EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 29 



signed is inadequate for the proper conduct even of the former, as has 

 just been shown.* 



Having- been assigned to the charge of the international exchanges 

 when Assistant Secretary, the writer has always taken particular inter- 

 est in this part of the work of the Institution ; but so far as its success 

 depends upon the provision by Congress of the indispensable means to 

 meet the expenses which it has just been shown tbat the Government 

 connection has made needful, his labors have been but jjartially suc- 

 cessful. The department of exchanges, however, has continued to be 

 the object of more than usual attention, first under the immediate care 

 of the writer, and later under that of Dr, J. H. Kidder, appointed cura- 

 tor of laborator}^ and exchanges on the 19th of March, 1888. 



It has been remarked that the present system is unsatisfactory because 

 of the delay involved, while it will shortly be shown that the expenses 

 of shipment by a prompt and efficiently conducted system would be sub- 

 stantially the same per ton of freight asH^y the present inefficient and slow 

 one, which is largely carried on by what might be called the charity of 

 the transportation lines. Unsatisfactory as is the service, however, and 

 necessarily conducted as it is (under the present appropriations) in a 

 manner prejudicial to every interest concerned with it, these appropria- 

 tions do not, as we have seen, meet all the inevitable expenditures, and 

 the deficiency still continues to be met from the proper funds of the 

 Institution. 



The expense for the service for this fiscal year has been $15,113.75, 

 of which sum $12,000 were voted by Congress and $205.75 were re- 

 funded by the Patent Office, Signal Office, and a correspondent in 

 South America, leaving a net deficit of $2,908, paid by the Smithsonian 

 fund. In the coming fiscal year, at the present rate of expenditure, 

 the cost will be $16,050, making no allowance for the usual annual in- 

 crease in the (luantity of business or for increased salaries of employes. 

 The domestic exchanges, it will be understood, form no part of this 

 estimate. Finally, it should be stated that nearly every department of 

 the Government has some small appropriation to partially cover serv- 

 ices which should be gratuitoush' rendered. 



Kecurring now to one of the effects of this insufficient appropriation, 

 the writer repeats that there are too many and too great delays in the 

 transit of packages sent by the international exchanges. These delays 

 do not occur in the office at Washington, nor in those of the agents of 

 the Institution at London and Leipzig. They are due, broadly speak- 

 ing, to the fact just stated that the Institution has not the means to 



* The act approved iu 138-2 reads, " For expenses of the international exchanges be- 

 t^'een the United States and foreign countries, iu accordance with the Paris conven. 

 tiou of 1877; " aud this wording is repeated in 1883. Although the phrase referring 

 to the Paris convention was afterwards dropped from the law, there seems to bo no 

 doubt that it has tixed its meaning, since tin; point has been raised more than once 

 by the accounting ollicers of the Treasury, aud so decided. 



