REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 17 



it was found that the appropriation of the bequest by the act organ- 

 izing the establishment in 1846, related only to that part of the be- 

 quest which had already been received, and made no provision for 

 the disposition of the residuary legacy which has just become avail- 

 able. It can scarcely be doubted, however, but that Congress in- 

 tended to appropriate the whole of the bequest to the maintenance 

 of the establishment ; still, for this purpose, a special act will be 

 required, and it is desirable that the sum recently received be de- 

 posited in the treasury on the same condition with the amount origi- 

 nally obtained, that the interest alone shall be subject to expenditure. 

 In this connexion it is proper to remark that Mr. Peabody, who 

 received the deposit of the fund, so far from claiming the usual com- 

 mission, allowed four per cent, on the money while it remained in his 

 hands. 



It will be seen from what follows in this report that all parts of the 

 programme have been prosecuted during the past year with as much 

 energy as the means at our disposal would permit, and that although, 

 in some particulars, not as much has been accomplished as in pre- 

 vious years, the inequality will, it is hoped, be attributed, as it is 

 properly referable, to the difficulties under which the Institution, in 

 common with the whole country, has been laboring. 



Publications. — The whole number of pages issued during the year 

 amount to 872 quarto and 1,657 octavo. 



The thirteenth volume of the Contributions has been distributed to 

 public libraries, and the fourteenth is nearly completed, and will be 

 published in the course of a few months. It will consist of the fol- 

 lowing papers : 



1. The third and fourth series or concluding parts of the discus- 

 sion of the magnetic and meteorological observations, made at the 

 Girard College observatory, Philadelphia, by Professor A. D. Bache, 

 Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. 



2. On the construction of a silvered glass telescope, lh\ inches in 

 . aperture, and its use in celestial photography, by Dr. Henry Dra- 

 per, of the University of New York. 



3. A memoir on the palaeontology of the Upper Missouri, by F. 

 B. Meek and F. V. Hay den.— Part 1. 



4. A memoir on the cretaceous reptiles of the United States, by 

 Dr. Joseph Leidy, of the University of Pennsylvania. 



It was intended that Dr. Dean's paper on the medulla oblongata, 

 described in the last report^ and partially distributed in separate num- 

 2s 



