XVI JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 



languages of the Indian tribes of the continent, upon which all con- 

 clusions as to their origin and relationship so closely depend; and in 

 that respect the Bureau had done its usual valuable service. He had 

 authorized the sending out, on its own account, minor expeditions for 

 collecting records of the vanishing aboriginal races and for the study 

 of the peculiar customs among the last of the really savage tribes of our 

 borders, and important results had been obtained, such, for instance, 

 as in a recent expedition to the home of the Papagos and Seri Indians. 



The Secretary called the attention of the Regents to the growing 

 activities and consequent increased labor in the Bureau of Interna- 

 tional Exchanges. There are something like 24,000 correspondents 

 scattered over the world, and its usefulness has never been greater. 

 These correspondents are partly indicated on the map inserted in the 

 report, which strikingly shows their world-wide distribution, where it 

 will be noticed that the occurrence of the red dots is about propor- 

 tional to the spread of civilization, and where a glance shows that a 

 comparison of Spain and France, of China and Japan, in education, 

 may be inferred from their relationships to the Institution alone. 



In regard to the Astrophysical Observatory, the Secretary remarked 

 that he had said less because it was something in which he had a strong 

 personal interest, and perhaps a personal bias; but under this correc- 

 tion he might observe that there was probably no other such observa- 

 tory in the world for just this purpose, or one whose work has had more 

 gratifying recognition from all specialists in its own subject than this 

 has in the last year. 



He further said that he had left to the last the mention of the affairs 

 of the parent Institution, and he desired at present to repeat that all 

 the activities which had just been mentioned, and which were now 

 supported by Government appropriations, were really carried on in 

 part by the Smithsonian fund, for there was no appropriation to meet 

 the general expenses of the Secretary's office, incident to the admin- 

 istration of the different Government appropriations with which the 

 Institution was charged. He referred not only to the minor matters 

 of clerical and messenger service, but to the responsibilities connected 

 with the disbursement of Government funds and to the increasing 

 burden of general administrative work that can not be delegated by 

 the Secretary to an ordinary clerk, but calls for a much higher order 

 of ability, and necessarily also for more liberal compensation. These 

 expenses should not be borne by the Smithsonian fund, as they were, 

 to a large extent, at present; nor were they properly chargeable to any 

 one of the Government appropriations, but they were common to them 

 all. 



In connection with the Hodgkins fund, the Secretary said that he 

 had already called the attention of the Regents to the fact that, in 

 accordance with the wishes of Mr. Hodgkins, he had submitted to him 

 before his death a plan for expending the income of the first two years 



