18 The Smithsonian Institution. 
upon a universal library at Washington (thus providing from 
foreigner’s bequest for a want which the General Government 
may be expected to supply, and are now supplying quite as largel 
as the whole income of Smithson’s fund would ),—to accumulat 
by degrees a “library of valuable works pertaining to all depart 
ments of human knowledge,” with special reference to those most 
needed by the investigator and enquirer, and not otherwise ac-— 
cessible, and to journals and transactions of all learned eacieninns in 
which the principal advances in knowledge are recorded ; to pr 
mote original researches in every department of enquiry ; to pub-— 
lish and freely distribute important ‘contributions to knowledge,’ 
ica; to gather eran a B Dettions, especially of our own nat- 
nd si i 
ches made by the Institution, or under its auspices ; 
solve important experimental problems in chemistry, physics, &¢., 
or to furnish instruments and facili ties for so doing ; — to con 
tinue the system of general international scientific. liter: 
exchange, by which every institution of learnin ante lenes 
the United States is enabled to carry on its correspondence, trans 
mit its publications to all similar societies in any other part of the 
World, and to receive theirs in return, almost without expense,— 
notice, in passing, one or two statements in the report (Mr. Up- 
hain’ s) which, to a considerable extent, sustains views adverse to. 
those of the Board of Regents. There are three new suggestions: 
in this report, of whose value our readers can form their own 0 
ion. ‘T'wo of them look to alterations of the law, viz: that the 
executive affairs of the Institution should be administered by two 
officers of equal authority ; and that. the Institution itself might 
= made a bureau under a department of the General Govert- 
ent, instead of remaining as now, a trust administered by a 
indupeadae establishment. The third propounds a novel 
