Bibliography 79 ! 



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 bibliography 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 



