REPORT 



OF 



RICHARD RATH BUN, 



ACTING SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 



FOR THE 



YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1906. 



To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Gentlemen : It is with profound sorrow that I record the death at 

 Aiken, S. C, on February 27, 1906, of Samuel Pierpont Langley, 

 Secretary of the Institution since 1887. 



This is not the place to give an adequate review of the work of Mr. 

 Langlej^ as a man of science, or to recall his contributions to the prog- 

 ress of thought and to the upbuilding of the various scientific insti- 

 tutions with which he was connected. 



I may be permitted, however, to express here my sense of bereave- 

 ment in the passing away of a man whose friendship and personal 

 and official confidence I was privileged to enjoy. Although connected 

 with the Museum and the Institution in one capacity or another for 

 more than thirty years, my close relations with the late Secretary did 

 not begin until 1896. Within this decade I learned to know him as a 

 man of the most profound intellect, an acknowledged master in that 

 branch of astronomy which he had virtually made his own, and a 

 pioneer in the difficult subject of mechanical flight. In his younger 

 3^ears he set himself to determine the nature and composition of the 

 sun, and the properties of heat and light in their relation to life upon 

 this planet. Later he attacked that fascinating problem, the main- 

 tenance and progress in the air of bodies many fold heavier than the 

 medium through which they move. 



That he should have investigated these two large difficult subjects 

 was but typical of his most marked intellectual characteristic, which 

 required that he knock incessantly upon the doors which were closed 

 to others. He was equally, if not professionally, concerned with all' 



