16 EEPOET OF THE SECEETAEY. 



Congress incorporating that society, the Secretary of the Interior de- 

 livered the remainder of its library and museum to this Institution. 



The National Institute was founded twenty years ago, for the culti- 

 vation of science, by a number of gentlemen of the city of Washing- 

 ton, most of them connected with the government. It at first found 

 favor with the public, and the hope was entertained that an 

 endowment, in the form of a donation of land, or otherwise, would be 

 granted by Congress, by which it would be enabled to support a 

 museum and a library, and publish a series of transactions ; but this 

 hope was not realized, and as the field it proposed to occupy fell 

 within the province of the Smithsonian Institution, the society grad- 

 ually declined in activity, and finally allowed its charter to expire by 

 its own limitation. Before the organization- of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, the personal effects of Smithson, and the large collection of speci- 

 mens procured by the exploring expedition, were placed in charge of 

 the National Institute, and from the similarity of names the two estab- 

 lishments were at first frequently confounded with one another. 



A large number of valuable books and specimens Avere presented 

 to the Institute by various societies and individuals; but as there was 

 not sufficient means to constantly employ a curator, or even to supply 

 appropriate rooms for their preservation, these collections have been 

 rendered comparatively of little importance. The specimens in 

 ornithology and entomology were almost entirely destroyed by in- 

 sects, and the library reduced principally to broken sets of periodicals 

 and transactions of learned societies, duplicates of those already 

 in the library of the Institution. In some cases, however, we have 

 been enabled to supply deficiencies, and the books so incorporated 

 into the Smithsonian collection have been properly designated by an 

 appropriate mark in the manuscript catalogue of the library. The 

 most valuable part of these collections was that which related to 

 mineralogy and ethnology. 



Publications. The publications of the Institution, as stated in previ- 

 ous reports, consist of three series: 1st. The Contributions to Knowl- 

 edge. 2d. The Miscellaneous Collections. 3d. The Annual Reports. 



The Contributions include memoirs embracing the records of origi- 

 nal investigations and researches, resulting in new truths, such as are 

 considered interesting additions to the sum of human knowledge. 

 Twelve volumes in quarto of this series have been published — the 

 thirteenth is still in the press. 



