Nicholson.] 404 [July. 



plete set of them, now on file in the United States Post Office 

 Department, collected under the present Administration : 



•■ On being honored with this appointment last year (coming from 

 the Coast Survey Service), I immediately set myself to collect the 

 best data from all quarters to have for ready reference, and to put 

 everything into good shape, not only to keep up the current work, 

 which is very great, owing to the changing and expanding character 

 of the postal service, but to have the material ready for bringing out, 

 as soon as practicable, postal maps of the United States. 



" I need hardly tell you that this is a work of very great labor and 

 nicety, your own State having over two thousand five hundred post- 

 offices, and routes interlacing in all directions. I have more trou- 

 ble with the locations of the post ofl&ces in the older States than with 

 the new ; thanks to the Land Office subdivisions. 



" The Territories, however, afford choice bits of perplexity, coun- 

 terbalanced, however, by the feeling of interest in the opening out 

 and clearing up of these terr^e incognitse." 



Donations for the Library were received from the Imperial 

 Russian Government ; the Imperial Geological Institute, 

 Vienna ; Royal Society, Gottingen ; Dr. R. Wolf, Zurich ; 

 Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve; 

 Geological Society, Paris ; the Royal, Royal Astronomical, 

 Royal Geographical, Chemical, and Geographical Societies at 

 London ; Agricultural Society, Bath ; Insane Asylums at 

 Concord and Hartford ; American Oriental Society ; Silli- 

 man's Journal ; 'New York Lyceum ; Franklin Institute, 

 Mercantile Library, IsTorthern Home, Blanchard & Lea, 

 and P. E. Chase, of Philadelphia ; Smithsonian Institution, 

 Census Bureau, and F. W. Seward, of Washington ; and the 

 Mercantile Library Company of-San Francisco. 



The Librarian called the attention of the members present 

 to the superb volumes of the Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus, 

 presented to the Society by the Imperial Government of Rus- 

 sia; and on motion of Mr. Fraley, the Secretaries were 

 directed to prepare a special letter of thanks, to be signed by 

 the officers of the Society. 



The de^th of Mr. Benjamin Gerhard, at Philadelphia, on 

 the 20th ult., was reported by Mr. Fraley, and Mr. E. 



