it oe oh eee 
FIFTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1893-1895. 1679 
nearest at hand; that is, in first promoting the increase and diffusion 
of knowledge in these United States. 
This national work has lain not only in scientific inquiry, but in 
. stimulating the progress of national art and literature, in initiating 
and developing interests in all branches of useful knowledge, and in 
making new and useful discoveries. It diffuses this knowledge by 
publishing it to the world and by bringing about an interchange of 
thought between all those engaged in promoting the increase of knowl- 
edge everywhere—primarily in this country, but also by association 
_ and correspondence with other countries. It is in this last connection 
that a great part of its work lies. As an illustration of the extent of 
this special part of its activities, it may be stated that the Institution 
now has about 24,000 active correspondents, of whom 14,000 are in 
Europe, 200 in Africa, 500 in Australasia, and about 9,000 in the 
various countries of the Western Hemisphere. 
In the course of this work the Institution has gathered at Washing- 
ton an immense collection of books, found nowhere else to so great an 
extent, bearing chiefly upon discovery and invention, which, with 
others, now occupy nearly 300,000 titles. These are deposited tempo- 
rarily with the national library at the Capitol. 
It has also formed a National Museum, with special reference to the 
illustration of the resources of the continent of North America. The 
Museum is referred to in the organic act, but Congress has since 
placed under the charge of the Institution other interests, such as the 
Bureau of International Exchanges, by means of which Congressional 
and other Government publications are exchanged with those of all 
leading foreign governments for the benefit of the nation; and a sys- 
tem of intercourse, through the just-mentioned correspondents (and 
otherwise impossible), is kept up between thinkers and inventors of 
this country with those of the rest of the world. 
Among other interests placed by Congress under the Institution are 
the Bureau of Ethnology, the National Zoological Park, and the Astro- 
physical Observatory. 
It will be seen from what has just been stated that while a portion 
of the Institution’s duty, as originally designed by Congress, was the 
furtherance of national art as well as science, yet it has on the whole 
leaned more to utilitarian interests in its functions, ‘‘ the increase of 
knowledge ” directly due to it being represented by such contributions 
as the labors of Henry, its first Secretary, toward the establishment 
of the electric telegraph’ and the improvement of our light-house sys- 
tem (which is so largely due to him), and of its second Secretary, who 
-was the founder of public fish-culture, which he took from its infancy 
and extended to such a degree that it now contributes enormously to 
the food supply of the United States. 
The Institution’s private fund received from James Smithson was 
