EEPORT OF THE SECEETAEY. 21 



press. This has resulted in reaching millions of readers who would 

 not have ready access to the scientific information in the publications 

 of the Institution. 



ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON PRINTING AND PUBLICATION. 



In order that the practice of the Institution in the supervision of 

 its publication and those of its branches might correspond with that 

 of the executive departments, as prescribed by the President's order 

 of January 24, 1906, the Smithsonian advisory committee on printing 

 and publication, appointed February 7, 1906, held 26 meetings during 

 the year and reported on 137 manuscripts and numerous blank forms. 

 The committee also considered various questions pertaining to print- 

 ing and binding. 



The committee consists of the following members : Dr. Cyrus Adler, 

 assistant secretary, chairman; Dr. F. W. True, head curator of 

 biology, U. S. National Museum; Mr. F. W. Hodge, ethnologist, the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology; Dr. Frank Baker, superintendent, 

 National Zoological Park; Mr. C. G. Abbot, director of the Astro- 

 physical Observatory; Mr. W. I. Adams, of the International Ex- 

 changes; Mr. A. Howard Clark, editor of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, and Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, curator of reptiles and batrachians, 

 U. S. National Museum. 



The printing committee formulated a series of rules for the abbre- 

 viation of scientific periodicals in publications of the Smithsonian 

 and its branches. These rules, which have been approved for the 

 use of the Institution and its branches, are given in full in the editor's 

 report. They may be summarized as follows: 



1. In abbreviating words in titles, stop before tlie second vowel, unless the 

 resulting abbreviation would contain but one consonant, in whicb case stop 

 before the third vowel. 



2. All articles, prepositions, and conjunctions are to be omitted, except and 

 and for, which may be retained when necessary for clearness. 



3. In abbreviated titles, the words should follow strictly the order of the full 

 titles. 



4. {a) Words of one syllable, (6) titles consisting of a single word, (c) 

 names of towns (except as indicated under rule 5), {d) names of persons 

 (when unmodified), and (e) names of geological formations are not to be 

 abbreviated. 



5. Whenever necessary for clearness any of the foregoing rules may be dis- 

 regarded, but in such cases words should not be abbreviated. 



LIBRARY. 



The accessions to the Smithsonian library during the year aggre- 

 gated 36,068 in volumes and parts, an increase by some 1,800 entries 

 over the previous year. Of these accessions 24,777 were placed in the 

 Smithsonian deposit in the Library of Congress, which comprises in 



