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* SMITHSON. 266 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. in 1004 and are interred in the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution. His fortune eame mainly from a son of his mother l)y a former marriage, Col. H. L. Diekinson. exeept £.3000 from a half-sister on the paternal side, Dorothy Percy. He bequeathed to his nephew, Henry James ■ Hungerford, his fortune, amounting to $515,169, stipulating furthermore that if the legatee should die without issue, legitimate or illegiti- mate, the money should pass to the United States "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an estab- lishment for the increase and diiTusion of knowl- edge among men." As Hungerford so died iu 1835. the bequest reverted to the United States. (See Smithsonian Institution.) In the obitu- ary notice of Davies Gilbert, president of the Royal Society, the name of Smithson is associ- ated with those of Wollaston, Young, and Davy, and he corresponded and associated with Arago, Biot, and Klaproth. Smithson was never in . America, and it is not known what induced him to give his fortune to the United States, though a clue may be found in the following sen- tences whicii indicate his sense of wrong in the illegitimacy of his birth. He wrote: "The best blood of England flows in my veins. On my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am related to kings; but this avails me not." "My name," Smithson wrote, "shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percies are extinct and forgotten." (Consult: Rhees, Smitlison and His Bequest (1880); Langley, "James Smith- son," in The Smithsonian Institution. IS^G to IS'JtS. and the History of its First Half Century, by George Brown Goode (Washington, 1897). SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, The. An institution in Washington, District of Columbia, created by an act of Congress on August 10, 1846, in accordance with the will of .James Smithson (q.v.), who bequeathed the reversion of an estate amounting to .$515,169 to the United States to be devoted to the "increase and diffusion of knowl- edge among men." History. Upon the death of Smithson's nephew, Henry James Hungerford, in 1835, the United States legation in London was notified of the bequest. The disi)osition of the property was for ten years debated in Congress, but ulti- mately the trust was accepted and Congress cre- ated an establishment consisting of the President and the members of his Cabinet who intrusted the management of the institution to a board of regents, consisting of the Vice-President and Chief Justice of the United States, three regents to be appointed by the president of the Senate, three by the Speaker of the House of Representa- tives, and six to be selected by Congress, two of whom should be residents of the District of Co- hmibia, and the other four from different States, no two being from the same State. The regents met for the first time on September 7. 1846. and elected Joseph Henry as executive officer, with the title of secretary, under whose guidance the institution took shape. He prepared a programme of organization, which was adopted in 1847 and has since been the plan under which the institu- tion has been conducted. Having in mind the exact statements of Smithson, he recommended to 'increase knowledge' by the following methods: (1) To stimtilate men of talent to make original researches by offering suitable rewards for mem- oirs containing new truths, and (2) to appropri- ate annually a portion of the income for particu- lar researches, ini<ler the direction of suitable persons. To 'ditruse knowledge' he propo.sed: ( 1 ) to publisli a series of periodical reports on the progress of the dirt'erent branches of knowl- edge; and (2) to publish occasional separate treatises on subjects of general interest. Under Henry was begun the construction of a building designed by .James Eenwick in the Nor- man style of architecture, which has since been the home of the Smithsonian Institution. A library «as formed by exchange and purchase, and materials for a nuiseum collected. Original re- search was fostered. One of the first subjects to be studied under the direction of the Smith- sonian Institution was the phenomena of storms, and the investigations of Espy and others led to the establishment of a telegraphic weather ser- vice which subsequently developed into the Weather Bureau. The material collected by the various exploring expeditions and the Pacific railway surveys was deposited with the Smith- sonian Institution, and that likewise led in time to the formation of the United States National Museum (q.v.). The 'diffusion of knowledge' was inaugurated by the issuing of various publi- cations. These include: (1) Smithsonian Con- tributions to Knou-lcdije. a quarto series of origi- nal memoirs embracing the records of extended original investigations and researches, which be- gan in 1848 with a monograph by Squier and Davis, and now comprises 32 volumes; (2) Smithsonian ilisceHaneotis Collections, an octavo series of papers on the present state of knowl- edge on particular branches of science, which be- gan in 1860, and now consists of 43 volumes; and (3) Annual Reports of the Board of Regents. which are also octavo in form and consist of the rejjorts and proceedings of the officers of the in- stitution, together with a general appendix con- taining a selection of memoirs of interest to col- laborators and correspondents of the institution, teachers, and others engaged in the promotion of knowledge. These reports began in 1847 and have been published annually since. International Exchanges. The publication of these different series led to an extensive ex- change with serial publications and transactions of learned societies resulting in one of the most notable collections of the world, the greater por- tion of which, since 1866. has been deposited in the Library of Congress. In 1851 a system of in- ternational exchanges was established primarily for the circulation of the Smithsonian publica- tions, but in 1867 the duty of exchanging official documents for similar works published by foreign departments was assigned to this service bj' the Government. The Annual Report for 1902 shows the correspondents of this service to consist of 14,042 libraries and 23.258 persons. This bureau is supported by an annual appropriation from Congress. National Museum. See United States Na- tional Museum. BuHEAii OF American Ethnology. Early in its history the Smithsonian Institution showed an interest in American anthropology, chiefly in the branch of ethnology and with special reference to American Indians. Beginning with 1867. various exploring parties, under the direction of .John W.