cating long occupancy, a good knowledge of the people of Peru from the earliest times is very desirable, and would constitute a solid basis from which it would be relatively easy to extend anthropological comparison to all the rest of the native peoples of the southern continent. Such anthropological comparisons will be greatly facilitated by the collections acquired on this expedition. Some of the interesting results of his work are described by Dr. Hrdlička in a pamphlet recently published by the Institution.

RESEARCHES UNDER THE HODGKINS FUND.

With a view to aiding in the establishment of an international scale for the measurement of solar radiation, as mentioned in my last report, a limited grant from the Hodgkins fund has been approved for the construction, in the Smithsonian workshops, of several silver disk pyrheliometers, after the design of Mr. C. G. Abbot, Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

The International Solar Union has for some time been interested in the establishment of an international standard scale of radiation, and pyrheliometers of varying types have been in use at different observatories. The desire, however, for still another simple but accurate instrument seemed general, and the Institution has been gratified to learn that, by the use of the Abbot pyrheliometer, a more exact knowledge of solar radiation and the influence of the terrestrial atmosphere upon it have been promoted.

Arrangements have been made whereby the Abbot pyrheliometer is now in use in widely separated localities. There is one in the astronomical observatory established by Harvard College at Arequipa, Peru; another in the observatory at Teneriffe; and two have been sent to the minister of agriculture in Buenos Aires for meteorological stations in Argentina. The Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Standards, and the United States Weather Bureau in Washington are supplied with the instruments; Prof. Chistoni, of the Royal University of Naples, has installed one there, and the Imperial College of Science and Technology at South Kensington, London, has secured one. Prof. Violle, of the National Observatory of Arts and Crafts, Paris, was among the first to install one of the Abbot instruments, and one has been sent to Dr. Hellmann, director of the Royal Prussian Meteorological Institute, Berlin. The University of Toronto, Canada, the University of Wisconsin, and the Central Physical Observatory of St. Petersburg also have them, and inquiries from other institutions as to the mode of securing them are frequent, so that the establishment of the desired international standard of estimating and recording the variations of solar radiation seems to have been already aided by the use of uniform instruments in many widely separated localities.

The distinguished specialists who form the committee on award for the examination of the memoirs submitted in the Hodgkins prize competition, announced in connection with the Congress on Tuberculosis of 1908, have not yet submitted their decision. This delay is regretted by the Institution as sincerely as by the competitors, but has seemed to be unavoidable as the large number of papers presented and their technical character make it very difficult to render a prompt decision.

Then, too, it is to be remembered that, according to the terms of the competition, the successful paper is to embody an original theory or discovery for the treatment of tuberculosis, not before published, a difficult task at a time when the attention of the medical world is so generally directed to the same subject.

The Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, the publication of which by the Hodgkins fund of the Institution was unfortunately delayed by causes beyond the control of the Institution, was completed just at the close of the fiscal year, as mentioned on another page.

SMITHSONIAN TABLE AT NAPLES ZOOLOGICAL STATION.

The Smithsonian Institution for 18 years past has maintained a table for the use of American biologists at the Naples Zoological Station. Exceptional opportunities are there afforded for the study of marine life, and it is believed that the cause of biological science has been thereby much advanced.

The application of Dr. R. S. Williams, of Miami University, mentioned in the Secretary's Report for 1910, was approved for March and April, 1911. Dr. Williams was chiefly occupied at Naples in ascertaining the rate of growth of recent encrusting organisms, especially bryozoans, with a view to the use of this information in researches on the Richmond division of the Ordovician period. The results thus far obtained by him he considers preliminary, and he proposes to continue the same research at some future time on a float anchored in the open sea.

In addition to his work on the bryozoan fauna, Dr. Williams secured a representative collection of the jaw apparatus of the free-swimming annelids belonging to the Eunicidea and the Glyceridea.

The appointment of Dr. Sergius Morgulis, a Parker Traveling Fellow from Harvard for 1911, was approved for the Smithsonian seat at Naples for the months of May, June, and July of this year.

Dr. C. W. Hargitt, of Syracuse University, a Smithsonian appointee at Naples for three months in 1903, was accorded a second occupancy during the present year. Several papers, among which

may be mentioned "The Hydromedusae of the Bay of Naples' and "Regeneration in Rhizostoma pulmo," were published by Dr. Hargitt as a result of his former appointment, and a report of his work during the present year is now in hand. He mentions with appreciation the cordial welcome accorded him by the director and staff of the laboratory, and the generosity with which the facilities for his work were provided.

Two papers embodying the results of Dr. Hargitt's recent investigations have been completed since his term at Naples, and are now in course of publication in the Journal of Experimental Zoology.

The application of Dr. Ch. Zeleny, associate professor of zoology in the University of Illinois, was approved for one month's occupancy, to cover part of June and July, 1911. No summary of the work accomplished during this period has yet been received from Dr. Zeleny.

When the same period is selected by more than one student the earliest application is considered first, the approval of the later ones becoming necessarily dependent on the ability of the station to provide for more than one Smithsonian appointee at the same time. It should be added that the obliging courtesy shown in this connection to appointees of the Smithsonian Institution by the director of the station often permits appointments to the seat which would otherwise be impracticable.

The prompt and efficient aid of the advisory committee in examining and reporting on applications for the table is still, as it has always been, of great service to the Institution and is very thoroughly appreciated.

PUBLICATIONS.

The Smithsonian Institution and its branches distributed during the past year nearly 200,000 copies of their various publications. These were sent chiefly to libraries and learned institutions throughout the world and to a limited list of specialists in the subjects discussed. It would be impracticable, without a very great increase in the size of the editions, to meet the popular demand for copies of Smithsonian publications. In the case, however, of the publications issued by the Government bureaus under direction of the Institution, which are printed under congressional appropriations, the law provides that they may be purchased by all who desire them at a slight advance over the cost of printing by application to the Superintendent of Documents.

It is through its publications that the Smithsonian Institution performs one of its principal functions-the diffusion of knowledge. Two series of works are issued by the Institution proper at the expense of the Smithsonian funds, namely, Smithsonian Contributions

to Knowledge, in quarto, and Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, in octavo form. The editions of these series are necessarily limited in number for distribution almost entirely to a carefully selected list of libraries throughout the world, where they may be readily consulted by students and investigators. There is also issued, at the cost of Government appropriations, an annual report, in the general appendix of which is included a considerable number of papers, either original or selected from more or less inaccessible sources, reviewing the progress and present condition of the natural and physical sciences and other branches of human knowledge. Although the edition of the report is considerable, yet the supply is each year exhausted within a very short time after its publication. Contributions to Knowledge.-The Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight, referred to in my last report, had been put to press and was nearly ready for distribution at the close of the fiscal year. This work forms a quarto volume of over 300 pages and a hundred plates. The memoir was in preparation at the time of Mr. Langley's death in 1906 and part of it had been written by him, bringing the work down to May, 1896, the date of his demonstration that a machine heavier than air could be made to fly under its own power. The account of later experiments, from 1897 to 1903, was written by Mr. Charles M. Manly, who became Mr. Langley's chief assistant in 1898. Miscellaneous Collections.-Twenty papers on various subjects have been added to the series of Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, including descriptions of a number of new species of animals obtained by the Smithsonian African expedition and the biological survey of the Panama Canal Zone, and several papers, mentioned elsewhere, giving some results of my studies and field work in Cambrian geology and paleontology, besides an interesting paper by Dr. Hrdlička on his anthropological investigations in Peru.

Smithsonian Tables.-In connection with the system of meteorological observations established by the Smithsonian Institution about 1850, a series of meteorological tables was compiled by Dr. Arnold Guyot at the request of Secretary Henry, and the first edition was published in 1852. Though primarily designed for meteorological observers reporting to the Smithsonian Institution, the tables were so widely used by physicists that it seemed desirable to recast the entire work. It was decided to publish three separate sets of tables, each containing the latest knowledge in the field which it covered, but together forming a homogeneous series. The first of the new series, Meteorological Tables, was published in 1893; the second, Geographical Tables, in 1894; and the third, Physical Tables, in 1896. In 1909 another volume was added, so that the series now comprises: (a) Smithsonian Meteorological Tables, (b) Smithsonian Geographical Tables, (c) Smithsonian Physical Tables, and (d)

Smithsonian Mathematical Tables. Each of these works has been published in revised editions, with such corrections and additions as became necessary by the advance of scientific knowledge.

The years that had elapsed since the publication of the first edition of the Physical Tables in 1896 had brought such changes in the material upon which these tables must be based that it became necessary to almost wholly recast the work for the fifth revised edition, which was published during the past year. Recent data and many new tables have been added, including several mathematical tables especially computed for this work, which forms a volume of about 350 pages.

Opinions on Zoological Nomenclature.-As stated with some detail in my last report, the Institution cooperates with the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature by providing clerical assistance for its secretary and by the publication of the commission's opinions. During the past year two pamphlets were issued containing opinions 1 to 25 and 26 to 29, covering important questions of nomenclature that had been matters of discussion among zoologists. In connection with the summary of each opinion there is printed a statement of the case and the discussion thereon by members of the commission. The rules to be followed in submitting cases for opinion as laid down by the commission are as follows:

1

(1) The commission does not undertake to act as a bibliographic or nomenclatural bureau, but rather as an adviser in connection with the more difficult and disputed cases of nomenclature.

(2) All cases submitted should be accompanied by (a) a concise statement of the point at issue, (b) the full arguments on both sides in case a disputed point is involved, and (c) complete and exact bibliographic references to every book or article bearing on the point at issue.

The more complete the data when the case is submitted the more promptly can it be acted upon.

(3) Of necessity, cases submitted with incomplete bibliographic references can not be studied and must be returned by the commission to the sender.

(4) Cases upon which an opinion is desired may be sent to any member of the commission, but

(5) In order that the work of the commission may be confined as much as possible to the more difficult and the disputed cases, it is urged that zoologists study the code and settle for themselves as many cases as possible.

Harriman Alaska series.-The Institution has received from Mrs. Edward H. Harriman several thousand copies of volumes descriptive of the results of the Harriman expedition to Alaska in 1899. The expedition was organized in cooperation with the Washington Academy of Sciences, but entirely at the expense of Mr. Harriman. He invited as his guests 3 artists and 25 men of science representing various branches of research. The expedition sailed from Seattle

1 Cases should be forwarded to the secretary of the commission, Dr. Ch. Wardell Stiles, U. S. Hygienic Laboratory, Washington, D. C.