DISTRIBUTION OF GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS. 461 



House, to look into the question of fresh air has just discovered 

 that certain rooms in the basement of the Capitol are filled with 

 Government publications. In one series of vaults were one mil- 

 lion two hundred and fifty thousand volumes, and many of these 

 have been stored for thirty years. " They present a vast bulk of 

 decomposing vegetable matter, which is constaintly tainting the 

 atmosphere with impurities." 



One reason of the apathy of the people in regard to the waste 

 of public documents is that being free they are supposed to be 

 valueless, and to many who receive them they have no value. In 

 the rural regions they are used as scrap-books by the children, 

 and there is hardly an attic in the land that does not contain a 

 few of this kind of books, mixed with the usual light truck which 

 ascends to the garret. 



There is certainly nothing to complain of in the scientific de- 

 partments of the Government. The valuable contributions pub- 

 lished by the various scientific bureaus, have been distributed 

 in such a way that special students get, without much trouble, 

 the works needed in their studies. So far as I know, but few if 

 any of these drift into the wrong channels. There are special 

 reports of an ethnological character now and then appearing in 

 other departments, notably in the United States consular re- 

 ports, and subjects pertaining to other sciences issued from other 

 bureaus, and these would be priceless to certain special workers, 

 yet such reports are usually exhausted when application is made 

 for them. I have often secured Government publications of the 

 greatest value by overhauling a lot of stuff which some lawyer 

 was about to throw away. Reports that I had never heard the 

 existence of have come to me in this manner. Lately I had given 

 to me from an editor's room several shelffuls of pamphlets, 

 books, etc., which were on their way to destruction. Among 

 these were many public documents on various subjects, and 

 these were distributed to those whom I knew would make good 

 use of them. Among the letters of acknowledgment was one 

 from a gentleman who has made a special study of the seal-fish- 

 eries dispute, and has written a number of reviews on the subject. 

 This letter came in return for a government report containing a 

 lengthy legal opinion about the seal fisheries, and is as follows : 

 "Ever so much obliged to you for the document. I devoured it 

 right off, and then took it up to the Harvard Law Library, where 

 they were no less pleased to get it. They had never seen it nor 

 heard of it, and seemed to be amused at the idea of their ob- 

 taining it through two such outside barbarians in law matters 

 as you and I." This is by no means an exceptional case. 



A public library of nearly forty thousand volumes in a neigh- 

 boring city finds it impossible to get anywhere near a complete 



