The Three Secretaries 145 



developed for publication in the ' Smithsonian Contributions," 1 

 did not find it consistent with his duties, as he understood 

 them, to take time necessary for any continuous laboratory 

 work in connection with the labors of organizing and shap- 

 ing the character of the new foundation. 



His annual reports, which were models of full and exact 

 administrative treatment, were always written by himself, and 

 abounded in critical and philosophical remarks bearing not 

 only upon the work of the Institution, but also upon the sig- 

 nificance of the work in which it was engaged, and its rela- 

 tions to the scientific questions of the day. During the first 

 ten years his papers were but few. At the meeting of the 

 American Association in 1850, he remarked, at the conclusion 

 of a brief conversation, that for the last three and a half 

 years all his time and all his thought had been given to the 

 details of the business of the Smithsonian Institution; he had 

 been obliged to withdraw himself entirely from scientific re- 

 search ; but he hoped, now the Institution had been gotten 

 under way, and the Regents had allowed him some able as- 

 sistants, that he would be enabled, in part at least, to return 

 to his first love the investigation of the phenomena of 

 nature. 



His anticipations were not, however, to be realized in the 

 manner hoped for. His subsequent work in science was for 

 the most part that which grew out of his official connections, 

 and his published papers such as embodied trains of thought 

 suggested by the administrative work which he was directing. 

 His studies upon direct and reflected sound grew out of 

 his experiments to remedy the defects of a Smithsonian hall 

 intended for public speaking. His generalizations in regard 

 to the primary powers in connection with which he expressed 

 his views on the correlation of physical and organic forces, 

 were developed in an address upon "The Improvement of 



