in- 
come from which should be used for an annual lecture on some aspect 
of the science of the sun. 
The fourteenth Arthur lecture, entitled “The Sun and the Harvest 
of the Sea,” was given by Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, head curator of bi- 
ology of the National Museum, on March 5, 1946. This lecture, with 
illustrations, will be published in the Annual Report of the Smith- 
sonian Institution for 1946. 
SUMMARY OF THE YEAR’S ACTIVITIES OF THE BRANCHES OF THE 
INSTITUTION 
National Museum.—In this first year after the end of the war there 
were marked increases in the number of specimens accessioned and in 
the number of visitors, and field expeditions began again to go out from 
the Museum after having been held in abeyance during the war years. 
Outstanding among the year’s accessions were the following: In an- 
thropology, 6,765 artifacts from protohistoric Indian sites in Kansas 
