REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 37 



No. 146, discovered by A. Borelly, at Marseilles, June 8. 



No. 147, " by Schulhof, at Berlin, July 11. 



No. 148, " by Prosper Henry, at Paris, August 7. 



No. 149, " by Perrotin, at Toulouse, October 6. 



No. 150, " by Watson, at Ann Arbor, October 18. 



No. 151, " by Palisa, at Pola, November 1. 



No. 152, " by Paul Henry, at Paris, November 2. 



No. 153, " by Palisa, at Pola, November 2. 



No. 154, " by Prosper Henry, at Paris, November 4. 



No. 155, " by Palisa, at Pola, November 8. 



No. 156, " by Palisa, at Pola, November 22. 



No. 157, " by Borelly, at Marseilles, December 1. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The correspondence of tbe Institution continues to increase from 

 year to year. Not only are there upward of 2,000 foreign institu- 

 tions that require acknowledgments for works presented to libraries, or 

 for specimens to the museum, but there are also an increasing num- 

 ber of individuals in different parts of the old and new worlds who, 

 through the institution, make inquiries as to subjects connected with 

 various branches of knowledge relative to America. 



In this country the public generally consider the Institution as an 

 establishment to which requests may be addressed asking information 

 on all branches of knowledge, the solution of various scientific prob- 

 lems, the examination and indorsement both of scientific investigation 

 and crude unscientific speculations. In the line of mathematics during 

 the past year, we have had communications the object of which was the 

 duplication of the cube, the quadrature of the circle, and the tri-section 

 of an angle, in which the writers confidently anticipated that no flaw 

 could be found in their reasoning ; and indeed in some cases much labor 

 was required to point out the fallacy. But the most troublesome cor- 

 respondents are persons of extensive reading, and in some cases of con- 

 siderable literary acquirements, who in earlier life were not imbued with 

 scientific methods, but who, not without a certain degree of mental 

 power, imagine that they have made great discoveries in the way of 

 high generalizations. Their claims not being allowed, they rank them- 

 selves among the martyrs of science, against whom the scientific 

 schools and the envy of the world have arrayed themselves. Indeed, 

 to such intensity does this feeling arise in certain persons that on their 

 special subjects they are really monomaniacs, although ou others they 

 may be not only entirely sane, but even evince abilities of a high 

 order. This mental condition is not confined to our country. A notable 

 example of it is found in the case of the celebrated German poet, 

 Goethe, who, examining a dark patch on a white wall through a prism, 

 saw the upper and lower edges of the dark figure bordered with the colors 

 of the rainbow. On this observation he founded a theory of colors, 



\y 



