55^ The Smithsonian Instittition 



Report for that year. The editing of the " Progress in Phys- 

 ics " was during these years assigned to Professor George F. 

 Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, and no one else so 

 well fitted for the work could have been found. The series 

 of " Reports of Progress," which appeared from 1880 to 1887, 

 as far as it relates to the science of physics leaves nothing to 

 be desired ; the references to original sources are very com- 

 plete, and both the busy specialist and the intelligent student 

 of general physics willingly acknowledge their indebtedness 

 to Professor Barker and the Institution. It is not yet certain 

 that any other publication exactly fills the place of this. 



A few other publications of a miscellaneous or technical 

 character remain to be noticed, one of the most important 

 being Professor Huxley's famous "Jubilee Year Address" on 

 the "Advance in Science in the Last Half Century," which 

 will always stand as a classical contribution to the scientific 

 history of a remarkable period. Emblematic of the growth 

 of engineering skill during the same period are the carefully- 

 prepared papers on the Eiffel Tower in the same volume. A 

 technical paper of much interest " On the Absolute Measure- 

 ment of Hardness," by F. Auerbach, is published in the Re- 

 port for 1 89 1, the English translation of which was furnished 

 by Professor Carl Barus ; while the volumes for 1890 and 1893 

 contain examples of splendid experimental skill, in two papers 

 by Professor Boys, the first being the celebrated Royal Insti- 

 tution lecture on " Ouartz Fibers," and the second that on 

 " Electric Spark Photographs of Flying Bullets," delivered 

 in 1892 at the Edinburgh meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science. The " Ouartz P"ibers " 

 lecture was almost epoch-making in character, for it intro- 

 duced to general use a simple and elegant device for the sus- 

 pension of light bodies, which has enormously increased the 

 accuracy of a large and important class of physical measure- 



