REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 109 



together iii a single catalogue by any government. Snch lists are now in course of 

 preparation by this office, and in April last a special card catalogue was begun of the 

 titles of all foreign official publications which passed through the exchange office, so 

 that by the end of another year it will be jjossible to state with some certainty which 

 official publications each government gives to the international exchanges and which 

 it withholds. 



EFFICIENCY OF THE SEKVICE. 



Upon assuming general control of the office (March ID, 1888), I found that complaints 

 and criticisms of the efficiency of the exchange system by individuals, societies, and 

 Government bureaus were not infrequent. In some instances packages from abroad, 

 notification of the shipmeut of which had been long ago received, had not been de- 

 livered ; in others, packages sent hence had failed to reach their destination or had 

 been uureasouably delayed. Every such complaint has been promptly and diligent!}' 

 follow«'d up by correspondence, with the result, in all but three instances thus far, 

 of tracing the missing package and explaining the delay. It has happened, rather 

 surprisingly often, that the receipt of the complaining correspondent for the package 

 he writes of is on tile in this office, having been signed by some assistant in his ab- 

 sence, or by himself and forgotten. In the three cases not yet settled no reply has 

 yet been received from the distributing agencies to which inquiries have been ad- 

 dressed. 



The fact remains, however, that there have been and are still too many and too great 

 delays in the transmission of exchange matter from its place of shipment to its des- 

 tination, and for this state of things there are several reasons. 



In the tirst place, delays occur in this office in forwarding packages addressed to 

 countries which receive and seud but few publications (such as Hawaii, Hayti, and 

 many of the Central American republics), until a sufficient number has accumulated 

 to fill one of the ordinary boxes. If these packages should be forwarded as soon as 

 they are received the expense would be greater than the resources of the exchange 

 service could bear. But the most serious delays occur in the exchange bureaus of 

 other countries. For example, in a recent experimental shipment to Loudou, Leip- 

 zig, and Paris, the boxes having been shipped on the same day and accompanied by 

 letters asking for immediate acknowledgments, the agents of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution at London and Leipzig reported receipt in fourteen and fifteen days, respect- 

 ively, and the Bureau des fichauges at Paris in forty days. Consignments fre(|uently 

 remain in the hands of foreign agencies for several months before being forwarded, 

 while their consignees, having received prompt notice of their shipment from the con- 

 signor, very naturally regard such delays as unreasonable and unnecessary. Delays 

 of this sort are, of course, quite beyond the control of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 which can do nothing to remedy them otherwise than by correspondence and per- 

 suasion. Every such case is followed up as soon as brought to the notice of the of- 

 fice, and I fancy that I can already perceive some imi>rovement in the promptness of 

 shipmeut and some increased interest in the subject on the part of foreign corre- 

 si»ondcnts. 



Another occasional causeof delay arises from the fact that the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion continues to be indebted to the generosity and public spirit of most of the ocean 

 steam-ship lines for free transportation of its exchange boxes, as it has been for many 

 years past. The list of transportation companies and business firms which continue 

 to extend this valuable privilege has undergone no change since its publication in 

 the report for l886-'87, and is reproduced as Exhibit E, hereto annexed. It naturally 

 and necessarily follows from this relation between the exchange service and the 

 transportation companies that boxes bearing the Smithsonian mark are shipped, for 

 the most part, by slow freight, and .are subject to delays at times when paid freight 

 is oilered in excess of the capacity of the steuraers. Under sj»ecial circumstances the 



