82 AiSrisruAL eeport Smithsonian institution, 1932 



returned as duplicates from various libraries throughout the 

 country, were opened and their items examined and grouped. As a 

 result, thousands of publications were sent back to stock for redis- 

 tribution, and nearly 250 that were out of print were found for the 

 sets that the library system has been trying for many years to 

 complete. Duplicates were exchanged with several institutions, and 

 many publications not needed by the Smithsonian or its bureaus 

 were turned over to other Government libraries. 



The librarian lectured several times in Washington and Balti- 

 more on Washington the Man of Books and Patron of American 

 Letters. In the course of his remarks he called attention to two 

 matters of especial interest to the Smithsonian Institution. One 

 was the gift of a set of Histoire Generale des Voyages, in 20 volumes, 

 from the Marquis de Rochambeau to Washington, which on its way 

 to the United States was captured on the high seas by a British 

 cruiser and taken to England. It was later found in a London book 

 shop by Prof. George Brown Goode, then Assistant Secretary of 

 the Institution, brought to America, and presented to Mount 

 Vernon, where it now reposes in Washington's library. The other 

 was a letter that Washington wrote to Jonathan Edwards on August 

 28, 1788, thanking him for a copy of his recent book entitled 

 " Observations on the Language of the Muhhekaneew Indians." 

 In this letter Washington said : " I have long regretted that so many 

 Tribes of the American Aborigines should have become almost or 

 entirely extinct, without leaving such vestiges, as that the genius 

 and idiom of their language might be traced. Perhaps, from such 

 sources, the descent or kindred of nations, whose origins are lost in 

 remote antiquity or illiterate darkness, might be more rationally 

 investigated, than in any other mode." Thus the many-sided Wash- 

 ington showed himself one of the first men in our country to realize 

 the great importance of the preservation and study of the languages 

 of the North American Indians as a means of tracing the history 

 of these early people. 



IMPORTANT BEGINNINGS 



Toward the close of the year a beginning was made in reorganiz- 

 ing the order division of the library with a view to developing a 

 more modern and efficient procedure and one more closely related to 

 that in the other divisions. Plans were also worked out for making 

 a file of the library's exchange relations, to the end of having imme- 

 diately at hand for the use of the periodical division, especially the 

 correspondence section, full data pertaining to the library's ex- 

 changes and of facilitating the more frequent revision of its 

 exchange lists in keeping with the needs of stricter economy. And, 

 perhaps most important of all, arrangements were completed for 



