"Smithsonian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being carried on on a scale, and with an energy worthy of the most important subject that presents itself to the astronomer. Closely associated with this work is that of Professor Langley and Dr. Abbot, at the Astro-Physical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution, who have recently completed one of the most important works ever carried out on the light of the sun. They have for years been analyzing those of its rays which, although entirely invisible to our eyes, are of the same nature as those of light, and are felt by ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... aeroplane, and the action of the air on wings. In 1848 Henson and Stringfellow, the latter being the inventive genius, designed and produced a small model aeroplane—the first power-driven machine which actually flew. It is now in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. Of greater practical value were the gliding experiments by Otto Lilienthal, of Berlin, and Percy Pilcher, an Englishman, at the end of the last century. Both these men met their death in the cause of aviation. Another step forward ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... here. They were translated by Miss Cheape, Miss Alma, and Miss Thyra Alleyne, Miss Sellar, Mr. Craigie (he did the Icelandic tales), Miss Blackley, Mrs. Dent, and Mrs. Lang, but the Red Indian stories are copied from English versions published by the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology, in America. Mr. Ford did the pictures, and it is hoped that children will find the book not less pleasing than those which have already been submitted to their consideration. The Editor cannot ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... instance of Professor Henry of the Smithsonian Institution, I was called before an appropriations committee of the House of Representatives to explain certain estimates made by the Professor for funds to continue scientific work which had been in progress from the date of the original exploration. Mr. Garfield was ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... were startled by a hearty hail from among the trees and I looked up to see Y——, of the Smithsonian, fully dressed, standing waist-deep in the water at the edge of the forest, waving an insect trap in ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... contributors. Among many others, special thanks are due Dr. George Davidson, President of San Francisco Geographical Society, for facts relating to the topography of the coast, and to Dr. Leo Stejneger of the Smithsonian, Washington, for facts gathered on the very spot ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... revelations have come to light in our own time—are, indeed, still being disclosed. Needless to say, no index of any sort now attempts to conceal them; yet something has been accomplished towards the same end by the publication of the discoveries in Smithsonian bulletins and in technical memoirs of government surveys. Fortunately, however, the results have been rescued from that partial oblivion by such interpreters as Professors Huxley and Cope, so the unscientific public ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... incongruous at the time, and when I'd ciphered it out I was doing the Santos-Dumont act without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I got to thinking about Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was. Then I thought about Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing I hadn't lied so extravagantly in some of my specifications at Washington. Then I quit thinking for quite a while, and when I resumed my train of thought I was nude, Sir, in a very stale stretcher, and my mouth was full of fine ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... this research into the history of medicine in connection with his duties as associate curator of medical sciences in the United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution. ...
— Drawings and Pharmacy in Al-Zahrawi's 10th-Century Surgical Treatise • Sami Hamarneh
... was in keeping up those regular successions in the first families.' Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and Crawford's Liberty, and Greenough's Washington: Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... then, how about Washin'ton? We'll see the President, and the monument, and the Smithsonian Museum, and Congress—we'll see ALL the curiosities and ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Brewer's edition of Wilson, are equally inaccessible; and the most valuable contributions since their time, so far as I know, are that portion of Dr. Brewer's work on eggs printed in the eleventh volume of the "Smithsonian Contributions," and four admirable articles in this very magazine.[14] But the most important observations are locked up in the desks or exhibited in the cabinets of private observers, who have little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... (Citizens' Committee to Save Beta), testified that the cost of retrieving Beta from orbit would be trivial compared to its value as an object of precious historical significance. He suggested the Smithsonian Institution as an appropriate site for the exhibit. At the same time the incumbent Senator from Mr. Wamboldt's district filed a bill in the Senate which would add a complete wing to the Smithsonian to house this satellite and other ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... I suppose," said Mrs. Malcolm, "or the noon train from Washington was late for the first time in six years. What do you do in Washington, anyway? Moon about the Smithsonian?" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... regarding every new physician as if he were Pandora, and carried hope at the bottom of his medicine-chest, is really rather unpromising. This perpetual self-inspection of yours, registering your pulse thrice a day, as if it were a thermometer and you an observer for the Smithsonian,—these long consultations with the other patients in the dreary parlor of the infirmary, the morning devoted to debates on the nervous system, the afternoon to meditations on the stomach, and the evening to soliloquies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... to this plan. One was the existence of a dispute over territory between the republics of Costa Rica and Granada. The other grew out of a specific examination of the coal fields by Professor Henry of the Smithsonian Institute.[23] His report doubted the value of the coal bed and advised a more thorough examination before closing the purchase. Before the project could be examined a more acceptable proposition appeared. In addition it also developed that there was opposition to Negro ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... manatee, the question is how to account for its presence on this the latest representation of the tablet which, according to Short, Mr. Guest, its owner, pronounces "the first correct representations of the stone." The cast of this tablet in the Smithsonian Institution agrees more closely with Short's representation in respect to the details mentioned than with that given in the "Ancient Monuments." Nevertheless, if this cast be accepted as the faithful ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... kind are the Library of Congress which includes the Copyright Office; the Government Printing Office; the Smithsonian Institution, including the National Museum ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... 'here's somethin' I brought you that'll surprise you. I've noticed since I've been away that about everybody smokes—senators and judges, and even Smithsonian Institute folks. And when I see how much comfort they get out of it, my conscience hurt me to think that I'd deprived my brother of what he got such a sight of pleasure from. Kenelm, you can begin smokin' again right off. Here's a box of cigars I bought on ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... while the oak alone numbers more than thirty species in the United States, [Footnote: For full catalogues of American forest-trees, and remarks on their geographical distribution, consult papers on the subject by Dr. J. G. Cooper, in the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1858, and the Report of the United States Patent Office, Agricultural Division, for 1860.] and some other North American genera are almost equally diversified. [Footnote: Although ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... this sharpening of the teeth, see Virchow's "Peopling of the Philippines" (Mason's translation), in Smithsonian Institution's Annual Report, 1899, pp. 523, 524. Jagor says—Travels in the Philippines (London, 1875), p. 256: "The further circumstance that the inhabitants of the Ladrones and the Bisayans possess the art of coloring their teeth ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... programme is not scrupulously carried out, we feel that we have been defrauded. It was the regret of Aunt Sophronia Hallett's life that, on her Washington excursion, she had not seen the "Diplomatic Corpse." She saw the President and the Monument and Congress and "the relics in the Smithsonian Institute," but the "Corpse" was not on view; Aunt Sophronia never ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with its other interests, as well as those of the whole country, I recommend that at your present session you adopt such measures in order to carry into effect the Smithsonian bequest as in your judgment will be best calculated to consummate the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was on Tampa Bay, was most likely near Phillippi's Point, where tradition fixes De Soto's landing place, and where a number of mounds and shell heaps have been found. One of these, opened by Mr. S. T. Walker,[Footnote: Smithsonian Report, 1879 (1880), pp. 392-422.] was found to consist of three layers. In the lower were "no ornaments and but little pottery, but in the middle and top layers, especially the latter, nearly every cranium was encircled by strings of colored beads, brass and copper ornaments; ...
— The Problem of Ohio Mounds • Cyrus Thomas
... interpreted and grouped by the author into the legend that appears in this book. It is said to date back thousands of years before Abraham and our Bible. Acknowledgments for original texts and tales are due the Smithsonian Institute. ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... of the latter. Audubon says it is sometimes agreeable, but evidently has never heard it. Nuttall, I am glad to find, is more discriminating, and does the bird fuller justice. Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, a more recent authority, and an excellent observer, tells me he regards it as preeminently our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... of the College of William and Mary and on the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Executive Board of the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative, the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and the Advisory Committee of the American Society of International Law, Judicial. She is an honorary member of the Advisory Committee for the Judiciary Leadership Development Council, an honorary ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... part is the menu. We are allowed a soup, one roast, one vegetable and dessert, and two wines, one of which, according to the regulations, must be good. We do not even need so much, for there is more laughing than eating. A stuffed goose from the Smithsonian Institution serves as a milieu de table, and is sent, on the day of the dinner, to the ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... occupation for a man in the prime of life; but to these he added a wonderful list of other toils and interests. He was not only an incessant student in history, politics, and literature, but he also constantly invaded the domain of science. He was Chairman of the Congressional Committee on the Smithsonian bequest, and for several years he gave much time and attention to it, striving to give the fund a direction in favor of science; he (p. 304) hoped to make it subservient to a plan which he had long cherished ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... two started off together for the Fisheries Building, an antiquated structure standing in the magnificent park behind the National Museum and but a short distance from the Smithsonian Institution. They entered on the ground-floor, seeing to the left a number of hatching troughs, to the right models of nets and fishing-vessels, at the far end a small aquarium, while in the center was a tank in which were the two fur seals that the boy had heard ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... on his first page that he is mainly indebted to Professor Baird of the Smithsonian Institute for what is by far the most valuable portion of his book,—the classification, the nomenclature, and the generic and specific descriptions. He is only responsible for the popular descriptions; but even these consist so very largely of quotations that the whole book must evidently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... produce it; the officials of the National Park Service, the superintendents and several rangers in the national parks, certain zoologists of the United States Biological Survey, the Director and many geologists of the United States Geological Survey, scientific experts of the Smithsonian Institution, and professors in several distinguished universities. Many men have been patient and untiring in assistance and helpful criticism, and to these I render warm thanks for myself and for readers who may benefit ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... talk among the geographers and scientists. An exploring party was sent out by the Smithsonian Institution to examine the new island. It was pronounced of volcanic origin, yet the formation of it was not of recent time. There was on this island (which contained several square miles) the remains of a glacier, and in the ice the party discovered the ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... to-day more than half convinced that Sir William has been justified. Each of his experiments has been repeated and his findings verified by scientific men of Europe. It is a pleasure to add that our own Smithsonian Institution published two of his speculative papers some years ago. So it goes—the heresy of to-day is the orthodoxy ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... 1872, I was informed by Mr. Spofford, of the Library of Congress, that after the fire which destroyed a portion of that library, December 24, 1851, the bronze copies of the medals formerly deposited there had been transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. At the latter place I was shown the remains of the collection, all more or less injured by fire. Moreover, the five wanted were not to be found; and further investigations made in December, 1877, in ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... is taken in full from a work on ornithology, written by Dr. Coues of the Smithsonian Institution. It is the advice of an accomplished naturalist and sportsman to his fellow-naturalists, but is equally adapted to the young camper. Hardly any one can write more understandingly on the subjects here presented than ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... was sent by the owner to the Smithsonian Institution for examination, and Secretary Henry referred it to Mr. William E. Dubois, who presented the result of his investigation to the American Philosophical Society. Mr. Dubois felt sure that the object had passed through a rolling-mill, and he thought the ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... Mountains and the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers, during the course of which (1869) he made a daring boat-journey of three months through the Grand Canyon; he also made a special study of the Indians and their languages for the Smithsonian Institution, in which he founded and directed a bureau of ethnology. His able work led to the establishment under the U. S. Government of the geographical and geological survey of the Rocky Mountain region with which he was occupied from 1870 to 1879. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... great structure to the northwest. Here, the GOVERNMENT of the UNITED STATES from its Executive Departments, the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Fish Commission, and the National Museum, exhibited such articles and materials as illustrate the function and administrative faculty of the government in time of piece, as well as its resources as ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... one of my professional friends visited the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, where he met a member of the staff, who inquired if he knew Doctor Pope, of San Francisco, a man that was contemplating shooting grizzlies with the bow and arrow. The doctor replied that he did, whereat the ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... special bulletin of the Smithsonian Institution, says, "They are the boldest of our birds, except the Chickadee, and in cool impudence far surpass all others. They will enter the tents, and often alight on the bow of a canoe, where the paddle at every stroke comes within eighteen inches of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... a widespread myth that the original bug was moved to the Smithsonian, and an earlier version of this entry so asserted. A correspondent who thought to check discovered that the bug was not there. While investigating this in late 1990, your editor discovered that the NSWC still had the bug, but had unsuccessfully tried to get the Smithsonian to accept ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... who should say, "Well, I understand the medicine vials, and the blisters, and the inkstand, and all that, but this great bright thing is quite beyond me." He never once thought of flying into it to see how it was done, and I thought of writing to the Bug Professor at the Smithsonian that here was a species of moth that light did not attract. But what will not bad company do? After the warm weather came and the windows were open, what should come in but other moths, of little character I think, who commenced pranks of humming and buzzing and butting the lamp. My Moth watched ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... small telescope placed on a swivel, we could see most distinctly the Military Retreat (the Chelsea of America), beautifully situated upon a high hill about three miles off. We saw also through this telescope the Smithsonian Institute, which we were glad to be able to study in this way in detail, as we found we should not have time to go to it. It is a very large building of the architecture of the twelfth century, and the only attempt at Mediaeval ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... in an interesting article prepared by him at the expense of the Smithsonian Institute, on the distribution of the forests and trees of North America, with notes and observations on the physical geography, climate, etc., of the country, after classifying, arranging, and tabulating the results of the various observations forwarded ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... part, was not idle, but took notes of them with equal diligence, at which imitation of their actions they were greatly amused. But I flatter myself that, when my notes, now in the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, are published, with the comments of the learned naturalists to whom the Institution has referred them, they will be found to embody the most valuable contributions to science. My own view of the inhabitants of Mars is that they are Rational Articulates. Rational ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the two leading Indian ethnologists are Arkwind and Sherman, of the Smithsonian, are they not, Miss Allen?" ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... directly under the tree and surrounded by gigantic roots, this pestle, and some others of a similar character, together with mortars and various utensils, were scattered through the soil. Most of the collection went to the Smithsonian Institute, and perhaps their origin and history may be some day conjectured. How many ages more, I wonder, will be required to develop the resources of this vast ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... had nourished an ambition for a postgraduate education, with further aspirations to a Government appointment in the Smithsonian Institute. ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... and diffusion of the applied sciences; but his support was not less hearty when he grasped the policy formulated by the first secretary of the institution. He was the author of that provision in the act establishing the Smithsonian Institution, which called for the presentation of one copy of every copyrighted book, map, and musical composition, to the Institution and to the Congressional Library.[594] He became a member of the board of regents and retained ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... from his body by a surgeon, and the brain taken out and weighed. The head measured larger than that of Daniel Webster, and the brain was of corresponding weight. The skull was sent to Washington, and is now on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution." ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... on sea-pay, but also attached ten men of the Navy, under government pay. Instruments, provisions, etc., were likewise supplied by the Secretary of the Navy, and aid in other directions was afforded by the Smithsonian Institution, the Naval Observatory, and other scientific associations. At this juncture the discoveries of Captain Inglefield, R. N., in Smith Sound, afforded to Kane a new route for his activities. The ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... given several European examples of monuments of prehistoric date belonging to the Recent period, I will now turn to the American continent. Before the scientific investigation by Messrs. Squier and Davis of the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley",* (* "Smithsonian Contributions" volume 1 1847. ) no one suspected that the plains of that river had been occupied, for ages before the French and British colonists settled there, by a nation of older date and more advanced in the arts than the Red Indians whom the Europeans found there. There are ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... book (I've forgotten the name, but the Smithsonian will know)," he wrote back, "about the Swastika (pronounced Swas-ti-ka to rhyme with 'car's ticker'), in literature, art, religion, dogma, etc. I believe there are two sorts of Swastikas, one [figure] and one [figure]; one is bad, the other is good, but ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... scholars; and the United States' government have published a second volume of the great work on the Indian tribes—a handsome book to look at, but less valuable than it might have been had proper care been bestowed on its contents. The Smithsonian Institution have brought out the third and fourth volumes of their Contributions to Knowledge—one of the two being a 'Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language,' the work of missionaries who, eighteen years ago, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... happens there are some more good times in store for me this summer. Gavotte once worked under Professor Marsden when he was out here getting fossils for the Smithsonian Institution, and he is very interesting to listen to. He has invited us to go with him out to the Bad-Land hills in the summer to search for fossils. The hills are only a few miles from here and I look ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... taken prisoner, and in consideration of the services once rendered his country his life was spared; but he was again banished, to finish his days in poverty and in a foreign land. His wooden leg, captured during our war with Mexico, is in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. The town which surrounds the immediate locality of these shrines of Guadalupe has a population of about three thousand, and is particularly memorable as being the place where the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed, February ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou |
