JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. XVII 



I made a pretty thorough tour of their range in October last, and saw very few 

 signs. I am sure that I have heretofore overestimated their numbers. I doubt if 

 there are over fifty remaining, and these will not all winter in the Hayden Valley. 

 They increase but slowly under the best conditions, and here, where they are being 

 constantly pursued and where the winters are very severe, but small increase can be 

 looked for. Of course the stockade recently erected will be a, great assistance in 

 their protection, if they can be secured within it. 



All of the animals in the park are protected properly and are increasing, with the 

 exception of the bison, and of these it is difficult to predict as yet. 



The Secretary resumed : 



Tho park here is, however, fulfilling its functions as "the lungs of the city" and 

 for the ''instruction and recreation of the people," and no better evidence is needed 

 to corroborate this than the crowds which constantly visit it. 



ASTROPHYS1CAL OBSERVATORY. 



Concerning the Astro-physical Observatory, the Secretary said: 



The Regents will remember that live years ago it was resolved : "That if an appro- 

 priation should be made by Congress for the maintenance of an 'astrophysical 

 observatory,' under the direction of the Smithsouian Institution, the Regents will 

 expend for this purpose, from moneys already donated to them, $10,000 for the con- 

 struction of buildings for said observatory, whenever a suitable site shall be desig- 

 nated by ( 'ongress and obtained for the purpose." * * * 



It was then anticipated that the first step to be taken by Congress in tho matter 

 would be the provision of a suitable site. Congress, however, saw fit to make the 

 appropriation in terms which provided for tho scientific work of an observatory 

 already in progress, and in order to utilize this appropriation, Avhich would other- 

 wise have had to be returned to the Treasury, the temporary and inadequate quarters 

 in the sheds immediately behind the Smithsonian building were provided in 1890. 



I have had too much personal concern with the work which has been done there 

 not to perhaps speak of it with a friendly bias, but if I may believe the expressions 

 of nun of science competent in this matter, hardly any more important work in the 

 spectrum has been done in the century than has been going on and is still going on 

 here under the Smithsonian Institution, though under such disadvantageous con- 

 ditions. 



Briefly, this research is giving us a knowledge of nearly thrice the amount of the 

 details of the solar energy that were known to Sir Isaac Newton, and in a region 

 which remained almost untouched since he left it until our own day, when these 

 researches took it up. 



As has been stated in previous reports, there is an element of uncertainty in the 

 results, due to the fact that they are all obtained through an excessively delicate 

 instrument which registers minute vibrations set up by the sun, but which also regis- 

 ters (whether we will or no) vibrations coming from local causes, such as the tremor 

 of the ground, which always exists, however imperceptible to the ordinary sense, in 

 the midst of a great city. There are ways of discriminating between these true and 

 false effects, but the latter can hardly be eliminated certainly not in very many 

 years of labor — in the present altogether unlit site, whereas the work already sketched 

 oat could lie pushed to successful conclusion and publication iu a single twelvemonth 

 in a quiet locality. 



In view of the delay in providing a site for a building, the Secretary has already 

 been authorized by a subsequent resolution of the Regents to expend the sum of 

 $10,000 bequeathed by J. II. Kidder and given by Alexander Graham Bell "in direc- 

 tions consonant with the known wishes of the testator and the donor," but little of it 

 has been used ; and unless some remedy is found against the tremor incident to this bad 

 S3i 90 ii 



