Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution; Showing the Operations, Expenditures, and Condition of the Institution for the Year Ending June 30 1930 71st Congress, 3d Session House Document No. 539
Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1931. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. xii, 650, [2] pages. Illustrations. Map. Footnotes. Tables. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. Boards somewhat scuffed and soiled. Smithsonian Publication 3077. Includes plates on the Autogiro; Gliding in Germany; Wild Life Protection; Extra Chromosomes; Tell en-Nasbeh excavations; Ancient seating furniture; Aboriginal decorative art; and the Holland tunnel. Included among the studies presented are The modern sun cult; The moon and radioactivity; Light waves; Weather and glaciation; Organic evolution; Old World prehistory; Jesse Walter Fewkes, George Perkins Merrill, and the acclimatization of the white race in the tropics. The Smithsonian Institution, or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. Government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967. In many ways, the origin of the Smithsonian Institution can be traced to a group of Washington citizens who, being "impressed with the importance of forming an association for promoting useful knowledge," met on June 28, 1816, to establish the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences. Officers were elected in October 1816, and the organization was granted a charter by Congress on April 20, 1818. Benjamin Latrobe, who was architect for the US Capitol after the War of 1812, and William Thornton, the architect who designed the Octagon House and Tudor Place, would serve as officers. Other prominent members included John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Judge William Cranch, and James Hoban. Honorary members included James Madison, James Monroe, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Marquis de Lafayette. The British scientist James Smithson (1765–1829) left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford. When Hungerford died childless in 1835, the estate passed "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men", in accordance with Smithson's will. Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1, 1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest. Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. On August 10, 1846, President James K. Polk signed the legislation that established the Smithsonian Institution as a trust instrumentality of the United States, to be administered by a Board of Regents and a secretary of the Smithsonian. Though the Smithsonian's first secretary, Joseph Henry, wanted the institution to be a center for scientific research, it also became the depository for various Washington and U.S. government collections. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U.S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842. The voyage amassed thousands of animal specimens, an herbarium of 50,000 plant specimens, and diverse shells and minerals, tropical birds, jars of seawater, and ethnographic artifacts from the South Pacific Ocean. These specimens and artifacts became part of the Smithsonian collections, as did those collected by several military and civilian surveys of the American West, including the Mexican Boundary Survey and Pacific Railroad Surveys, which assembled many Native American artifacts and natural history specimens. In 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation; in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. Nineteen museums and galleries, as well as the National Zoological Park, comprise the Smithsonian museums. Eleven are on the National Mall, the park that runs between the Lincoln Memorial and the United States Capitol. Other museums are located elsewhere in Washington, D.C., with two more in New York City and one in Chantilly, Virginia. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Museums, Meteorological, sun cult, moon, radioactivity, Light waves, Weather, glaciation, Organic evolution, Old World prehistory, Jesse Walter Fewkes, George Perkins Merrill, Acclimatization, white race, tropics
[Book #84358]
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