156 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 



Hamilton) to the Smithsonian Institution about the first week in Feb- 

 ruary. Please inform us who is authorized by the Board of Eegents of 

 the Smithsonian Institution- to receive the legacy and release the exe- 

 cutors, and we will send the release next week to you to be executed by 

 the proper officers of said board, and one of the executors or a repre- 

 sentative will be in Washington in the early part of next month to pay 

 over the money and get the release. 

 Yours, respectfully, 



JOSEPH A. STUAET, 

 One of the executors of Jas. Hamilton, deceased. 

 Prof. Joseph Henry. 



IST. B. — Below you will notice a copy of the section of the will contain- 

 ing said legacy to the Institution. 



Section 8. " I give one thousand dollars to the Board of Eegeuts of the 

 Sniithsonian Institution, located at Washington, D. C, to be invested 

 by said regents in some safe fund, and the interest to be appro])riated 

 biennially by the secretaries, either in money or a medal, for such con- 

 tribution, paper, or lecture, on any scientific or useful subject, as said 

 secretaries may approve." 



On motion of Mr. Hamlin, it was 



Resolved, That the bequest of the late James Hamilton, of Carlisle, 

 Pa., be accepted ; that the chancellor and Secretary of the Institution 

 be authorized to receipt for the money and that it be deposited with the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, on the same terms as the original bequest 

 of Smithson, in accordance with the act of Congress approved 8th Feb- 

 ruary, 1867.* 



The Secretary gave an account of the correspondence of the Institu- 

 tion and spoke of the immense mental activity which existed in this 

 country in regard to scientific speculations. In connection with these 

 remarks he laid before the Board, at the request of the author, a series 

 of manuscripts entitled "Disclosures in Science, etc," by Henry Kor- 

 ner, of Powhatan, Ohio, which had been urged upon the Institution for 

 publication. In these manuscripts the author states that he has dem- 

 onstrated the insufficiency of the theory of gravitation, as propounded 

 by Newton, to explain the mechanical phenomena of astronomy, and 

 also the inadequacy of the received principles of molecular action to 

 account for iho, phenomena of physics and chemistry, and that he has 

 himself discovered principles to which all these ma;y be referred. 



The Secretary stated that after examining these manuscripts he had 

 informed the author that they could not be published by the Institution, 

 since nothing could be accepted for that purpose unless it had previ- 

 ously been submitted to a commission for critical examination, and a 

 favorable report had been obtained; that these speculations were 

 *Statues at Large, vol. 14, page 391. 



