20 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 



removed and the building was again ready for the resumption of 

 construction operations. About $25,000 was expended in fitting up 

 the building for the congress ($15,000 being thus unused from the 

 appropriation). 



Thirty-one independent nations and forty-five States of the Union 

 were represented. There were 438 contributors, of whom 312 were 

 citizens of the United States. The total attendance at the congress 

 was approximately 148,000. 



Among the contributors to the exhibits the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion presented results of an investigation among certain of the Indian 

 tribes for the Department of the Interior, with a view to showing the 

 actual amount of tuberculosis existing. This work was done by Dr. 

 Ales Hrdlicka, of the National Museum, who visited the Menominee, 

 Sioux, Quinault, Hupa, and Mohave tribes. The exhibit occupied a 

 space amounting to 18 by 40 feet, and the congress expressed its 

 appreciation of it by awarding the Institution a gold medal. 



As already mentioned in the paragraphs on the Hodgkins fund, the 

 Institution offered a prize of $1,500 for the best treatise on " The 

 relation of atmospheric air to tuberculosis." 



Anniversary of birth of Torricelli. — At the exercises commemorat- 

 ing the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Evangelista 

 Torricelli, held at Faenza, Italy, in November, 1908, Professor 

 Senator Giovanni Copellini was requested to act as the representative 

 of the Institution. 



American Mining Congress. — Dr. George P. Merrill, head curator 

 of geology, United States National Museum, represented the Institu- 

 tion and the Museum at the eleventh annual session of the American 

 Mining Congress, held at Pittsburg, Pa., December 2 to 5, 1908. 



Pan-American Scientific Congress. — The first Pan-American Scien- 

 tific Congress was held in Santiago, Chile, December 25, 1908, to 

 January 0, 1909. The Smithsonian Institution was represented by 

 Mr. William H. Holmes, Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology 

 and curator of prehistoric archeology in the National Museum, who 

 presented a paper on " The peopling of America." An account of the 

 congress, by Mr. Holmes, is given as an appendix to the present 

 report. 



Aeronautical exposition. — The Institution sent seven large photo- 

 graphs of the Langley aerodrome to the International Aeronautical 

 Exposition held at Frankfort on the Main, Germany, February 27, 

 1909. 



National Academy of Sciences. — As has been the custom for many 

 years, the Institution afforded facilities for the meetings of the Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences, April 21 to 23, 1909. One of the halls 

 of the National Museum was used for the public meetings of the 

 academy, the council meetings being held in rooms in the Smithsonian 



