294 JOSEPH HENRY, LL.D. 



December 3, 1846. He had a definite plan of the 

 work which ought to be done, and " after due 

 deliberation it received the almost unanilnous ap- 

 proval of the scientific world." 



He believed that the money should be used in 

 original scientific work ; by helping men to publish 

 the results of such work j to aid in varied explora- 

 tions; to send scientific publications all over the 

 world. The institution is now the principal agent 

 of scientific and literary communication between 

 the old world and the new. The number of for- 

 eign institutions and correspondents receiving the 

 Smithsonian publications exceeds two thousand, 

 scattered from New Zealand and India to Yoko- 

 hama, in Japan, and Cape Town, in Southern Africa. 

 The weight of matter sent abroad for ten years, 

 ending 1877, was ninety-nine thousand pounds. 

 Among the first subjects taken up by the institu- 

 tion for investigation was that of American 

 archaeology, an attempt to ascertain the industrial, 

 social, and intellectual character of the earliest 

 races on our continent. The first publication of 

 " Smithsonian Contributions " was a work on the 

 mounds and earthworks found in the Mississippi 

 valley, a most fascinating study. 



The Smithonian, " first in the world, organized a 

 comprehensive system of telegraphic meteorology, 

 and has thus given first to Europe and Asia, and 

 now to the United States, that most beneficent 

 national application of modern science the storm 

 warnings." 



