Smithsonian Institution: Annual Report

Abstract

THE report of the Smithsonian Institution for the year ended June 30, 1942 (Washington, D.C.: Gov. Printing Office. 1.50 dollars), includes the report of the secretary together with the reports on the United States National Museum, the Bureau of American Ethnology, the International Exchange Service, the National Zoological Park, the Astrophysical Observatory, and the Division of Radiation and Organisms, together with a general appendix on the lines of that in the previous report. Referring to the war activities of the Institution, the secretary's report states that a War Committee has been constituted and a detailed roster prepared of the scientific staff, numbering nearly a hundred, listing their geographical and specialized knowledge. From war agencies 460 requests for information have been received since the Pearl Harbour disaster, and the Institution is also serving as an important source of technical and geographical information. Together with the National Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council, the Institution has participated in the setting up of the Ethnogeographic Board to provide a central clearing house for information to army and navy intelligence and other war agencies in geography, languages and social sciences. An index of published photographs taken by scientific workers of the Institution in all parts of the world is being compiled.