REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 13 



posited in the Army Medical Museum, numbering 20,000 volumes of 

 works relating to medical subjects, may be considered as part of the 

 great National Library, and is rapidly increasing in the number and 

 value of its contents by an annual appropriation from Congress. 



In accordance with the original agreement the use of these books, as 

 well as those now in the Capitol, is free to the Smithsonian Institution, 

 and we may perhaps indulge the hope that the new building for the 

 library, which is now contemplated, will be erected on the Smithsonian 

 Grounds, perhaps as an extension of the present building. 



As we have said, one source of the increase of the library is the copy- 

 right system. The number of these books would be increased, we think, 

 and their character greatly improved, if an international copyright law 

 were established, granting to the foreign author the same protection 

 that is afforded to our own citizens. Tor example, we would ask, what 

 would be the condition of the wool-grower if the manufacturer of cloth 

 in this country had the power to obtain surreptitiously all the w T ool that 

 he uses, paying nothing but for manufacturing the article? What 

 encouragement is there to an author to produce an original work on any 

 branch of science when the publisher can obtain one which will equally 

 well answer his purpose from a foreigner without paying anything ? But 

 the question ought not to be decided on considerations even of this 

 character; it belongs to the province of justice and morality. The re- 

 sults of the labors of the mind, which form the basis of all human im- 

 provement, ought not to be appropriated without remuneration, any more 

 than the labors of the hand or of the machine. 



Meteorology. — The impression has prevailed since the establishment 

 of the meteorological system by the Government, under the direction of 

 the Signal-Corps, that the observations which have been so long made 

 under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution may now be discon- 

 tinued. This idea is, however, erroneous. The object of the operations 

 of the Signal-Service is principally one of immediate practical utility, 

 viz, that of predicting the condition of the weather for a day or more 

 in advance of the actual occurrence. This it is enabled to do by the 

 fact previously established, that, as a general rule, disturbances of the 

 atmosphere are propagated over a wide extent of the surface of the 

 earth in an easterly direction. Besides the number of stations neces- 

 sary for the practical predictions of the weather, a much more numer- 

 ous series of stations and long-continued observations are required for 

 determining the peculiarities of the climate, or for obtaining such infor- 

 mation as may satisfy the requirements of the scientist, the physician, 

 and the agriculturist. It is on this account that the more extended 

 observations established by the Institution, and which have now been 

 prosecuted for more than twenty years, are continued. It is true we 

 would be gratified if the charge of this system were transferred to the 

 Government, with more ample funds for its maintenance than can be 

 afforded from the income of the Institution. But so long as an arrange- 



