Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution

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Page 7 - The property is bequeathed to the United States of America, "to found at Washington, under the name of the SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.
Page 8 - To INCREASE KNOWLEDGE. It is proposed — 1. To stimulate men of talent to make original researches, by offering suitable rewards for memoirs containing new truths ; and, 2. To appropriate annually a portion of the income for particular researches, under the direction of suitable persons.
Page 9 - ... of literary and scientific societies, and copies to be given to all the colleges and principal libraries in this country. One part of the remaining copies may be offered for sale, and the other carefully preserved, to form complete sets of the work, to supply the demand from new institutions.
Page 10 - The following are some of the subjects which may be embraced in the reports:* I. PHYSICAL CLASS. 1. Physics, including astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry, and meteorology. 2. Natural history, including botany, zoology, geology, &c. 3. Agriculture. 4. Application of science to arts. II. MORAL AND POLITICAL CLASS. 5. Ethnology, including particular history, comparative philology, antiquities, &c.
Page 11 - It is believed that the collections in natural history will increase by donation as rapidly as the income of the Institution can make provision for their reception, and therefore it will seldom be necessary to purchase articles of this kind.
Page 11 - With reference to the collection of books, other than those mentioned above, catalogues of all the different libraries in the United States should be procured, in order that the valuable books first purchased may oe such as are not to be found in the United States.
Page 8 - No memoir on subjects of physical science to be accepted for publication which does not furnish, a positive addition to human knowledge, resting on original research; and all unverified speculations to be rejected.
Page 294 - Heat is a very brisk agitation of the insensible parts of the object, which produces in us that sensation from whence we denominate the object hot ; so what in our sensation is heat, in the object is nothing but motion.
Page 292 - The optic nerve passes from the brain to the back of the eyeball and there spreads out, to form the retina, a web of nerve filaments, on which the images of external objects are projected by the optical portion of the eye. This nerve is limited to the apprehension of the phenomena of radiation, and, notwithstanding its marvellous sensibility to certain impressions of this class, it is singularly obtuse to other impressions.
Page 11 - Resolved, That hereafter the annual appropriations shall be apportioned specifically among the different objects and operations of the Institution, in such manner as may, in the judgment of the Regents, be necessary and proper for each, according to its intrinsic importance, and a compliance in good faith with the law.

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