64 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



Packages from foreign countries frequently contain more than one 

 publication. The returns from abroad, therefore, are larger than 

 would be supposed from a casual glance at the figures in the table. 

 Even allowing for this, there is still a disparity between the number 

 of i^ublications sent and those received through the International 

 Exchange Service. This apparent one-sidedness, however, is largely 

 oifset by the number of publications received by governmental and 

 other establishments in this country directly through the mails from 

 abroad. Several years ago (1907) the Institution brought this subject 

 to the attention of the various bureaus of the Government and offered 

 to make a special effort to secure for them more adequate returns for 

 the publications sent by them through the Exchange Service to 

 foreign correspondents. While several offices took advantage of this 

 offer, and a large number of foreign publications were received for 

 them by the Institution, many of the bureaus stated that the quan- 

 tity and value of the publications received, either through the Inter- 

 national Exchange Service or direct by mail, were considered an 

 equivalent for the documents sent abroad. Quotations from some of 

 the letters are given below : 



Coast and Geodetic Survey. — Not all of our publications forwarded to foreign 

 addresses are sent in anticipation of exchanges to be received by this bureau. 

 Many are sent to individuals from whom no return is expected. I take it that 

 in like manner many individuals, citizens of the United States, are favored with 

 publications of interest to them put out by foreign Governments. I think we 

 are now receiving all of the publications of other Governments in which we are 

 interested. Many of these reach us through the mails. 



Weather Bureau. — It is believed that the bureau already receives adequate 

 returns from its foreign correspondents, most of whom send their publications 

 by mail direct. 



Office of the Chief of Staff. — Many of the exchanges are received by the War 

 Department from our military attaches abroad, all of whom have pouch service 

 through the Department of State, which probably accounts largely, if not en- 

 tirely, for the lesser number of packages received than sent. 



Nautical Almanac Office. — The Ephemeris, being issued every year, makes 

 the volume of our publications larger than that of most observatories, and on 

 that account anything like an equality in the number of packages exchanged 

 can not be expected. 



Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. — The cause of the excess of 

 packages sent by this bureau through your exchange as compared with those 

 received from it is, as you are probably aware, that this department has no 

 adequate appropriation for the payment of postage on packages sent abroad 

 and is therefore obliged to avail itself of the lesser expense of sending them 

 through your Institution, while foreign Governments in most cases pay the 

 postage on exchanges and mail them direct to this bureau. 



Surgeon GeneraVs Office, War Department.— T\ie volumes of the Index Cata- 

 logue, the only publication of this office now sent through the Smithsonian 

 Exchange Service, have been forwarded annually to the libraries of the most 

 important medical and other scientific institutions in foreign countries — includ- 

 ing the universities in Prance and Germany — receiving, in return, the theses 



