1() REPORT OF THE ACTING SECRETARY. 



PUBLICATIONS. 



It is mainh" through its publications that that vital principle of 

 the Institution, " the dilfusion of knowledge among men," is carried 

 out. The institution proper maintains three regular series of publi- 

 cations, the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, the Smith- 

 sonian Miscellaneous Collections, and the Annual Reports, while 

 under its auspices are issued the annual reports, proceedings, and 

 bulletins of the National Museum, the reports and bulletins of the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, and the Annals of the Astrophysical 

 Observatory, the whole presenting a fund of information covering 

 a Avide range of human knowledge in both a specialized and general 

 form. 



The Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, now in their thirty- 

 fourth volume, are restricted to the publication of positive additions 

 to human knowledge resting on original research, all unverified 

 speculations being rejected. The Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collec- 

 tions are designed to contain reports on the present state of our 

 knowledge in particular branches of science, instructions for collect- 

 ing and digesting facts and materials for research, lists and synopses 

 of species of the organic and inorganic world, reports of explora- 

 tions, and aids to bibliographical investigations. This series is now 

 in its forty-ninth volume, and in the Quarterly Issue provision has 

 been made for the early publication of short papers descriptive of 

 ncAv discoveries or containing information of current interest in all 

 departments of science. 



These two series of publications are printed at the expense of the 

 Institution. Owing, however, to the lack of funds heretofore men- 

 tioned, their issuance was necessarily suspended during the early part 

 of the year, but toward the close there was a partial resumption of 

 the work. The printing of the memoir on "Atmospheric Nuclea- 

 tion," by Dr. Carl Barns, in the Contributions, was completed, and 

 several papers were published in connection with the Quarterly 

 Issue. 



The last edition of the Smithsonian Geographical Tables having 

 been exhausted, a new one, embodying some minor corrections by 

 the author. Prof. E. S. Woodward, now president of the Carnegie 

 Institution, was put to press near the end of the year. A revision of 

 the Meteorological Tables, for Avhich there is also a great demand, 

 is in course of preparation. 



There is under consideration a request that Bowen's Vocabulary 

 of the Yoruba languages, published by the Institution in 1858, be 

 reprinted for the use of missionaries in the Yoruba country of West 

 Africa, those making the proposition regarding it as the most 

 useful and accurate book dealing with the various phases of Yoruba 



