REVIEWS — REPORT OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 45 



societies, and the British Association, we cannot doubt the wisdom 

 and foresight displayed in these regulations, and may already congra- 

 tulate the Institution on the prosperous results of the former part of 

 their design, as evinced by the valuable memoirs which have appeared 

 from time to time in the nine volumes known as the Smithsonian 

 Contributions to Knowledge : the latter part will no doubt in 

 due time be more fully carried out than seems yet to have been done, 

 although the system of nieteorological observation inaugurated by the 

 Institution is no mean effort. 



The second part of the design, for the diffusion of knowledge 

 among men, it is intended to promote by " the publication of a series 

 of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and 

 of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge 

 not strictly professional," and, " by the publication of separate trea- 

 tises on subjects of general interest," At present this portion of the 

 plan has been very partially put into execution, yet we do not know 

 of any want which is more pressingly felt than some such method of 

 making accessible at once to the cultivators of science every where 

 the discoveries which are now being so rapidly made in almost all 

 departments. Much has been effected by the excellent reports issued 

 from time to time by the British Association; but it would bean 

 inestimable boon if the contributions to knowledge now scattered 

 through isolated and often inaccessible periodicals, or lost in the 

 crowded transactions of sparse societies, were year by year collected 

 and arranged in a form which would enable each detached w^orkman 

 to see how far the building for which he may be hewing stones is 

 rising by other hands. Nothing is more striking and distressing in 

 the history of science than to see the waste of labor and intellect, 

 and the disputes and heartburnings that have been caused simply by 

 ignorance of what has been simultaneously doing in other places. It 

 is true that to carry out this proposal efficiently would require a 

 larger staff than seems to be contemplated in the Institution : but 

 perhaps this very circumstance makes in its favor, as thus affording 

 a provision (somewhat analagous to many examples in the old 

 world, and in which the United States are lamentably deficient,) for 

 maintaining a class of men who would make science their sole pur- 

 suit, and who would cultivate knowledge for its own sake and not aa 

 merely manure for the dollar tree. Certainly it would seem that the 

 funds might be more properly devoted for such a staff" than for that 

 necessary to furnish the store clerks of "Washington with rail-car 

 iterature, or even than to illuminate the city belles by the light 



