30 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



eral spirit with which these scientific messages are dispatched across 

 the world, without charge to the Institution, is a most gratifying tribute 

 of sympathy and confidence on the one hand, and a conspicuous ilhis- 

 tration of enlightened appreciation of the character of iuformation thus 

 diffused on the other. 



The European ceuters to which our telegrams of American discoveries 

 are gratuitously distributed are the National Observatories of Green- 

 wich in England, Paris in France, Berlin in Germany, Vienna in Aus- 

 tria, and Pulkova in Eussia. The telegraphic announcements of foreign 

 discoveries are gratuitously distributed to nineteen of the leading es- 

 tablishments in the United States, as well as to some of the daily papers 

 and to the Associated Press generally. 



INTERNATIONAL EXCHANaES. 



No one of the various operations carried on by the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution is of more importance in the advaucement of scieiice than that 

 of the international exchange of i)ublications between the governments 

 and their bureaus, departments, the learned Institutions, and scientific 

 men of the two worlds. Notwithstanding the increase of the govern- 

 mental international system, in which quite a number of nations have 

 joined, the work of the Smithsonian Institution still continues to be of 

 pre-eminent magnitude and importance. Originally initiated for the 

 purpose of distributing the publications of the Smithsonian Institution 

 to libraries, societies, and learned men abroad, and to receive returns 

 for the same, it was gradually extended so as to take within its sphere 

 all the establishments in the New World requiring a similar service. In- 

 deed, by its system of agencies in various portions of the world to which 

 packages were sent for transmission to destination, and where returns 

 were gathered and forwarded to Washington, it maintained an arrange- 

 ment of its own, entirely independent of any other organization. 



If there has been any diminution of efliciency in the system of official 

 exchanges during the last few years since the establishment of inter- 

 national bureaus by various national governments, owing to the absence 

 of direct responsibility to the Institution which its service of paid agents 

 secures, it is hoped and believed that as the routine becomes better un- 

 derstood and appreciated all requirements will soon be satisfactorily 

 met. 



Within a year or two by the reorganization of the service and an in- 

 crease in its force, the department of exchanges of the Institution, now 

 in charge of Mr. George H. Boehmer, has become very efficient, and 

 to his report, herewith appended, I refer for more minute details. 



It may be proper to remark that while the number of foreign ad- 

 dresses in communication with the Smithsonian Institution in 1850 

 amounted to 173, at the close of 1881 it forms an aggregate of 2,908, 

 divided as follows : 



