236 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
Tue Hopcxins FuNpD 
In October, 1891, Thomas George Hodgkins, Esq., of Setauket, 
New York, made a donation to the Smithsonian Institution, the 
income from a part of which was to be devoted “ to the increase and 
diffusion of more exact knowledge in regard to the nature and prop- 
erties of atmospheric air in connection with the welfare of man.” 
These properties may be considered in their bearing upon any or 
all of the sciences,—e. g., not only in regard to meteorology, but in 
connection with hygiene, or with physics, or with any department 
whatever, either of biological or physical knowledge. 
With the intent of furthering the donor’s known wishes, the 
Institution has already given a number of money prizes for treatises 
embodying new and important discoveries in regard to the nature 
or properties of air. This form of encouragement will not at present 
be renewed. 
A gold medal has been established under the name of the “ Hodg- 
kins Medal of the Smithsonian Institution,” which may be awarded 
annually or biennially for important contributions to our knowledge 
of the nature and properties of atmospheric air, or for practical 
applications of our existing knowledge of them to the welfare of 
mankind. 
Grants of money are made from time to time to specialists en- 
gaged in original investigations which involve the study of the prop- 
erties of atmospheric air, accepting the phrase in its widest sense. 
Thus the physicist may consider these properties in an investiga- 
tion which involves the study, for instance, of atmospheric electricity, 
or of the absorptive powers of the air, or of the atmospheric lines in 
the spectrum ; the hygienist may be assisted in researches in this con- 
nection looking to the promotion of health; or even the geologist, 
in a study which connects the earth’s crust with the absorption of 
the constituents of the atmosphere in past or coming time. 
The Hodgkins Fund may thus be considered to cover in effect 
some subject belonging to nearly every division of the applied 
sciences. 
It being the desire of the Institution to give the widest extension 
to the great purpose of the founder of this fund and to prevent 
any misapprehension of his wishes, it is repeated, that the dis- 
coveries or applications proper to be brought to the consideration 
of the Institution may be in the field of any department of science 
without restriction, provided only that they have to do with “the 
nature and properties of atmospheric air in connection with the 
welfare of man.” 
