Smithsonian Institution

Development.

Spencer F. Baird (q.v.), Henry's successor, incorporated in the general appendix annual reports on the prog ress of the sciences, and he perfected Henry's system of inter national exchanges, under which the institution, through agents in the principal cities of the world, exchanges its own publications, those of other departments of the U.S. Government, and those of learned societies, for foreign publications. Baird had been at the head of the U.S. National Museum, a branch of the institution, bef ore he became secretary of the institution, and the museum particularly was developed during his administration. It was built up around the collections of the U.S. Patent Office, which were turned over to it in 1858, and those of the National Institute, transferred to the Smithsonian in 1861, when the institute was dissolved. A part of the collection (including Smithson's collec tion) was destroyed by fire in 1865. The small art collection which remained was exhibited in the private Corcoran gallery until 1896. A new building for the museum was erected in 1881, and in 1911 the commodious and handsome Natural History building was added.

The museum gained much valuable archaeological and ethno logical material from the exploring parties sent out under J. W.

Powell; excellent ichthyological specimens through Baird's posi tion as U.S. fish commissioner; and general collections from the exhibits made at the Centennial exhibition of 5876 by the United States and foreign governments. Its great collection of plants is known as the National Herbarium. The Bureau of American Ethnology was established as a branch of the institution in 1879, when the various organizations doing survey work in the West united as the U.S. Geological Survey, and anthropological and ethnological research was transferred to the Smithsonian Institu tion.

In 1887 Samuel P. Langley (q.v.), was appointed as assistant secretary of the institution, and succeeded as secretary upon Baird's death in the same year. In 1890 a small astrophysical observatory was built in the Smithsonian park; in 1891 an appro priation was made for astrophysical work and $5,000 was con tributed by the executors of Dr. J. H. Kidder Langley's principal researches in the observatory were on the nature of the infra-red portion of the spectrum, and preliminary experiments indicating a possibility that variation of the sun produces important effects on the weather. His name is perhaps best known for his pioneering work in aeronautics resulting in the publication of Experiments in Aerodynamics in 1891, and The Internal Work of the Wind in 1893.

Under the terms of the Hodgkins bequest prizes were offered in 1893 for research and investigation of atmospheric air in con nection with the welfare of mankind; in 1895 an award of $10,000 was made to Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay for their discovery of argon ; and the Hodgkins medal was awarded to Sir James Dewar in 1899 and one to Sir J. J. Thomson in 1901. By acts of Congress of March 2, 1889, and April 3o, 1890, the National Zoological Park was established under the institution; and in a park of 175 ac. in the valley of Rock Creek a small col lection was installed which has since grown to be one of the foremost collections of animals in America.

Mrs. Harriet Lane Johnston (1833-1903) left her art collec tion to a national gallery of art, when such a gallery should be established, and in 1906 the supreme court of the District of Columbia decreed that the collection of the Smithsonian Insti tution was a national gallery, and turned this collection over to the National Museum, whose art collections have been called since that time the National Gallery of Art. They have been en larged by the gift of a collection representing contemporary French artists, the Ralph Cross Johnson collection of old mas ters, the William T. Evans collection, the Eddy bequest, the Ranger bequest and others.

On Jan. 23, 1907, Charles Doolittle Walcott (q.v.) (1850 1927), eminent geologist and palaeontologist, was elected secre tary. During his administration of almost exactly 20 years the outstanding events for the Smithsonian were the gift by Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, of the Freer Gallery of Art, together with a large testamentary endowment, and the establishment of the National Gallery of Art as a distinct branch of the institution separate from the National Museum. The Freer gift comprised more than 9,000 pieces, including works of American artists, especially Whistler, Tryon, Thayer and T. W. Dewing, and of Japanese and Chinese masters, including precious screens, cera mics and bronzes. Near the close of Walcott's incumbency, great need being felt to increase the unrestricted income of the Smith sonian, a strong movement was inaugurated among prominent Americans to promote an increase of several millions in the endowment.

On Jan. 10, 1928, Charles Greeley Abbot (1872– ), physicist and assistant secretary from 1918, was elected secre tary, and has continued the researches begun by Langley on the variation of the sun's radiation, improving instruments and methods, and establishing three first class solar observatories in widely separated regions of the earth.