DISCOUESE OF ^V. B. TAYLOR. 293 



Institution to this branch of knowledge. - - - The collection of 

 the archaeology and ethnology of America, in the National Museum, 

 is the most extensive in the world: and in order to connect it 

 permanently with the name of Smithson, it has been thought ad- 

 visable to prepare and publish at the expense of the Smithsonian 

 fund, an exhaustive work on American anthropology, in which the 

 various classes of specimens shall be figured and described." * 

 This great work still remains to be perfected. 



Publications. — To attempt the recapitulation of the various 

 branches of original research initiated or directly fostered by the 

 Institution, would be to write its history. The range and variety 

 of its active operations, and the value of their fruits, are in view 

 of the limited income, and the collateral drains of less important 

 objects exacted from it, something quite surprising. Scarcely a 

 department of investigation has not received either directly or 

 indirectly liberal and efficient assistance: and a host of physicists 

 in the successful prosecution of their diverse labors, have attested 

 their gratitude to the Institution, and no less to the ever sympa- 

 thetic encouragement of its Director. 



Of the various works submitted to the Institution, — differing 

 ■widely as they necessarily must in the comprehensiveness as well 

 as in the originality of treatment of their diversified topics, — only 

 those were accepted for publication, which had received the approval 

 of a commission of distinguished experts in each particular field of 

 inquiry. But even after such formal approval and acceptance, 

 Henry ever maintained a sense of responsibility which entailed 

 upon him a vast amount of unrecognized and little appreciated 

 labor, in his desire to make each publication a credit to the Institu- 

 tion as well as to its author. In the editing of this multitudinous 

 material, he gave a critical attention to each memoir; and there are 

 probably few of the scries which do not bear the marks of his 

 watchful care, in the elimination of obscurities, of redundancies, or 

 of personalities, and in the pruning of questionable metaphors, of 



* SmitJisoniaJi Report for 1877, pp. 22, 23. Circulars broadly distributed by the 

 Institution, have servell to give desired direction ,to popular attention and activity 

 In this field of research; and the extent of co-operation is such as probably only 

 the "Smithsonian" could have secured, unless by a vastly greater outlay. 



