JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. XIX 
exchange agent. No claim for the exchange of a purely scientific 
character is made for the years 1881 to 1886, so that the $35,500 that 
Congress appears to have appropriated for this end is treated as hav- 
ing a retro-active effect, and this amount deducted from the crude obli- 
gation of $75,641.01 leaves $38,141.01 as the amount due the private 
fund of James Smithson from 1868 to 1886. 
Considering separately the period from July 1, 1886, to June 30, 1889, 
we find that the amount expended in these years under the direction 
of the Smithsonian Institution on account of international exchanges 
was $47,126.56; of this sum $37,000 were paid by Congressional appro- 
priations, $3,091.75 were paid by Government Departments and others, 
and the balance, $7,054.81, by the Smithsonian Institution. 
The action of the Board of Regents contemplates the presentation to 
Congress of a request to return to the Smithsonian fund the sums here 
shown to have been expended in the interests and by the authority of 
the National Government, namely, $38,141.01 in excess of appropria- 
tions advanced from January 1, 1868, to June 30, 1886, for the exchange 
of official Government documents, and $7,034.81 in excess of appropri- 
tions from July 1, 1886, to June 30, 1889, advanced for the purpose of 
carrying out a convention entered into by the United States, or an 
aggregate of $45,175.82. 
DRAFT OF BILL. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled, Thatthe following sums be, and 
the same are hereby, appropriated, out of any moneys in the Treasury 
not otherwise appropriated, in repayment of moneys expended from 
the Smithsonian fund in exchanging with foreign countries the official 
publications of the United States Government, and in carrying out the 
provisions of a convention for the exchange of literary and scientific 
publications signed by a representative of the United States at Brus- 
sels, March fifteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-six, namely: 
Sec. 2. For exchanging the official publications of the United States 
Government from eighteen hundred and sixty-eight to eighteen hundred 
and eighty-six, as provided for by resolution seventy-two, Fortieth 
Congress, second session, the sum of thirty-eight thousand one hundred 
and forty-one dollars and one cent. 
Src. 3. For exchanging from July first, eighteen hundred and eighty- 
six, to June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-nine, official docu- 
ments and scientific and literary publications, as provided for by the 
‘convention between the United States of America, Belgium, Brazil, 
and other nations,” concluded at Brussels March fifteenth, eighteen 
hundred and eighty-six, the sum of seven thousand and thirty-four 
dollars and eighty-one cents; in all, forty-five thousand one hundred 
and seventy-five dollars and eighty-two cents. 
The foregoing memoranda had been placed in the hands of one of 
Regents in the House of Representatives, to present whenever it was 
deemed advisable, but no action had as yet, so far as the Secretary 
was informed, been taken. 
The Secretary informed the Board that the executors of the late Dr. 
Jerome H. Kidder had refunded $100 to the Institution, which had 
been paid by the latter for legal services in relation to the bequest of 
Dr. Kidder to the Smithsonian, and the family of the testator did not 
