3 02 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that full credit be given to the name of Smithson. This liberal 

 policy has never been discontinued. 



The institution established systematic meteorological observa- 

 tions, it instituted the first telegraphic weather service, published 

 meteorological tables and charts, and became, in fact, the parent 

 of the present Weather Bureau. 



The institution early adopted a policy of doing nothing which 

 could be accomplished as well by other means, and of relinquish- 

 ing undertakings causing a draft upon its finances so soon as other 

 bodies, or the Government, should agree to take them in charge. 

 In pursuance of this wise plan the Secretary and the Regents ..in- 

 duced Congress from time to time to make separate appropria- 

 tions from the public Treasury in support of the National Mu- 

 seum, and of certain branches of work directly ordered by the 

 Government itself. The library soon outgrew its limited quar- 

 ters, and in 1866 was deposited in the Library of Congress, at a 

 great saving of expense. The meteorological service was likewise 

 transferred in 1874 to the Signal Corps of the United States Army. 



For many years the institution conducted explorations in re- 

 gard to the ethnology of the Indians of North America, and this 

 has developed into an important Bureau of Ethnology, supported 

 by Government appropriations, yet controlled by the Smithso- 

 nian. 



The botanical collection was transferred to the Department of 

 Agriculture, and the osteological specimens were placed in the 

 Army Medical Museum. 



The Smithsonian has been exceedingly fortunate in its execu- 

 tive officers. After the death of Henry, in 1878, Prof. Spencer F. 

 Baird, the eminent naturalist, was called to the secretaryship. 

 He had been United States Commissioner of Fishes for seven 

 years and Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian for twenty-eight 

 years, and thus brought to the post wide experience as well as ad- 

 ministrative ability. Under his care the National Museum was 

 especially augmented, and the publications were issued uniformly 

 on the lines laid down by his predecessor. Of his distinguished 

 services to science we can not here take note ; we merely quote 

 two paragraphs from the resolutions adopted by the Board of 

 Regents, November 18, 1887, on the occasion of his death : 



" Resolved, That the cultivators of science both in this country 

 and abroad have to deplore the loss of a veteran and distinguished 

 naturalist, who was from early years a sedulous and successful 

 investigator, whose native gifts and whose experience in sys- 

 tematic biologic work served in no small degree to adapt him to 

 the administrative duties which filled the later years of his life, 

 but whose knowledge and whose interest in science widened and 

 deepened as the opportunities for investigation lessened, and who 



