Bibliography 79 1 



An International Conference was held in London in July, 

 1896, to consider this important undertaking, in answer to 

 invitations sent by Lord Salisbury to twenty-one countries, 

 and the results of its labors are familiar to all. 



CHECK-LIST OF SERIALS 



From time to time the Smithsonian Institution has published 

 check-lists and catalogues of the publications of learned so- 

 cieties and of periodicals received and placed on file in the 

 library. The first of these bears the date 1853, " Check-list 

 of periodicals received in the reading-room," issued only as a 

 separate. This was followed by others in 1855, 1856, 1859, 

 1862, and culminated in the stout volume of nearly 600 

 pages, octavo, issued in 1866, entitled: "Catalogue of Publi- 

 cations of Societies and of Periodical Works, belonging to 

 the Smithsonian Institution, January i, 1866." At the time 

 of its publication it was the " most complete work on the 

 bibliography of publications of learned societies which has 

 yet appeared in the English language." 



In 1882, Mr. William J. Rhees, chief clerk of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, contributed an important bibliograph\- to 

 the series, entitled : " Catalogue of Publications of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution (1846-82), with an Alphabetical Index of 

 Articles in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 

 Miscellaneous Collections, Annual Reports, Bulletins and 

 Proceedings of the United States National Museum, and Re- 

 port of the Bureau of Ethnology." A second edition brought 

 down to date was published in 1886; this forms an indis- 

 pensable key to the articles, volumes, and numbers issued by 

 the Institution from its organization to the date of issue, a 

 period of forty years. 



The alphabetical index contains in a single alphabet the 



