January 23, 1896J 



NATURE 



2S5 



embrace the habits and customs of the American Indians, their 

 tribal organisations and government, and their myths and 

 ceremonials. 



Major Powell was made director, and no one could have been 

 {letter fitted for the task. For more than thirty years he had 

 been a student of the native races of this continent. He and 

 his associates in the Bureau have succeeded in placing on record, 

 before it was too late, a vast number of facts in regard to the 

 Indians. The Annual Reports of the Bureau, twelve in number, 

 and nine volumes of Contributions to North American Ethno- 

 logy, with the Bulletin of the Bureau, form a considerable 

 library in themselves. The archives still contain much un- 

 published material, including hundreds of vocabularies. 



A complete linguistic classification of the native languages of 

 the United States has been prepared by the director, and an 

 effective classification of the tribes on the reservation, reducing 

 materially the danger of warlike outbreaks, has already been 

 accomplished. 



Ex I' LO RATIONS. 



The promotion of exploration has, from the beginning, been 

 an important feature in the work of the Institution, and grants 

 of money and loans of apparatus have been made to many hun- 

 dreds of explorers, who have thus been enabled to contribute to 

 the knowledge of the zoology, botany and ethnology of the 

 American continent. Much has also been done in supplying 

 scientific apparatus to the officers of the various Government 

 surveys, which, in early days, were very often equipped only 

 for geographical work. The Naval Astronomical Expedition to 

 Chili was supplied by the Institution with a telescope and other 

 apparatus, which was afterwards bought by the Government of 

 Chili for the National Observatory at Santiago. The medical 

 officers of the numerous surveys ppeliminary to the building of 

 the transcontinental railroads, and those of the several boundary 

 surveys, thus equipped for natural history work, made vast 

 collections. 



Members of the Smithsonian staff have frequently been 

 detailed to serve as tidal or meteorological observers, under 

 other departments of the Government, in remote localities, for 

 the ixirposes of exploration. The important early explorations of 

 John Xantus on the extremity of the Lower Californian Peninsula, 

 and of Turner, Nelson, Murdoch, Kumlien, and others in the 

 Arctic regions, were effected in this manner, as well as the 

 earlier and more important work of Kennicott, Dall and 

 Bannister, in Alaska, in connection with the Russian Telegraph 

 Expedition. 



On the staff of the Bureau of Ethnology important explora- 

 tions of the western portion of the continent have been made, 

 especially those of the Stevensons, Gushing, Fewkes, and the 

 Mindeliffs, among the Pueblo people and the ruins of the south- 

 west ; those of Holmes among the prehistoric quarry sites and 

 villages of the eastern part of the continent ; those of Thomas 

 among the mounds of the Mississippi Valley, and of McGee 

 among the Papago and Seri Indians of the Mexican • boundary ; 

 and the notable explorations of Major J. W. Powell among the 

 tribes of Utah, California, Arizona and New Mexico. 



The expeditions of Rockhill in Tibet, of Jouy in Korea, of 

 Abbot and Chanler in Eastern Africa and Kashmir, Madagascar 

 and the islands of the Indian Ocean, have been indirectly under 

 the auspices of the Institution, and allusion should also be made 

 to the visit of Major Dutton to the Hawaiian Islands for the 

 study of volcanic phenomena, which was carried on directly at 

 the expense of the Smithsonian Fund. 



The Institution participated also in fitting out the Arctic 

 Expedition of Kane, Hayes and Hall. 



The Promise ok the Future. 



At the time of the Smithson bequest, the endowment of re- 

 search had scarcely been attempted in America. There were 

 schools and colleges in which science was taught, and certain 

 of the teachers employed in these institutions were engaged in 

 original investigation. There were a few young and struggling 

 scientific societies, very limited in extent and influence, but at 

 that time the chief outcome of American scientific work. 

 Science in America was an infant in swaddling clothes. Fifty 

 years have passed, and American science now stands by the 

 side of the science of (jreat Britain, of Germany, of France, a 

 fellow worker competing in nearly every field of research. 



The Smithstmian Institution did what was, at the lime of its 

 organisation, absolutely indispensable to the rapid and symmet- 

 rical development of American scientific institutions, and but 



• NO. 1369, VOL. 53] 



for it, science in America would no doubt have advanced with 

 much less rapidity. It is also certain that the progress of 

 American science has had an immense influence upon the 

 welfare of America in every department of intellectual and 

 industrial activity, and also a reflex action upon the scientific 

 and industrial progress of the entire world. 



This year the Smithsonian Institution will celebrate the end of 

 its first half-century. A special volume will be published to 

 commemorate the event, and two memorial tablets will be erected 

 in honour of the founder in the city of Genoa, where he died, 

 June 26, 1829 ; one in the English church, and one upon his 

 tomb in the beautiful little English cemetery on the cypress- 

 clad heights of San Benigno. 



It is interesting to remember that in September next will 

 occur not only the semi-centenary anniversary of the birth of the 

 5||stitution founded in the City of Washington by Smithson, but 

 also -the centenary of the delivery of that immortal address in 

 which Washington so forcibly recommended to his countrymen 

 "to promote as an object of the highest importance institu- 

 tions FOR THE increase AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWKKDHE." 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The Council of the Royal Geographical Society 

 offer in the present academical year a Studentship of ^loo, to be 

 used in the geographical investigation (physical or historical) of 

 some district approved by the Council. Candidates must be 

 members of the University of not more than eight years' standing 

 from matriculation, who have attended the courses of lectures 

 given in Cambridge by the University Lecturer in Geography. 

 Applications should be addressed to the Vice-Chancellor not 

 later than the last day of the full Lent Term, March 13, 1896. 



Lord Halsbury has been elected Chairman of the Council 

 of the City and Guilds of London Institution for the Advance- 

 ment of Technical Education. 



The Technical World has extended its sphere of usefulness. 

 Henceforth it will be the newspaper for secondary and technical 

 education broadly defined. It has been accepted as the official 

 organ of the Association of Headmasters, and of the Association 

 of Organising Secretaries and Directors. The general policy of 

 our contemporary will be to support the conclusions of the 

 Royal Commission on Secondary Education, by which we 

 understand that it will exert its influence in co-ordinating the 

 work of secondary education. With one paragraph in the 

 announcement of the enlargement of the journal we are in 

 entire agreement ; it is this : " That the organising secretaries 

 and directors should have an official organ will serve to remind 

 them (a fact which a few are prone to forget) that they have 

 duties not only to their own counties and committees, but to 

 each other and to higher education generally. The more they 

 co-operate, and within limits agree, the better will be the 

 individual work of each." 



Wise words were spoken by Sir Henry Fowler last week, 

 while commenting upon the report of the Wolverhampton 

 Chamber of Commerce. Referring to the necessity for technical 

 education, he remarked : " In this respect foreigners are ahead 

 of England, and Chambers of Commerce might attach more im- 

 portance to the point. In foreign countries they make greater 

 sacrifices for it and do not grumble at the expense. In England 

 we are now waking up to the importance of it, but we want 

 technical education on a very much larger scale than we have as 

 yet got it. We want it very much on the lines which the Com- 

 mittee of the Chamber of Commerce in their report point out, 

 namely, technical instruction for foremen and better-class 

 artisans. In a competition between two manufacturing countries, 

 the country where the manufacturing population has the better 

 technical education is more favourably placed in connection with 

 its operations, and has a distinct advantage in the markets of the 

 world." We are doing a little, it is true, to advance technical 

 and scientific knowledge, but much of the money allocated to 

 local authorities for technical education is being frittered away. 

 Many Technical Instruction Committees are incapable of 

 organising a scheme of instruction which will prove of per- 

 manent benefit to industry. Instead of concentrating their 

 attention upon a few subjects, and supplying effective education 

 in them, they devote ^lo or ;if20 to each of a multiplicity 



