REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



25 



letter should be answered at all or not, and if so, whether he or the 

 secretary should sign the reply. 



In case no comment has been made by the secretary, the disposition 

 of the letters is left to the chief clerk, who assigns them to the officers 

 or clerks having in charge the matter treated of. The letters are then 

 sent to the registry clerk, who affixes the registry number and records 

 the letter in a book suitably ruled with the following columns: 



A special form is sent with letters referred to the Museum, by means 

 of which an accurate record of the disposition of the letter may be kept, 

 and a similar form is used for letters referred to employes of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution proper. 



- The object of this system is, as above stated, to insure that each let- 

 ter requiring an answer shall receive it with all attainable promptness, 

 or that a record shall be made of the fact that no answer is required, 

 and, as a rule, it is believed that letters are now being answered on the 

 day after receipt, except in the case of the somewhat numerous class 

 referred to, upon which the report of an expert is first necessary. In 

 the latter case, a limit of six days has been fixed upon from the date 

 of recei})t in which to answer ordinary routine letters. A report is 

 rendered each week of the letters that are then unanswered This 

 system, while entailing some additional labor, appears to be fully 

 justified by the results. 



Eepresentafive relations. — In response to an invitation from Dr. Henry 

 Schliemann, forwarded through the Department of State, to designate 

 a representative of the Smithsonian Institution to participate in an 

 International Conference, held on the ruins of ancient Troy during the 

 latter part of March, 1890, Dr. Charles Waldstein, director of the 

 American School of Classical Studies at Athens, was requested to act 

 as representative of the Institution, and he has most kindly complied 

 with this request, transmitting an interesting report of the proceed- 

 ings of the Conference. 



Prof. LI. Carrington Bolton courteously represented the Institution at 

 the installation of Dr. Low as president of Columbia College, New York, 

 on Fel)ruary 3, 1890. 



Prof. Otis T. Mason was appointed as the representative of the Insti- 

 tution upon a joint board composed of delegates from different bureaus 

 of the Government interested in the subject to consider and decide 

 questions of geographical orthography and nomenclature. This board 

 met for organization at the offi^.e of the Superintendent of the U. S. 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey on the 18th of March, and its work is one 



