January 23, 1896] 



NATURE 



283 



building and, in part, in the large building adjacent, covering 

 three and a half acres of ground, which was erected in 1881 to 

 afford temporary accommodation for the overflow until such 

 time as an adequate new building could be constructed. 



The number of specimens in the various departments of the 

 Museum, in 1894, is shown in the following table : 



Statistics of the National Collections. 



Arts and Industries. 



Historical collections, coins, medals, &c. 



Musical instruments 



Modern pottery, porcelain, bronzes, &c 



Graphic arts 



Physical apparatus 



Transportation and engineering 



Naval architecture 



Fisheries 



Animal products ... 



Domestic animals ... 



Chemical products 



Materia medica 



Foods 



Textiles 



Forestry 



Ethnology 



Oriental antiquities and religious ceremonial... 



Prehistoric anthropology 



American aboriginal pottery 



Mammals 



Birds 



Birds' eggs and nests ... 

 Reptiles and batrachians 



Fishes 



Vertebrate fossils ^ 



MoUusks (including Cenozoic fossils)... 



Insects 



Marine invertebrates 



Comparative anatomy 



Palaeozoic fossils 



Mesozoic fossils... 

 Fossil plants 

 Recent plants 



Minerals 



Geology 



29,998 



1,219 



3,583 



1,704 



366 



1.793 



802 



10,080 



3,028 



162 



1,309 



6,317 



I, III 



3,306 



726 



423,000 



4,145 



153,424 



33,293 



12,948 



73,325 



58,041 



34,215 



125,000 



1,595 



510,256 



610,000 



520,000 



14,828 



95,631 



89,493 



113,685 



252,111 



25,431 

 63,606 



Tota 



3,279,531 



The importance of these collections is greatly enhanced by 

 this fact, that they include many thousands of types of the 

 original descriptions of the pioneers of American natural history 

 — Audubon, Baird, Agassiz, Girard, Cope, Marsh, Gray, Young, 

 Dana, Gill, Jordan, and many more, and as such constitutes an 

 important part of the foundation of our systematic zoology and 

 botany. 



The intrinsic value of such material as this cannot well be 

 expressed in figures. There are single specimens worth 

 hundreds, others worth thousands of dollars, and still others 

 which are unique and priceless. Many series of specimens, which 

 owe their value to their completeness and to the labour which 

 has been expended on them, are priceless. The collections at a 

 forced sale would realise more than has been expended on them, 

 and a fair appraisal of their value would amount to several 

 millions of dollars. 



In the direct purchase of specimens but little money has been 

 spent, less perhaps in fifty years than either P'rance, England, 

 Germany, or Austria expends in a single year on similar objects. 

 The entire Museum is the outgrowth of Government expeditions 

 and expositions, and of the gifts prompted by the generosity of 

 the American people. 



The BiTREAU of Exchanges. 

 The Smithsonian system of international exchanges, begun in 

 1852, had for its object the free interchange of scientific material 

 between scientific institutions and investigators in the United 

 States and those in foreign lands. For this purpose it established 

 correspondence with scientific societies, literary and learned men 

 all over the world, until there is no civilised country or people, 

 however remote, upon the surface of the planet, so far as is 



* Only that portion of the Collection which is i 



NO. 1369, VOL. 53] 



I Wa.shington is included. 



known, where the Institution is not represented. The list of 

 correspondents has lengthened until those external to the 

 country alone number nearly 17,000, while the total number is 

 about 24,000. 



Many of the principal steamship companies gave generous aid 

 in recognition of this disinterested work by granting important 

 concessions of free freight. The United States and foreign 

 Governments permitted the entrance through their Customs 

 -services of Smithsonian exchange boxes, and the Institution 

 was enabled to distribute its exchange packages in this 

 country, without expense to its funds, under the franking 

 privilege. 



In recent years the Smithsonian has been recognised by the 

 United States Government as being in charge of its official 

 Exchange Bureau, through which the publications of Congress 

 are exchanged for those of foreign Governments, and by a formal 

 treaty it acts in an official capacity as intermediary between the 

 learned bodies and literary and scientific societies, &c., of the 

 contracting States for the reception and transmission of their 

 publications. 



The Exchange Service has become a most valuable adjunct to 

 educational interests, and there are few important libraries or 

 workers in science, either at home or abroad, who have not had 

 direct experience of its benefits. 



The rules established for its control provide for the distribu- 

 tion to any accessible point abroad of books, pamphlets, charts, 

 and other printed matter sent as donations or exchanges, and 

 without expense to the sender beyond that of the delivery of the 

 packages to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and 

 also without expense to the receiver, except in some instances 

 the small co.st of delivery from the Smithsonian agent or 

 correspondent nearest at hand. Similar material sent from 

 abroad to this country is forwarded to the recipient without 

 expense to him, the packages having been delivered free of 

 freight charges to a foreign agent or correspondent of the 

 Institution. 



A scientific society or individual in the United States desiring 

 to take advantage of the Exchange Service should have each of 

 the packages transmitted strongly wrapped and separately and 

 legibly addressed, being careful to give the full local address, 

 and should send them in bulk, carriage prepaid, to the Institu- 

 tion in Washington, The separate packages should not exceed 

 one-half of one cubic foot in bulk, and they should not contain 

 letters or written matter. 



Transmissions from abroad are received by freight in large 

 boxes, and are distributed in the United States under frank by 

 registered mail, a record first having been made of the name 

 of the sender and of the address of each package. A receipt 

 card, returnable by mail without postage, is sent with each of 

 these packages, and should be forwarded at once by the recipient 

 in acknowledgment of the package. 



The Institution and its agents will not knowingly receive for 

 any address piirchased books, nor apparatus and instruments, 

 philosophical, medical, &c. (including microscopes), whether 

 purchased or presented ; nor specimens of natural history, 

 except where special permission from the Institution has been 

 obtained. 



The operations of this Bureau have affected most beneficially 

 the libraries of all learned institutions in America. In 1867 

 Congress assigned to the Institution the duty of exchanging 

 fifty copies of all public documents for similar works published 

 in foreign countries. Finally in 1889 a definite treaty, made 

 previously at Brussels, was formally proclaimed by the Presi- 

 dent of the United States, wherein the United States Govern- 

 ment, with a number of others, undertook the continuation of 

 the exchange service on a more extensive basis. Out of this 

 has grown the Bureau of International Exchanges, for the 

 maintenance of which Congress partially provides by annual 

 appropriation. From 1852 to 1895 the Smithsonian exchange 

 service handled 1,459,448 packages, and for three years past 

 the weight of books pa.ssing through this office has been con- 

 siderably over one hundred tons annually. 



Special Gifts and Trusts. 



The authority of the Institution to undertake the administra- 

 tion of financial trusts for any purpose within the scope of its 

 general plan, preserving in connection with each fund the name 

 of the person by whom it was established, has been recognised 

 by Congress. 



There is no institution in the world which is more favourably 



