32 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



gerly toward the service. The United States, it will be observed, is 

 the only fii'st-elass power which became a party to it, and it may per- 

 haps be suggested as a not improbable reason for the abstention of such 

 powers as England, France, Germany, or Russia, that the treat}^ would 

 bind them to an exchange system chiefly with smaller powers who could 

 not return as much as they received. This is an assumption oidy, but 

 it refers to a condition which the writer was obliged to have in mind 

 in his attempted negotiations. 



The distribution of packages after the}^ reach Europe and other for- 

 eign countries is, owing to the conditions just stated, slow and uncer- 

 tain, except where the Institution has found it expedient to establish 

 and maintain agencies for promoting its own interests. The returns 

 from these countries, especially in the way of oflicial documents, has 

 moreover always been inadequate, due mainly, it would appear, to the 

 lack of appreciation of the benefits to be gained thereby, but in part 

 also to indifi^erence. Eft'orts have constantly been made by the Insti- 

 tution to stimulate a greater interest in the subject among foreign 

 countries, and representatives have been dispatched from time to time 

 to explain the exchange methods and solicit a more liberal participation, 

 but though something has been accomplished in this way, the relations 

 have remained until recently practicalh^ as the}' were in the beginning. 



In 1870 Professor Henry went to England and while there testified 

 before an English Government scientific conmiission regarding the 

 international exchange S3^stem, as it was then constituted in the exclusive 

 charge of the Smithsonian Institution and carried on at its private 

 exyjense.^ 



Later, Secretary Baird sent Mr. George H. Boehmer, in immediate 

 charge of the Exchanges, to Europe on a similar errand, and twelve 

 years after, the present Secretary sent Mr. William C. ^¥inlock, 

 curator of the Exchanges, to Leipsic to endeavor to improve the 



cations that it is able to place at the disposal of the contracting States, these several 

 bureaus of exchange to arrange between themselves the number of copies which they 

 may be able to demand and furnish; transmission shall be made direct Irom bureau 

 to bureai^; each State assumes the expense of packing and transportation to the place 

 of destination, but when transmission shall be made by sea, special arrangements may 

 be made as to the share of the expense that each State shall bear for transportation; 

 the several bureaus shall serve in an officious capacity as intermediaries between the 

 learned bodies and literary and scientific societies of the contracting States for the 

 reception and transmission of their publications. The duties of the exchange will be 

 confined to the mere transmission of the works of exchanges and will not in any 

 manner take the initiative to bring about the establishment of recii:>rocai relations 

 among correspondents. 



The governments subscribing to this treaty are the United States of America, 

 Belgium, Brazil, Italy, Portugal and the Algarves, Servia, Spain, and the Swiss Con- 

 federation. The representative of France subscribed to the treaty, but his action was 

 not confirmed by the French Chambers. 



^ Journals, Board of Regents, Smithsonian Institution, 1871); p. 775. 



