57 The Smithsonian Institution 



retical and educational way are the advances made in the 

 way of applications in the mathematico-physical sciences. 

 Observational and dynamical astronomy, geophysics, meteor- 

 ology, thermodynamics, and engineering in all its branches 

 have nowhere been cultivated more diligently and success- 

 fully during the past fifty years than in the United States. 

 Many individuals and many institutions, of course, have con- 

 tributed to bring about this progress ; but all have been ani- 

 mated by the same desire that has been so effectively carried 

 out by the founder and the administrators of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, a desire to increase knowledge and to diffuse 

 knowledge among men. 



