34 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



be delayed. A great number of packages for shipment have therefore 

 accumuhxted at the end of June, including about 7,000 copies of Con- 

 gressional documents, and the work has fallen in arrears in other 

 respects in spite of the special exertions of an insufficient clerical force 

 to keep it up to date. The funds available for the exchange service 

 have been also reduced througli the inability of some of the Govern- 

 ment bureaus to meet their proportionate share of the expenses involved 

 in the transmission of their documents abroad. 



Referring to the report of the curator in charge of the exchange 

 office, it will be seen that over 100 tons of books passed through the 

 exchange oflice daring the fiscal year 1893-94. 



The disbursements for the year were $17,584.89, of which $14,474.58 

 were paid from the appropriation of $14,500 by Congress; $1,729.22 

 were paid by Government bureaus, and $4:30.73 by institutions, socie- 

 ties, and others, leaving a deficiency of 8944.36. 



The amount which was estimated as necessary for the expense of 

 the service for the fiscal year 1894-95 was $23,000, a sum which it was 

 hoped would render it unnecessary to call upon the different Govern- 

 ment bureaus to reimburse the Institution for a part of the expense 

 accompanying the transmission of their publications abroad, and would 

 also give effect to a second treaty entered into at Brussels, and pro- 

 claimed in 1889, for the immediate exchange of parliamentary docu- 

 ments between the contracting countries, a treaty which has been 

 inoperative on the part of the United States on account of the lack of 

 appropriations for the purpose. Congress having appropriated only 

 $17,000 as explained elsewhere. 



The Smithsonian Institution, through the International Exchange 

 Service, is brought into close contact with all of the most important 

 libraries, scientific societies, and institutions of learning in the United 

 States, and the valuable services it has rendered to them in procuring 

 foreign publications has always been cordially recognized, but to con- 

 tinue the service in the condition of efficiency it reached a few years 

 ago, and to keep pace with the ever-increasing demands upon it, for 

 the transportation of Government documents, a larger appropriation 

 is indispensably necessary. 



Many and just complaints of delays in the transmission of exchanges 

 have recently been received, and without adequate means for the suj)- 

 portof the service, these Government documents as well as others, which 

 are reaching the Institution in increasing numbers, must be allowed to 

 accumulateuntilevenroomfor their reception and storage will be lacking. 



NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PAEK. 



It is now five years since Congress made an appropriation for the 

 purchase of land for a national zoological park. In this time the land 

 then purchased has greatly increased in value. 



