REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 3 
appropriate to its position as the national research institution. But 
in these days of high wages, high salaries, and high prices, the small 
income from the Smithsonian endowment, $65,000 annually—only as 
much in a year as the Carnegie Institution has for research in two 
weeks—is quite insufficient to make any considerable showing. 
This is what the Smithsonian Institution does: 
1. It carries on original scientific investigations by its own staff. 
2. It prints large memoirs and smaller original papers, publishes 
useful tables and formulas, and reprints informing articles on scien- 
tific progress suitable for the intelligent general reader, and dis- 
tributes these free to scientific and learned societies throughout the 
world. 
3. It answers by mail an average of 8,000 inquiries on scientific 
subjects annually, gratis. 
4. It gives occasional lectures and courses of lectures by eminent 
scientists. 
_5. It confers medals of honor on eminent discoverers. 
6. It subsidizes, if funds can be secured, approved researches by 
outside workers. 
7. It procures foreign diplomatic and learned recognition and 
assistance for expeditions going abroad. 
8. It fosters scientific development of schools, museums, and insti- 
tutions throughout the world by cooperation in the loan of research 
men, in the free distribution of over a million specimens, and in giv- 
ing its advice and its publications. 
9. It is the headquarters of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science. Until 1924 it was the headquarters and meet- 
ing place of the National Academy of Sciences. 
10. It is the official channel of exchange of scientific intelligence 
between the United States and the world. 
11. It contributes continually to the Library of Congress a large 
flow of foreign periodical and occasional scientific literature, which 
has now accumulated to over 500,000 volumes. 
12. It administers seven public governmental bureaus besides the 
reer Gallery. 
18. It disburses annually funds from four sources: 
(a) The income of its endowment, $65,000. 
(6) Sums intrusted by private individuals for special objects. 
Average five years—$70,000. 
(c) The income of the Freer bequest. Average five years— 
$190,000. 
(d) Congressional appropriations for seven public bureaus— 
$850,000. 
What the Smithsonian desires to do and be-—The Smithsonian In- 
stitution, ward of the American Nation, desires to bring out the hid- 
