REPORT ON EXCHANGES. 105 



office, siuce all the returns to the Smithsonian library are direct results 

 of the efforts and labors of this office, and it is, therefore, recommended 

 that in future all packages addressed to the Smithsonian library, as ex- 

 changes, should pass through the exchange office, that an exact and 

 complete record may be obtained of the actual results of the working 

 of this office. 



3. Government transmissions. 



Although Congress, by act of July 20, 1840, authorized the printing 

 and binding of 50 copies of all volumes published by the two houses, 

 •which volumes were to be reserved for the purpose of exchange with 

 foreign powers, yet from the omission to provide for the extra print- 

 ing, or from other cause, this liberal arrangement failed to go into 

 operation. 



An act of March 4, 184G, directed the Librarian of Congress to pro- 

 cure a complete series of the United States courts and of the laws of 

 the United States, and to transmit them to the Minister of Justice of 

 France, in exchange for works of the French law presented to the 

 United States Supreme Court. 



June 20, 184S, the Joint Committee on the Library was authorized to 

 appoint agents for the exchange of books and public documents; 

 all books transmitted through these agents of exchange, for the use of 

 the United States, for any single State, or for the Academy at West 

 Poiut, or the National Institute, to be admitted free. 



A resolution of June 30. 1848, ordered that the Joint Committee on 

 the Library be furnished with twenty-five copies of the Revolutionary 

 Archives, twenty-five copies of Little & Brown's edition of the Laws of 

 the United States, seven copies of the Exploring Expedition then pub- 

 lished, and an equal number of subsequent publications on the same 

 subject, for the purpose of international exchange. 



A joint resolution of March 2, 1849, directed that two copies of certain 

 volumes of the Exploring Expedition bj sent to the Government of 

 Eussia, in lieu of those which were lost at sea on their passage to that 

 couutiy. The Secretary of State was also directed to present a copy of 

 tne Exploring Expedition, as soon as completed, to the Government of 

 Ecuador. 



By the act of August 31, 1852, the act of 1818, regulating exchanges, 

 was repealed. 



In 1852 the Smithsonian Institution urged that Congress should make 

 some systematic and permanent arrangement for distributing complete 

 >eries of its works to European libraries, to ax least thirty of which they 

 might be judiciously supplied. It was also suggested that particular 

 works of scientific interest, as reports of patents, coast survey operations, 

 Government explorations in geography and geology, and others of a 

 similar character might be assigned in larger numbers, of from one 



