42 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



Gallery, the connection between the two establishments is not only cor- 

 dial, bat of an intimate character. The gallery during the year has 

 been enriched by a large collection of rare plaster-casts, copies of the 

 principal statues of the Vatican, and has been visited by a large num- 

 ber of citizens and strangers as a source of refined pleasure, and by a 

 number of persons as means of practical improvement in art. We learn 

 with pleasure that Mr. Corcoran, in addition to his muuiticent gifts to 

 the city of Washington, is making provision for a series of art-studios, 

 which cannot fail to add to the refined culture of the national capital. 



Chemical laboratory. — During the past three years the laboratory of 

 the Institution has been in charge of Dr. Oscar Loew, the chemist and 

 mineralogist of the Wheeler survey; and during this time he has made 

 various analyses for the Institution of minerals, mineral-waters, and 

 other substances referred to the Institution for examination by the 

 Government and other parties. 



In behalf of the Wheeler expedition he has investigated and analyzed 

 the waters of twenty different thermal springs, mineral springs, and 

 alkaline lakes of Southern California ; soils of arable lands and of the 

 desert of Southern California; saline efflorescences from numerous 

 localities in the Mohave desert, and ores and rocks from the same 

 locality. 



Photography. — The photographic laboratory, under the direction of 

 Mr. T. W. Smillie, has been removed to the new building erected ex- 

 pressly for its accommodation and for the use of the taxidermists and 

 naturalists engaged in preparing specimens for the Centennial Exhibi- 

 tion. A large number of photographs have been made of ethnological 

 and natural history specimens for the use of the Institution, and a large 

 amount of work doue for others, especially for the United States Fish- 

 Commission and Government surveys. 



The Institution has been engaged for several years in collecting pho- 

 tographic likenesses of distinguished cultivators of science in all parts 

 of the world, of the meteorological observers who for many years fur- 

 nished valuable records of their observations, of the contributors to tbe 

 ethnological department of the National Museum, of and other corres- 

 pondents of the Institution. Of these photographs, four hundred have 

 been received, which are neatly framed and form an interesting feature 

 of the collections. 



Lighthouse duty. — I have been a member of the Light-House Board 

 since its first organization, and during all this time have discharged the 

 duty of chairman of the committee on experiments. On the resignation 

 of Admiral Sbubrick in 1871, 1 was honored by an the election as chair- 

 man of the board. In the discharge of the duties connected with this 

 service, I usually devote one day in the week and the greater proportion of 

 my summer vacation. It may not be improper for me to remark that 

 for the labors which I have thus bestowed upon the light-house service 

 for upward of twenty years, I have received no other remuneration than 



