Coast Survey Report for 1853. 203 
a vain hope that some system could be devised which would be 
indefinitely superior to that now prevailing, as well in respect to 
securing rigid responsibility for documents as property, and in 
promoting the economy, order and convenience of their practical 
distribution, as in the more important point of securing sometbing 
like fitness in sending special documents to their appropriate re- 
cipients. Distributing Owen’s Geological Report to a dry goods 
importer and the Treasury report on commerce to a geologist, 
would seem too great an absurdity to exist if we did uot know 
that hundreds of truly valuable volumes are annually thus wasted. 
This place is not the fitting one for a full discussion of this sub- 
ject, but it does seem specialiy appropriate here to state, that a 
general wish certainly prevails among our scientific men, for the 
speedy adoption of some system whereby each actual investigator 
can be regularly and certainly furnished with the exact docu- 
ments he needs. ‘T'o purchase these works at regular publishers 
Prices, would be on the whole better for them, despite their noto- 
tions brevity of purse, than the present system of lottery distri- 
bution; but save in’a few exceptional cases, regular purchase is 
IMpracticable. The British system of publishing parliamentary 
Sons as would find it of real utility, application being duly made 
®him in Washington, with the name, address, occupation and 
Special scientific or practical pursuits of the applicant. From 
this Report we will now abstract in a few pages the points of 
chief Scientific interest embraced. Having been favored with 
the sheets in advance of binding, we are enabled to make this 
abstract in anticipation of the actual distribution of copies, which 
Probably will not begin until sometime subsequent to the appear- 
auce of this article. 
The Coast Survey has now reached a very regular rate of an- 
dual Progress, and its operations durin 1853 extended into each of 
the eleven Coast Survey sections constituting the entire United 
t ‘ 
