REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 
History of the Smithsonian Institution.’ — The Smithsonian 
Institution has been so intimately associated with the progress of 
natural science in the United States during the last fifty years that 
its history is a sort of epitome of the activities of American natural- 
ists during that period. 
It originated in a bequest of James Smithson, of England, who, 
dying in 1829, left his property to his nephew with the provision 
that, in case he died without heirs, it should go “to the United 
States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the 
Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffu- 
sion of knowledge among men.” His nephew dying soon after, the 
property, amounting to over $500,000, was paid to the government, 
which guaranteed forever to the institution interest at the rate of six 
per cent on the original sum, together with all savings and gifts 
added to it, to the amount of $1,000,000. The total principal is 
now over $900,000. 
The bequest being without precedent, a protracted discussion 
occurred as to the best way to use the fund. A university, an 
astronomical observatory, an agricultural experiment station, and a 
meteorological bureau were urged by different persons. At about 
this time a society called the National Institute was organized at 
Washington, rapidly gained a national reputation, and made great, 
but vain, efforts to get Congress to unite the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion with it. The opposition of Congress led to the quick decay of 
this society, but it, more than anything else, determined the char- 
acter of the Smithsonian Institution when, in 1846, it was finally 
established. 
The character of an institution is often determined more by its 
earliest executive than by its statutes. The pride American men of 
science take in the “ Smithsonian” is largely due to what Joseph 
Henry was and what he made it during its first thirty-one years. 
The particular interest that naturalists feel in the institution is 
largely due to the second secretary, the zoologist Baird, who admi- 
rably complemented the work of Henry. 
1 The Smithsonian Institution, 1846-96. The History “ its First Half-Century. 
Edited by George Brown Goode, Washington, 1897, 
