REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 29 



siftucd is inadequate for the i)roi)er conduct even of the former, as has 

 just been shown.* 



Having been assigned to the charge of the international exchanges 

 when Assistant Secretary, the writer has always taken particular inter- 

 est in this part of the work of the Institution ; but so far as its success 

 depends upon the provision by Congress of the indispensable means to 

 meet the expenses which it has just been shown that the Government 

 connection has made needful, his labors have been but partially suc- 

 cessful. The department of exchanges, however, has continued to be 

 the object of more than usual attention, first under the immediate care 

 of the writer, and later uiuler that of Dr. J. H. Kidder, appointed cura- 

 tor of laboratory and exchanges on the IDtli of JMarch, 1888. 



It has been remarked that the present system is unsatisfactory because 

 of the delay involved, while it will shortly be shown that the expenses 

 of shipment by a prompt and efdciently conducted system would be sub- 

 stantially the same per ton of freight as by the i)resent inefficient and slow 

 one, which is largely carried on by what might be called the charity of 

 the transportation lines. Unsatisfactory as is the service, however, and 

 necessarily conducted as it is (under the present appropriations) in a 

 manner piejudicial to everjMnterest concerned with it, these appropria- 

 tions do not, as we have seen, meet all the inevitable expenditures, and 

 the deficiency still continues to be met from the proper funds of the 

 Institution. 



The expense for the service for this fiscal year has been $15,113.75, 

 of which sum §12,000 were voted by Congress and $205.75 were re- 

 fuiuled by the Patent Office, Signal Office, and a correspondent in 

 South America, leaving a net deficit of $2,908, paid by the Smithsonian 

 fund. In the coming fiscal year, at the present rate of expenditure, 

 the cost will be $10,050, making no allowance for the usual annual in- 

 crease in the quantity of business or for increased salaries of employes. 

 The domestic exchanges, it will be understood, form no part of this 

 estimate. Finally, it sh^uhl be stated that nearly ever^- department of 

 the Government has some small appropriation to partially cover serv- 

 ices which should be gratuitously rendered. 



liecuning now to one of the elfectsof this insulficient appropriation, 

 the writer repeats that there are too many and too great delays in the 

 transit of packages sent by the international exchanges. These delays 

 do not occur in the olfice at ^Vashington, nor in those of the agents of 

 the Institution at Loudon and Leipzig. They are due, broadly speak- 

 ing, to the fact just stated that the Institution has not the means to 



* The act approved iu 1882 reads, " For expenses of the iiiternational exchanges he- 

 tween the United States and foreign countries, in accordance with the; Paris conveu. 

 lion of 1877;" and this wording is riipeated in h^H:}. Although tlu) phrase referring 

 to the Paris convention was afterwards dropped from the hiw, thc^re seems to he no 

 doubt that it has fixed its meaning, since tht; point lias been raised more than once 

 by the accounting officers of the Treasury, and so decided. 



