612 The Smithsonian Institution 



following words: "Agriculture would have forever remained 

 an empirical art had it not been for the light shed upon it 

 by the atomic theory of chemistry." 



The first mention of any chemical activity in the history of 

 the Smithsonian Institution was in 1848, when an announce- 

 ment was made of an arrangement (among others) for " a 

 report on the present state of chemistry as applied to agri- 

 culture." A year later " a report on the application of chem- 

 istry to agriculture," prepared by Lewis C. Beck, of Rutgers 

 College, is announced as " nearly ready for the press," but it 

 does not appear to have been published, and it is probable 

 that the matter was given to the public in 1850 in a course of 

 lectures on the " Chemical Operations of Nature," delivered 

 by Professor Beck in the Smithsonian hall. 



The failure to publish this report may be accounted for by 

 the statement so often made by Henry that "it is the policy 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, in order to employ its funds 

 most effectually in the way of increasing and diffusing know- 

 ledge, not to engage in any operation which could be as well, 

 if not better, carried on under the direction, and with the 

 funds of another institution," and as an appropriation was 

 made by Congress in 1848 to the Commissioner of Patents 

 for the purpose of investigating the relations of chemistry to 

 agriculture, it is more than likely that Henry deemed it 

 undesirable to encroach on that domain. 



The first published contribution to chemistry was the 

 "Memoir on the Explosiveness of Niter," by Robert Hare. 

 It comprised twenty pages and formed the seventh memoir 

 in the second volume of the " Smithsonian Contributions to 

 Knowledge." Its history is interesting. A fire occurred in 

 New York City on July 19, 1845, during which two hundred 

 and thirty houses were destroyed, containing merchandise 

 valued at over two millions of dollars. A peculiar feature of 



