5 68 The Smithsonian Institution 



subjects published by the Smithsonian Institution must be 

 rated as of great importance. Among these may be cited the 

 astronomical papers of Walker, Gould, Runkle, Newcomb, 

 and Stockwell ; the papers on heat, light, electricity, and 

 magnetism, by Meech, Bache, Barnard, Miiller, De La Rive, 

 Helmholtz, Maxwell, and others ; the papers on meteorology 

 of Henry, Schott, Coffin, and Abbe ; the remarkable re- 

 searches of Plateau ; and the more recent elaborate summa- 

 ries of current progress in astronomy, geology, meteorology, 

 and physics. Falling, as these papers have, under the eyes 

 of a great many readers, they cannot have failed to produce 

 a wide-spread interest in the one science which is a common 

 necessity to all sciences that have to deal with quantitative 

 relations. To this general diffusion of mathematico-physical 

 knowledge by the Smithsonian Institution must be ascribed, 

 in a large measure, the noteworthy impulse which mathemati- 

 cal study and research have acquired in the United States 

 during the past two decades. 



Another indirect means, no less potent than that just 

 mentioned, in stimulating mathematical inquiry is found in 

 the numerous memoirs on, and biographies of, distinguished 

 devotees to the mathematico-physical sciences published in 

 the annual Reports of the Smithsonian Institution. Nothing 

 is more interesting and inspiring, for example, than Arago's 

 admirable biographical notices of Laplace, Young, Herschel, 

 Ampere, and others, which have been translated by the Insti- 

 tution and given wide publicity through those annual Reports. 

 In this connection, also, mention should be made of the semi- 

 popular addresses on various subjects in the physical sciences, 

 which have likewise reached the reading public through the 

 annual Reports. The seeds of knowledge and inspiration 

 sown broadcast in this manner have taken root in many 

 minds ; and it is doubtless due in no small degree to the 



