408 The Smithsonian Institution 



rendered incalculable service to the scientific development 

 of this country through its broad and liberal system of ex- 

 changes with learned societies throughout the world." And 

 in 1 88 1 1 Professor Baird stated that 



" No one of the various operations carried on by the 

 Smithsonian Institution is of more importance in the advance- 

 ment of science than that of the international exchange of 

 publications between the governments and their bureaus, de- 

 partments, the learned institutions, and scientific men of the 

 two worlds. Notwithstanding the increase of the govern- 

 mental international system, in which quite a number of 

 nations have joined, the work of the Smithsonian Institution 

 still continues to be of preeminent magnitude and impor- 

 tance. Originally initiated for the purpose of distributing the 

 publications of the Smithsonian Institution to libraries, socie- 

 ties, and learned men abroad, and to receive returns for the 

 same, it was gradually extended so as to take within its 

 sphere all the establishments in the New World requiring 

 a similar service. Indeed, by its system of agencies in vari- 

 ous portions of the world to which packages were sent for 

 transmission to destination, and where returns were gathered 

 and forwarded to Washington, it maintained an arrangement 

 of its own, entirely independent of any other organization." 



Congress had, as already mentioned, even as early as 

 1840, taken into consideration the exchange of its documents 

 for similar works of foreign governments, and, as the result of 

 Monsieur Vattemare's efforts, in 1846 provision was made for 

 exchanging a complete set of the laws of the United States 

 with the French government, while in 1848 the joint com- 

 mittee on the library was authorized to appoint exchange 

 agents for the exchange of books and public documents for 

 the use of the United States, for any single State, or for the 



1 " Smithsonian Report," 1881, page 30. 



