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XII                          JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS.

Dr. Welling, in presenting the report of the Executive Committee for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889, called the attention of the Board to the statement on page 5, under the head of International Exchanges (which sets forth that an amount has been expended in this department beyond the annual appropriation made by Congress, entailing annual loss upon the fund of the Smithsonian Institution) and to the recommendation that Congress be requested to make appropriations to reimburse the Smithsonian fund.

On motion it was--

[[italics]] Resolved [[/itallics]], That the Regents instruct the Secretary to ask of Congress legislation for the repayment to the Institution of the amount advanced from the Smithsonian fund for governmental service in carrying on the exchanges.

The report of the committee was then approved.

On motion of Dr. Welling it was also--

[[italics]] Resolved [[/italics]], That the income of the Institution for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891, be appropriated for the service of the Institution, to be expended by the Secretary, with the advice of the Executive Committee, upon the basis of the operations described in the last annual report of said committee, with full discretion on the part of the Secretary as to items of expenditures properly falling under each of the heads embraced in the established conduct of the Institution.

The Secretary, in presenting his report for the year ending June 30, 1889, referred especially to the fact that the Smithsonian Institution is now, and has been for some time, paying out an increasingly large portion of its annual income in service that inures either directly of indirectly to the benefit of the Government, rather than to its legitimate application for the immediate "increase and diffusion of knowledge;" and in this connection quoted the opinion of Professor Henry, expressed as long since as 1872, that the Government should then have paid the Institution $300,000 for the use of the present building alone.

He did not ask for any immediate action, but invited the attention of the Regents to this condition of the relation of the Institution's affairs to those of the Government, a general condition of which the loss of the rent of the building might be taken as a single example.

The late Secretary had intended to provide an astro-physical observatory on a modest scale, the building for which would probably cost not over ten or fifteen thousand dollars, and with the expectation that if this amount were contributed by private citizens and the building placed on Government land, Congress would make an appropriation for purchasing the apparatus, and also a small annual appropriation necessary for maintenance. This amount having been pledged by responsible parties, the Secretary had ordered some of the principal pieces of apparatus which would take a long time to construct. A number of valuable pieces had also been loaned to the Institution, and to supply provisional needs, a cover for all these in the form of a small temporary