18 ANNUAL EEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1915. 



C om/mittee on printing and yiihllcation. — All manuscripts sub- 

 mitted for publication by the Institution or its branches have, as usual, 

 been examined and passed upon by the Smithsonian advisory com- 

 mittee on printing and publication. The committee has also con- 

 sidered various general matters concerning printing and binding. 

 During the year 18 meetings were held and 109 manuscripts acted 

 upon. The personnel of the committee was as follows : Dr. Leonhard 

 Stejneger, head curator of biology, National Museum, acting chair- 

 man; Dr. C. G. Abbot, director of the Astrophysical Observatory; 

 Dr. Frank Baker, superintendent of the National Zoological Park; 

 Mr. A. Howard Clark, editor of the Smithsonian Institution, secre- 

 tary of the committee; Mr. F. W. Hodge, ethnologist-in-charge of 

 the Bureau of American Ethnology ; and Dr. George P. Merrill, head 

 curator of geology. United States National Museum. 



THE SMITHSONIAN LIBRARY. 



The formation of a library of science Avas one of the earliest 

 activities of the Smithsonian Institution and its natural growth 

 during the last 60 or more years has resulted in the accumulation of 

 nearly half a million works bearing on practically every branch of 

 natural science, the fine arts, and the industrial arts. For adminis- 

 trative reasons a large portion of the library, consisting in the main 

 of transactions of learned societies, was in 1866 deposited in the 

 Library of Congress. This deposit is constantly being increased, the 

 accessions during the past year numbering 24,713 items of publica- 

 tions and making the total number of entries to June 30, 1915, 

 521,616. 



The several libraries still directly maintained by the Institution 

 and its branches include the Smithsonian office library; the libraries 

 of the National Museum, comprising over 100,000 titles ; the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology, about 35,000 titles; the Astrophysical Ob- 

 servatory; the National Herbarium; and in addition to these should 

 be mentioned the more recently formed aeronautical library, which 

 contains probably the most complete series of works on this sub- 

 ject in the United States. One of the chief contributors to this 

 library during the year was Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, who^ 

 gift included a working library of 46 volumes and 156 volumes of 

 newspaper clippings covering the recent years of rapid development 

 of the art of aeronautics. 



Among other accessions to the art section of the library during the 

 year I may mention the loan by Mrs. Walcott of nine volumes of 

 Japanese art and about 400 volumes of architectural publications 

 which formed the library of her brother, Mr. George Vaux, of 

 Philadelx^hia. 



