REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 29 



" Unless the above conditions are severally and strictly observed 

 the parcels cannot be forwarded. 



The cost of this system would far exceed the means of the Institu- 

 tion, were it not for important aid received from various parties 

 interested in facilitating international intercourse and the promotion 

 of friendly relations between distant parts of the civilized world. 

 The liberal aid extended by the steamship and other lines, men- 

 tioned in previous reports, in carrying the boxes of the Smithson 

 exchanges free of charge, has been continued, and several other 

 lines have been added to the number in the course of the year. The 

 names of this class of patrons of the Institution are given in the fol- 

 lowing list : 



Pacific Mail Steamship Company, North German Lloyd Steamship 

 Company, Hamburg Amorican Steamship Company, General Trans- 

 Atlantic Steamship Company, Inman Steamship Company, Cunard 

 Steamship Company, Pacific Steam Navigation Company, Panama 

 railroad, California and Mexico Steamship Company. 



Important favors have also been conferred during the year by the 

 Adams, the Harnden, and the Wells & Fargo Express Companies; 

 Mr. S. Hubbard, of San Francisco, and Mr. George Hillier, of the 

 New York custom-house. 



As in previous years, the agents of the Institution are: Dr. Felix 

 Flugel, inLeipsic; Mr. Gustave Bossange, in Paris; Mr. Wm. Wesley, 

 in London; Mr. Fred M tiller, in Amsterdam. 



In view of the delays incident to the transmission of packages to 

 Italy, the Institution has embraced a proposal from the Royal Insti- 

 tute of Milan, conveyed through the friendly intervention of tho 

 American minister, Hon. G. P. Marsh, to take charge of the ex- 

 changes with that country, and a number of boxes have accordingly 

 been shipped to Milan, via Genoa, during the year. 



Besides these agents, our countryman, Mr. James Swaim, now resid- 

 ing in Paris, has kindly consented to act as a special agent in super- 

 intending the construction of such articles of philosophical apparatus 

 as the Institution may require. 



During the session of 1866—' 6T an act was passed by Congress pro- 

 viding for the reservation of fifty complete sets of all the works pub- 

 lished at the expense of the United States, to be placed provisionally 

 in the hands of the Joint Library Committee of Congress, in order to 

 be exchanged, through the Smithsonian agency, for corresponding 

 publications of other nations. The object in this was to secure regu- 

 larly and systematically, at the least possible expense, all reports and 



