REPORT OP THE SECRETARY. 19 



Hodgkins grant by Dr. Morris W. Travers, of the University College. 

 Bristol, England. 



Two other papers are very nearly completed. One is a " Report 

 on the Crustacea of the North Pacific Exploring Expedition of 

 1853-1856," by the late Dr. William Stimpson. This manuscript 

 has been in hand since 1872, but for various reasons could not here- 

 tofore be published. The whole work was carefully gone over by 

 Miss Mary J. Rathbun, Assistant Curator of Marine Invertebrates 

 in the National Museum, who says in her preface : 



The . . . report has been treated as an historical document, and is pub- 

 lished substantially as it was written by the author, the only additions being 

 the references to his preliminary descriptions, and the footnotes giving the 

 current or accepted name where it differs from that used by Doctor Stimpson, 

 It is hoped that tbe value of the descriptions will more than compensate for 

 the antiquated nomeuclature . . . there are very few students who have 

 not felt the need of more light on those rare genera and species known only 

 from brief Latin diagnoses. 



Another publication is a " Catalogue of Earthquakes on the Pacific 

 Coast from 1897 to 1906," compiled by Mr. Alexander G. McAdie, as 

 a supplement to the list of earthquakes from 1769 to 1896, compiled 

 by Dr. E. S. Holden, and published in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous 

 Collections in 1898. 



A new edition of the Smithsonian Meteorological Tables to meet the 

 continued demand for this work is in press. The plates have been 

 considerably revised by Prof. Cleveland Abbe to meet present re- 

 quirements. 



The Annual Report of the Board of Regents to Congress, which is 

 printed at the Government Printing Office, has been the chief me- 

 dium through which the Institution has been enabled to disseminate 

 scientific information to the world at large. Besides the official 

 account of the operations of the Institution, this report has for over 

 half a century included a general appendix giving a record of the 

 progress in different branches of knowledge, compiled largely from 

 journals in foreign languages and the transactions of scientific and 

 learned societies throughout the world. The considerable number 

 of copies of this publication placed by Congress at the disposal of 

 the Institution has rendered possible a wide distribution to important 

 libraries and institutions of learning, but the allotment is wholly 

 insufficient to supply more than a small fraction of the individual 

 requests, and the popular demand for the volume has so constantly 

 increased that the entire edition of each year's report is exhausted 

 within a few months of its appearance. 



The Institution proper distributed during the year a total of 

 32,921 volumes and separates of Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- 



