REPORT OP THE SECRETARY. 63 



Institution through the State Department, as referred to in the last 

 report, were discontinued at the outbreak of hostilities between the 

 United States and Germany. The further efforts of the Russian 

 Commission of International Exchanges to resume shipments were 

 not successful, and the commission stated that it would be necessary 

 to withhold consignments until the end of the war. 



In accordance with the proclamation of the British Government 

 prohibiting the importation into the United Kingdom of books in 

 bulk, it was necessary to suspend shipments to that country for a 

 time. However, the London agents of the Institution, Messrs. Wil- 

 liam Wesley & Son, succeeded in procuring from the Eoyal Commis- 

 sion on Paper a special license to import consignments of interna- 

 tional exchanges into England. Owing to the lack of requisite ocean 

 transportation facilities, it was also necessary to suspend shipments 

 for a time to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland. 



The director of the Government Press at Cairo advises the Institu- 

 tion that four boxes of Egyptian exchanges en route to this country 

 were lost at sea, and suggests that shipments be withheld until the 

 end of the war. This suggestion will be followed. On account of 

 the abnormal conditions in the Mediterranean, shipments to Greece 

 will also be suspended. 



Since the beginning of the war the Institution has suffered the 

 loss of only three shipments from hostile action. One small ship- 

 ment — consisting of 24 governmental documents — was lost in transit 

 to India during the first year of the war. Through the sinking of a 

 vessel by a warship during the past year 18 packages in transit to 

 India were also lost. Twenty-one boxes for the French Bureau of 

 Exchanges were lost when the steamship Juno was torpedoed in 

 February last. Nineteen of these contained miscellaneous govern- 

 mental and scientific publications for distribution to various ad- 

 dresses throughout France and the other two the regular series of 

 United States official documents for deposit in the National Library 

 at Paris and the office of the prefect of the Seine. 



In the early part of the present fiscal year the Italian Exchange 

 office -in Rome reported that one of the boxes of the consignment 

 sent to that office in July, 1915, had not been delivered. Steps taken 

 to have the box traced were unsuccessful. 



Wherever possible the Institution has, as formerly in the case of 

 lost consignments, procured duplicate copies of the publications con- 

 tained in the above-mentioned boxes. 



The Government publications office at Bulaq — which acts as the 

 Egyptian Exchange agency — has kindly taken charge until the close 

 of the war of a box addressed to the Jewish Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, Haifa, Palestine, which was detained at Alexandria. 



