LETTER OF J. HENRY TO REV. S. B. DOD. 165 



lishment was for the benefit of mankind generally, and that all 

 unnecessary expenditures on local objects would be violations of the 

 trust. The plan I proposed for the organization of the Institution 

 was to assist men of science in making original researches, to pub- 

 lish these in a series of volumes, and to give a copy of these to 

 every first-class library on the face of the earth. 



I was afterward called to take charge of the Institution, and to 

 carry out this plan, which has been the governing policy of the 

 establishment from the beginning to the present time. 



One of the first enterprises of the Smithsonian Institution was the 

 establishment of a system of simultaneous meteorological observa- 

 tions over the whole United States, especially for the study of the 

 .phenomena of American storms. For this purpose the assistance 

 of Professor ARNOLD GUYOT was obtained, who drew up a series 

 of instructions for the observers, which was printed and distributed 

 in all parts of the country. He also recommended the form of 

 instruments best suited to be used by the observers, and finally calcu- 

 lated, with immense labor, a volume of meteorological and physical 

 tables for reducing and discussing observations. These tables were 

 published by the Institution, and are now in use in almost every 

 part of the world in which the English language is spoken. The 

 prosecution of the system finally led to the application of the prin- 

 ciples established to the predictions of the weather by means of the 

 telegraph. 



t JOSEPH HENRY. 



Kev. SAMUEL B. DOD. 



