778 HISTORY OF THE SMITHSONIAN EXCHANGES. 



country, which shall serve as agent for obtaining the most favorable 

 conditions. 



Art. 7. Any modifications of these conditions of the exchanges agreed 

 upon by two countries, relative to the suppression of a document or the 

 transmission of additional copies, must x^ass through the bureaus of the 

 countries interested. 



Section TV. — Exchanges beticeen learned societies. 



Art. 8. The bureau will serve as intermediary between scientific 

 societies, whether subsidized or not, which may desire to make ex- 

 changes between themselves, by giving all the information at their dis- 

 posal. It will also act officially in regard to authors, publishers, or 

 manufacturers of instruments, whose publications or productions may 

 be desired by either a state or a foreign scientific society, in order to 

 procure the advantage of the greatest possible reductions in favor of 

 the applicants. 



Art. 9. The bureau is not to take any i^art in the exchanges between 

 clubs or associations which do not have a well-defined scientific or liter- 

 ary character, nor in exchanges between manufacturers, publishers, or 

 authors. 



Section V. — Transmissions and payment of carriage. 

 This section remains to be prepared in accordance with the reply which 

 shall be received from the postal union, in reference to the request for 

 free transport which has been addressed to the same on behalf of the 

 commission by the Baron de Vatteville. This is also the case with re- 

 gard to the protocol, the terms of which can only be determined upon by 

 the different governments in pursuance of a previous arrangement. 



Done at Paris, January 29, 187G, council chamber of the ministry of 

 public instruction, &c., division of science and letters, first bureau, 

 under the authority of the minister of public instruction, by the assis- 

 tant secretary and director of the bureau of sciences and letters. 



Baron de Vatteville, 

 President of the Commission for International Exchanges. 



On the 25th of April, 1876, the Hon. Hamilton Fish, Secretary of 

 State, communicated to the Hon. Benjamin H. Bristow, the Secretary of 

 the Treasury, the "proposed plan of international exchange" promul- 

 gated by the Paris commission January 25, 187G. 



Copies of these communications were transmitted by the honorable 

 Secretary of the Treasury to Professor Henry, the President of the Ka- 

 tioual Academy of Sciences and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, with the following letter: 



Treasury Department, May 2, 1876. 

 Prof. Joseph Henry, LL.D., 



President National Academy of Sciences: 

 Sir : I have the honor to transmit herewith for the consideration of 

 the National Academy of Sciences a copy of a letter of the 25th ultimo 

 from the honorable the Secretary of State, inclosing a copy of a com- 

 muuication dated Paris, the 15th of March, 1876, addressed to that de- 

 partment by Dr. W. E. Johnston, in relation to the establishment of a 

 bureau of international exchanges of works of science, together with 



