616 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



pose, that the restrictions would have been imposed upon 

 the appropriations for other objects, leaving that for the 

 library unfettered. If we turn from the act of Congress to 

 the will of Smithson to determine the manner in which the 

 trust should be executed, if we look to his antecedents and 

 find that he was himself a searcher into the mysteries of 

 nature which science is laboring to develope not so much 

 employed in studying the pages of those who have written 

 as striving to read the unwritten pages of nature's book if 

 we consider the plain and obvious import of the simple 

 language in which his wishes are expressed, and contem- 

 plate the benefits to result from one or the other scheme of 

 appropriation which have been in controversy; if we con- 

 sider these things, we cannot doubt that it is botli the right 

 and the duty of the regents, resulting from the will of Smith- 

 son and enjoined yq the act of Congress, to appropriate such 

 portion of his funds as they can advantageously employ in 

 scientific researches and the publication and circulation of 

 the results "among men," wherever men exist capable of 

 appreciating them, while, at the same time, they apply another 

 portion of the fund, according to a sound and honest discre- 

 tion, to the particular purposes specified in the act. 



Thus they will not depart from any plan devised by Con- 

 gress and prescribed in the act, as Mr. Choate seems to have 

 erroneously supposed, but will fill up and develope that very 

 plan, of which only some of the outlines were sketched in 

 the law. 



It would be impracticable, within the limits proper to this 

 report, to go into the examination of the minute outline of 

 organization of the institution submitted to the Board of 

 Eegents by the secretary, and approved by them. It will 

 be found printed in detail in the appendix to the eighth 

 annual report of the Smithsonian Institution, published by 

 Congress in 1854. 



A brief notice of the plan and of its results is all that we 

 can here present. 



The object of the plan is, first: To increase knowledge 

 by stimulating original research by the rapid and full pub- 

 lication of results; by aid in procuring the materials and 

 appliances for investigation; and, if necessary, by direct 

 rewards. 



Experience has shown that no other means are so effective 

 in stimulating research as the rapid publication of results; 

 not in a stinted form of abstract, and without illustrations, 

 (too often the necessary condition of the publication of scien- 

 tific labors,) but in full, with illustrations drawn, engraved, 



