REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 31 



found. This will add much to the value of the catalogue, aud the 

 prompt response and ready cooperation of librarians in this enterprise 

 is very gratifying. 



Professor Bolton's catalogue is intended to include independent jour- 

 nals in every branch of science, both pure and applied. Transactions 

 of societies are generally excluded, as well as medical and art journals. 



Physical and Meteorological Tables. — This work, published by the In- 

 stitution in 1852 (212 pages), and revised in 1859 (638 pages), has been 

 taken up by the author, Prof. A. Guyot, of Princeton, N. J., with the 

 purpose of adding new and important tables and carefully revising the 

 old ones. This has been a labor requiring much time, and has occupied 

 several years. The manuscript was, however, completed and sent to 

 press in 1883, and the printing has proceeded as rapidly as the nature 

 of the work would permit. 



The volume will be published during the year 1884, and will doubt- 

 less be in great demand, as very few of the publications of the Insti- 

 tution have met with such steady call as the former editions of these 

 tables. 



Bulletins of the National Museum. — An additional series of publications 

 lately included in the Miscellaneous Collections consists of the Bulletins 

 of the United States National Museum, primarily printed under the di- 

 rection of the honorable Secretary of the Interior. This series was in- 

 stituted for the purpose of furnishing a prompt publication of original 

 descriptions of the specimens received by the Museum, many of which 

 are new to science, as well as of presenting such other interesting in- 

 formation on subjects of biology as may be given by its collaborators. 

 From the stereotyped plates thus produced a supplementary edition is 

 printed off by the Institution, aud distributed among its numerous cor- 

 respondents in the same manner as its other publications. The following 

 bulletins were published during the year: 



Bulletin No. 16 (Smithsonian No. 492) contains a " Synopsis of the 

 Fishes of North America." By David S. Jordan and Charles H. Gilbert. 

 The table of contents of this elaborate work occupies 47 pages, and the 

 work itself forms an octavo volume of 1018 pages. 



Bulletin No. 20 (Smithsonian No. 508), the first of a proposed series 

 of extended catalogues of the writings of American naturalists, com- 

 prises a bibliography of " The Published Writings of Spencer Fullerton 

 Baird from 1843 to 1882." By George Brown Goode, Assistant Director 

 of the National Museum. The work is prefaced by a biographical sketch 

 of Professor Baird of 9 pages, and includes (1) a " Chronological Cata- 

 logue" of his published writings (forming the bulk of the volume) ; (2) 

 a " Systematic Catalogue," in which the various species described or 

 treated of are arranged in the order of biologic classification ; (3) a 

 " List of Species Discussed and Illustrated," similarly classified. The 

 whole forms an octavo volume of 393 pages, 



