488 The Smithsonian Institution 



oriental archaeology. It was the practice of Professor Baird, 

 for many years, in his report as Assistant Secretary, to give 

 an account of the natural history explorations of the United 

 States. Since 1889, however, most of these reports of pro- 

 gress have been omitted, though one or two continue to be 

 published, anthropology especially. 



Secretary Langley stated in the advertisement to the gen- 

 eral appendix of the Report for 1889 that, owing to "the in- 

 completeness of the special record, the discouragement from 

 the increasing delays encountered in the printing of these 

 summaries, the recent multiplication by private enterprise of 

 special books and periodicals devoted to critical summaries," 

 he had decided to temporarily suspend the printing of the 

 Reports, and would revert to what he believed the more ac- 

 ceptable plan, " of publishing yearly papers selected with a 

 principal view to their general scientific interest," rather than 

 to continue these summaries, which were " chiefly of impor- 

 tance to the professional student." This policy has been 

 continued to the present time. 



Stress has been laid upon the Reports of the Institution, 

 not because they are the most important publications issued, 

 but for the reason that they are the only volumes the publica- 

 tion of which is based on a direct statement in the organic 

 law of the Institution, and because their lars^e edition has 

 given them the widest circulation. 



The most important volumes issued in the name of the In- 

 stitution, those which have contained the greatest additions 

 to the sum of human knowledge and are most prized among 

 scientific men, are the quarto volumes of " Smithsonian Con- 

 tributions to Knowledge," thirty-two volumes of which have 

 appeared. This series was foreshadowed in the resolutions 

 appended to the report made January 25, 1847, ^^ ^^^ ^^st 

 committee appointed by the Board of Regents for the prepar- 



