REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 19 



lies have been received from different persons engaged in explorations 

 in the Territories. These have all been referred to J. H. Trumbull, LL. 

 D., of Hartford, Conn., for critical examination and arrangement for the 

 press. 



A full list of all the manuscript Indian vocabularies in possession of 

 the Institution will be given in a subsequent report. We hope dur- 

 ing the next year to commence the publication of the extensive collec- 

 tion of materials of this character, so important to the labors of the 

 ethnologist. 



RESEARCHES. 



Meteorology. — In the beginning of 1874 the meteorological system of 

 records by voluntary observers, which had been in operation by the 

 Institution for twenty-five years, was transferred to the Signal-Office of 

 the War Department, under General A. J. Myer; This transfer was made 

 in accordance with the general policy of the Institution, viz, that of 

 abandoning any field of enterprise as soon as the work could be done as 

 well through other agencies. This transfer has received the approba- 

 tion of the observers generally, who, while they are now co-operating 

 with the Signal- Service, still keep up a correspondence with the Institu- 

 tion on subjects of general scientific interest. The meteorological system 

 of the United States under General Myer is in an admirable condition. 

 The total number of daily reports filed at the Office of the Chief Signal- 

 Officer are now as follows: Number of daily-service simultaneous 

 telegraphic reports, 109; number of international daily simultaneous 

 reports, 268 ; number of reports of voluntary observers, 393 ; number 

 of reports of medical corps of the Army, 102; number of reports of 

 medical corps of the Navy, 5 ; making a grand total of 877 daily reports 

 received regularly for discussion. Such an extensive series of observa- 

 tions, if continued for twenty years, will furnish the data for determin- 

 ing the peculiar climatology of North America with a precision hitherto 

 unknown in the history of meteorology. The labors of the Smithso- 

 nian Institution in the line of meteorology are now principally confined 

 to working up the materials in this branch of science, which it has col- 

 lected during the last quarter of a century. These materials include 

 not only the observations of the Institution itself, but all that could be 

 obtained from other sources relative to North America, from the first 

 settlement of the country down to the present time. The first work of 

 this class which has been published is that of the rain-fall. It included 

 all the materials which had been collected down to 1866. During the 

 last two years preparations have been made to publish a new edition of 

 this work, including the additions from new materials, and with new 

 maps on a larger scale. In the preparation of this new edition we have 

 received important assistance, through the politeness of General Myer, 

 from the system of the Signal-Service. 



The work published by the Institution on the rain-fall of the United 

 States is of great importance in relation to our agricultural resources, 



