278 The Smithsonian Institution 



were to be under the control of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 but at the disposal of any librarian upon application. This 

 plan he had already worked out in 1847, an d had communi- 

 cated it to Mr. Henry Stevens before the latter went abroad. 

 He first proposed it in public at the fourth meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, held 

 in 1850; and later described it more at length in a pamphlet 

 issued by the Institution, entitled " On the Construction of 

 Catalogues of Libraries and a General Catalogue, and their 

 Publication by Means of Separate Stereotyped Titles." A 

 second and enlarged edition of this pamphlet, with quite a 

 number of changes, was published in 1853. 



It will be seen by a study of the rules drawn up by Pro- 

 fessor Jewett, as well as by an examination of the specimens 

 which accompanied the reports, that he is entitled to the 

 credit of having paved the way for the valuable work in 

 scientific bibliography to which so many of our countrymen 

 have since contributed, and which is now assuming so great 

 an importance to the learned men of the world. His description 

 of a book is most accurate ; a publication was to him as much 

 an object of careful study as is a natural history specimen to 

 a naturalist. His annotations were of great value and made 

 with the most exact discrimination. He was, it is true, pre- 

 paring catalogues and not bibliographies, and himself drew a 

 careful distinction between these two classes of works. Yet 

 he felt that the library catalogue should give some of the 

 information which was in theory appropriate only to the bib- 

 liographical dictionary. 



The scheme attracted at the time most favorable notice. 

 In accordance with a rule of the Smithsonian Institution, it 

 was referred to a commission, consisting of Edward Everett, 

 Charles Folsom, librarian of the Boston Athenaeum; Joseph 

 G. Cogswell, superintendent of the Astor Library; George 



