10 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



air currents by means of kites have been aided by the Hodgkins 

 fund. Mr. Eotch conducted a series of experiments at the St. Louis 

 Exposition with ballons-sondes, which carry instruments only, these 

 recording automatically the temperature and pressure of the air, 

 the duration of flight and the place of landing, indicating also the 

 velocity and direction of the air currents traversed. The success of 

 these first experiments in America Avith recording balloons was such 

 as to warrant their continuance under the sanie direction, and on 

 their termination die results will be embodied in a report by Mr. 

 Rotch for publication by the Institution. 



A paper on the Construction of a Vowel Organ, by Dr. E. W. 

 Scrij^ture, has been recently published by the Institution. This arti- 

 cle gives the details of work under a Hodgkins grant approved for 

 the purjDose and mentioned in my last report. 



In extending his researches in connection with speech or phonetics 

 Doctor Scripture has been fortunate in securing individual gramo- 

 phone voice records of much historical interest. A voice record of 

 the Emperor of Germany was transmitted by Doctor Scripture in 

 January, 1905, for preservation in the United States National Mu- 

 seum. This record gives, in about two hundred words, the Emperor's 

 conception of the aims and beauty of true manhood and of man's 

 duty to his fellow^, and recognizes the wisdom of the Almighty and 

 Omniscient Creator. At present only one other record of His Maj- 

 esty's voice exists, namely, one made at the same time for preserva- 

 tion in the library of Harvard University. 



The experiments conducted by Mr. Alexander Larsen, of Chicago, 

 in connection with the photography of lightning flashes, with a 

 special effort to measure their duration, mentioned in my last report 

 as having been aided by a limited grant from the Hodgkins fund, 

 have been continued during the year and the results carefully re- 

 ported. An interesting research on the fluorescence of minerals has 

 also been carried on by Mr. Larsen, more than 100 specimens, sent for 

 the purpose by the Institution, having been examined and reported 

 on. During these experiments many interesting facts have been 

 noted, which may prove the basis of further investigation. 



A moderate additional grant has been approved during the year 

 on behalf of Doctor von Lendenfeld, of the K. K. Zoologisches Insti- 

 tute, Prague, to assist in defraying the cost of the construction of an 

 improved apparatus for taking the serial instantaneous photographs 

 required for studies of the flight organs of animals. Doctor von 

 Lendenfeld has given serious and protracted attention to this subject, 

 in connection with which numerous articles prepared by him, or 

 under his direction, have been published. A paper by Doctor Mascha, 

 supervised by Doctor von Lendenfeld, on '' The Structure of Wing- 

 Feathers," has recently been printed in the Smithsonian Miscella- 



