Influence of the Smithsonian Institution 821 



of all official documents and to charge some department 

 with the collecting and forwarding of them. 



The magnitude of the operations of this department of the 

 Institution may be estimated by the fact that during the fiscal 

 year 1894-95 the total number of packages received was 

 107,118, and the number of cases shipped abroad was 1364. 

 The number of government publications shipped abroad 

 to various sources was 23,023. 



The example set by the Smithsonian Institution in pub- 

 lishing and widely distributing valuable contributions to 

 knowledge, and the advice and recommendations of its 

 secretaries and their co-workers, have exerted a powerful 

 influence upon the several departments of the general gov- 

 ernment in inducing them to encourage their officers to 

 make scientific investigations and explorations, and to pre- 

 pare careful and elaborate reports, in the belief that these 

 would be published at the expense of the government. No 

 doubt this has resulted in the publication by the government 

 of a considerable amount of matter the cost of which could 

 have been much more judiciously applied in other directions ; 

 but this is really a small affair in comparison with the vast 

 educational work which has been accomplished both as re- 

 gards the great number of readers of and the contributors 

 to these " public records." 



Many societies of various kinds in this country have been 

 induced to make special efforts to publish reports of trans- 

 actions in order to secure for their members some of the 

 benefits of the Smithsonian system of exchanges ; that is to 

 say, that they might have something to give in return for 

 the publications of other societies. 



All this has led to the production of a very considerable 

 amount of valuable literature which does not primarily cir- 

 culate in trade channels and is not influenced by commercial 



