REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 5 



of Sinithson at least a part of the $500,000 which have been expended 

 on the building from the income of the Smithson bequest. I know that 

 the present is a very unfavorable time for presenting this proposition to 

 Congress, but I do not despair of its being favorably received hereafter. 



Among the minor incidents of the year was the reception of a letter 

 from M. de la Batut, of Belz, Prance, the half-brother of the nephew of 

 Smithson, to whom he bequeathed his property, and in case of whose 

 death it was to be devoted to founding the Smithsonian Institution. 

 With this letter was a miniature likeness of James Smithson and another 

 of Colonel Dickinson, the half-brother of Smithson, which were offered 

 for sale to the Institution, and were finally purchased for the sum of 

 $100. Accompanying these portraits was what appeared to be the 

 original draft of Smithsou's will, slightly differing in one particular 

 from that previously published in the Smithsonian report for 1853, and 

 also a series of notes addressed to Smithson by some of the most dis- 

 tinguished scientists of his day. Among these are those from Oersted, 

 Arago, Biot, Lester, Tennant, Klaproth, and others, which would be 

 highly prized by collectors of autographs, and which serve to show the 

 intimate association of Smithson with the most distinguished cultivators 

 of science at the beginning of the present century. 



There are now in the Institution three likenesses of Smithson, one a 

 small full-length picture, which was purchased from his servant, John 

 Fittall, and represents him in the costume of a student at Oxford ; 

 another, a small medallion, which was amoug his effects ; and the third 

 is the one above mentioned. As a part of the legacy of Smithson there 

 were received a small library and several large trunks filled with cloth, 

 ing, some articles of apparatus, a silver-plated dinner set, two small 

 cabinets of minerals, and a large collection of papers, including corre- 

 spondence. All of these, except the library, were destroyed in the fire 

 of 1865. The effects were, however, of little value, except as mementos.^ 

 The manuscripts consisted principally of private letters and a series of 

 sentences arranged according to the letters of the alphabet, as if they 

 were intended for a philosophical dictionary. The library, which is still 

 preserved, consists of 123 volumes and 8S pamphlets, and is preserved 

 in a separate case in the Regents' room of the Institution. 



In the report of the Institution for 1853 I gave a list of the scientific 

 papers of Smithson which were published in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of London and in scientific periodicals. Although at the 

 present day there is nothing in these papers of very special interest, since 

 the facts which he communicated have since been merged in the general 

 progress of science, yet it might be well to republish them in a separate 

 volume as an illustration of the character of the founder of the Institu- 

 tion and to mark his connection with the science of his day. 



In the report for the year 1876 an account was accidentally omitted 

 of the decease of Fielding B. Meek, an esteemed collaborator of this 



