THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 223 
physical Observatory, the Zoological Park, the Bureau 
of American Ethnology, and the International exchange 
of public documents and scientific publications. These 
bureaus are supported by public money derived from 
taxation and appropriated annually by Congress at its 
discretion. The Smithsonian Institution is supported by 
the interest of its own funds which are partly in the 
United States Treasury and, in the case of some private 
donations contributed since the original organization, 
partly in the form of investments by the Board of Regents, 
whose discretion, guided by the special knowledge of the 
Secretary, is final in the matter of disbursements. The 
whole board meets only two or three times a year; an 
executive committee of members resident in Washington, 
supervises accounts and can in any emergency be con- 
vened by request of the Secretary, who otherwise decides 
all matters relating to the policy and action of the Insti- 
tution. The successful carrying out of the intentions of 
the testator, limited only by the Congressional act creating 
the Institution, obviously depended upon the wisdom and 
foresight of the Secretary. 
Providentially for Science and the future of the 
organization the right man was found in Professor Joseph 
Henry of Princeton University. Known among scientists 
as the foremost physicist of America, and to the people 
of the United States as the man whose experiments made 
possible the magnetic telegraph, his fitness for the post 
was universally recognized. What no one perhaps could 
at that time foresee was the statesmanlike ability and 
tact with which he steered the Institution safely amid 
the rocks and shoals which beset it in the early years of 
its history. His incorruptible probity and high ideals won 
the respect and admiration of Congress; his known unself- 
