ADVERTISEMENT. The object of the GENERAL APPENDIX to the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution is to furnish brief accounts of scientific discovery in particular directions; reports of investigations made by collaborators of the Institution; and memoirs of a general character or on special topics that are of interest or value to the numerous correspondents of the Institution. It has been a prominent object of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, from a very early date, to enrich the annual report required of them by law with memoirs illustrating the more remarkable and important developments in physical and biological discovery, as well as showing the general character of the operations of the Institution; and this purpose has, during the greater part of its history, been carried out largely by the publication of such papers as would possess an interest to all attracted by scientific progress. In 1880 the secretary, induced in part by the discontinuance of an annual summary of progress which for 30 years previous had been issued by well-known private publishing firms, had prepared by competent collaborators a series of abstracts, showing concisely the prominent features of recent scientific progress in astronomy, geology, meteorology, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, zoology, and anthropology. This latter plan was continued, though not altogether satisfactorily, down to and including the year 1888. In the report for 1889 a return was made to the earlier method of presenting a miscellaneous selection of papers (some of them original) embracing a considerable range of scientific investigation and discussion. This method has been continued in the present report for 1910. 112 MELVILLE WESTON FULLER-1833-1910. [With 1 plate.] By CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Melville West on Fuller, doctor of laws, Chief Justice of the United States, chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution, was born at Augusta, Me., February 11, 1833, and died at his summer home, Sorrento, Me., on the morning of July 4, 1910. He became a statutory member of the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution, and also a member of the Board of Regents on October 8, 1888, by virtue of his appointment as the Chief Justice of the United States. He was elected chancellor of the Institution by the Board of Regents at its annual meeting January 9, 1889. The chancellors who preceded Chief Justice Fuller were: Vice President George Mifflin Dallas, 1846-1849; Vice President Millard Fillmore, 1849-1850; Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, 1850–1861; Chief Justice Samuel Portland Chase, 1864-1873; and Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite, 1874-1888. For 22 years, until his death in 1910, Chief Justice Fuller was most deeply interested in the general welfare of the Institution. He presided over the meetings of the Board of Regents most wisely and judiciously. With one exception, there was not a meeting of the regents during that entire period when he failed to be present. The Regents of the Institution expressed their sorrow in the following words of tribute to his memory, adopted at the annual meeting of the board on December 8, 1910: Whereas the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution have received the sad intelligence of the death, on July 4, 1910, of Melville Weston Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States, and for twentytwo years chancellor of the Institution; therefore be it Resolved, That we desire here to record our profound sorrow at the severing of the tie that has bound us to him for so long a period of honored service; that we feel keenly the loss of a wise presiding officer, 97578°-SM 1910- -8 113 |