8 io The Smithsonian Institution 



dation. In early days there were those who thought the 

 issue of popular tracts, like the " Penny Magazine," or other 

 juvenile and elementary books, would be most useful. But 

 the secretaries took a different view. In their opinion, the 

 private publisher might be relied on to secure and set forth, 

 at very low prices, works for which there was a large de- 

 mand. What was needed in this country, at that time, was 

 encouragement for the publication of learned memoirs, often 

 elaborate and voluminous, which appealed to a very select 

 company of readers, and could not possibly be made to pay. 

 This service has been performed from the beginning, when 

 it issued an original memoir by Squier and Davis, on the 

 aboriginal mounds of the Mississippi Valley, until the present 

 time, when thirty quarto volumes of" Contributions to Know- 

 ledge " have appeared. But cooperation was not restricted 

 to typographical assistance. Books, apparatus, specimens, 

 and laboratory facilities have been generously accorded to 

 investigators and writers. The "Contributions" have been 

 supplemented by the " Miscellaneous Collections," consisting, 

 usually, of less elaborate or less extended papers, as well as 

 by the publications of the National Museum and the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology. 



Many persons favored the establishment of a great library 

 as an essential part of the Smithsonian ; for it was early 

 obvious that in addition to the purchase, large and valuable 

 series, the publications of governments and of learned so- 

 cieties, would be received as gifts and by exchanges. The 

 collectors of books are usually miserly, desiring to get all 

 they can and to keep all they get, but another disposition 

 was manifested here. The Congressional Library, it was 

 already evident, was destined to become the National 

 Library. Now, instead of building up a rival, or forcing 

 the government to duplicate costly books, the authorities 



