REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 37 



After resigning from the Government service he prepared for the press 

 a set of mathematical tables, also some schoolbooks designed for the 

 teaching of phonetic spelling, a subject in which he became much inter- 

 ested, and in establishing "The Avery fund" of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion he expressed a wish that the income be used chiefly for publications 

 relating to the mechanical laws governing an etherial medium and also 

 mathematical tables and works on phonetic type and writing. 



WILLIAM BOWER TAYLOR. 



William Bower Taylor, who died February 25, 1895, was appointed 

 assistant and editor in the Smithsonian Institution in 1878. He was 

 born in Philadelphia May 23, 1821 ; graduated at the University of 

 Pennsylvania in 1840; studied law and was admitted to the bar Novem- 

 ber 15, 1843. In 1853 he came to Washington as draftsman and fore- 

 man of the engineer and machinist departments at the United States 

 navy-yard, and in 1854 was appointed principal examiner, and later 

 librarian, in the United States Patent Office. He was one of the 

 founders and the fourth president of the Washington Philosophical 

 Society, and was a member of the American Philosophical Society, the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of other 

 learned bodies. He represented the Smithsonian Institution at the 

 International Electrical Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1884. Among 

 his literary works may be mentioned the Life and Writings of Prof. 

 Joseph Henry; Professor Henry and the Telegraph, and papers on 

 Gravitation, Force, and Sound, published by the Institution. 



Necrologic notices of Col. Garrick Mallery and James Owen Dorsey, 

 for many years connected with the Bureau of Ethnology, are given by 

 the Director of the Bureau in an appendix to this report. 



Eespectfully submitted. 



S. P. Langley, 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



