REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 17 



From January 1, 1868, to June 30, 1886, 292,483 packages contain- 

 ing these ofiScial Government publications, having little to do with 

 the object to which Congress devoted the Institution's private funds 

 were transported by the Exchange Bureau at a pro rata cost of 

 192,943.36 of which $29,706.85 accrued between 1881, when the first 

 specific appropriation was made, and 1886. Of tliis $92,943.36 $19,302.35 

 was returned from various Departments and bureaus, leaving a balance 

 of $73,641.01 expended in carrying exclusively Governmental publica- 

 tions. 



What has preceded refers to the transportation of official documents, 

 and not to that of transactions of learned societies and other like works; 

 but it is now necessary to mention that in 1878 the honorable the Sec- 

 retary of State designated the Smithsonian Institution as the special 

 agent for the United States Government for carrying out the provisions 

 of an international convention at Paris, which made the respective 

 Governments assume the cost, not only of the transportation of official 

 documents, but of scientific and literary publications, between the 

 states interested, and it would seem that Congress itself adopted this 

 view of its responsibility, for from July 1, 1881, to June 30, 1886, while 

 the Congressional and bureaucratic exchange represented a pro rata cost 

 of $29,706.85 and the scientific publications $39,034.90, Congress ap- 

 propriated directly $35,500, somewhat more than the cost of the Govern- 

 ment exchange, but leaving a balance of $3,534.90 for scientific and 

 literary exchanges unpaid. This latter sum, $3,534.90, added to the 

 $73,641.01 mentioned above, makes a total of $77,175.91, for which, in 

 equity, repayment might be requested. 



In 1886, on the 15th of March, plenii)otentiaries of the United States 

 and various other nationalities signed a convention more formal than 

 that at Paris, by which the respective Governments definitely assumed 

 the exchange of official documents and scientific and literary publica- 

 tions between the states interested. 



Adopting, then, the year 1886, rather than the earlier date, 1881 

 (though, as mentioned in the report, equity would seem to allow the 

 Institution the entire sum expended in exchanges, at least since its 

 official recognition by Congress in 1881 as the Government exchange 

 agent), it appears upon deducting the amount ap[)ropriated by Con- 

 gress, $35,500, from the balance shown in the preceding paragraph, 

 $73,641.01, that we have $38,141.01 as the amount due the private fund 

 of James Smithson from 1868 to 1886. 



Considering separately the period from July 1, 1886, to June 30, 1889, 

 we find that th^amount expended in these years under the direction of 

 the Smithsonian Institution on account of international exchanges was 

 $47,126.56; of this sum $37,000* was paid by Congressional appropria- 

 tions, $3,091.75 were paid by Government departments and others, and 

 the balance, $7,034.81, by the Smithsonian Institution. 



To recapitulate briefly it appears, then, that the following sums have 

 H. Mis. 129 2 



