'74 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 193 



In addition to the packages forwarded abroad in boxes, 67,945— 

 an increase over last year of 7,089 — were sent to their destinations 

 direct by mail. About one-third of these packages contained copies 

 of the daily issue of the Congressional Record, which, under treaty 

 stipulations and by authority of Congress, are mailed directly to 

 the depositories immediately upon publication. The remainder of 

 the packages were partly for remote places which could not be 

 reached through existing agencies and partly for countries for which 

 the accumulations were so small at the scheduled forwarding dates 

 that it was more economical to send them by mail than by freight. 



Almost since the establishment of the Smithsonian system of ex- 

 changes in 1850, consignments received from abroad have, at the 

 request of the Institution, been addressed in care of the collector of 

 customs at the port of New York, consignments so addressed being 

 admitted duty free and without examination. Up to July 1, 1923, 

 an official of the United States customhouse attended to the entry 

 and transmission to Washington of shipments arriving at the port 

 of New York for the Smithsonian Institution. On that date the 

 coordinator of the second area assumed charge of the handling of all 

 shipments for the Institution, both incoming and outgoing. How- 

 over, as the foreign agencies had for so many years been accustomed 

 to addressing boxes to the Institution in care of the Collector of 

 Customs, no change in that regard was made until shortly before the 

 close of the current fiscal year, when the various foreign exchange 

 bureaus were requested to address all future shipments to the Insti- 

 tution as follows : 



Smithsonian Institution, 



Washington, D. C. 



Care Coordinator, Second Area. 



Custoruhouse, New York City, U. S. A. 



During the year nine boxes of exchanges from Germany were de- 

 stroyed when the steamship Munchen sunk while unloading at her 

 pier in New York, the sinking of the vessel having been caused by an 

 explosion which resulted in a fire. These boxes contained publica- 

 tions for distribution to various addresses in the United States and 

 German patent specifications for the United States Patent Office, 

 Boston Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and St. Louis Pub- 

 lic Library. An effort is being made to obtain duplicate copies of 

 the lost publications. 



As an example of the use made of the facilities of the International 

 Exchange Service other than in transporting packages, reference is 

 made to a request from Adelbert College Library, Cleveland, Ohio, 

 for information concerning the Bulletin of "Works published by the 

 Station of Aquiculture and Fisheries of Castiglione, a communica- 

 tion regarding the matter addressed to the station itself by the 



