32 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



able delay, and on further solicitation the rule was so relaxed that at 

 present the Smithsonian agent finds no difficulty in obtaining the pas- 

 sage of the packages at a mere nominal charge through the custom-house. 

 With the precedent of the British authorities the Institution experienced 

 no difficulty in making a satisfactory arrangement with the French offi- 

 cers of customs. Packages for Germany and central Europe, addressed 

 to our agent, Dr. Flugel, are entered at Bremen or Hamburg, then 

 transferred to the Leipsic custom-house, from which they are released 

 on the formal application of the agent to the authorities of the Zol- 

 verein. Parcels for Belgium and Holland are entered at Amsterdam, 

 which is a free port. Those for Italy are entered at Genoa, which is 

 also a port of free entry. In all cases of transmission of packages an 

 invoice of the contents is sent to the agent, which serves as the basis of 

 his application for remission of duties and charges. 



Library. — The works which have been received from all parts of the 

 world in return for the Smithsonian publications, after being recorded 

 at the Institution, have been transferred to the national library in ac- 

 cordance with the rules given in former reports. They are there under 

 the care of an accomplished librarian and a corps of able assistants, 

 accessible to all persons who desire to consult them, during every week- 

 day of the whole year, with the exception of a month in summer. The 

 transfer of the library of the Institution still continues to be approved 

 by all who have attentively considered the advantages it affords to the 

 Institution, the government and the public. It has relieved the Smith- 

 son fund of a serious burden in the cost of binding and cataloguing the 

 books, in the pay of a librarian and his assistants, and in the expense 

 of the maintenance of a separate establishment. It has enriched the 

 library of Congress with a class of valuable works which could scarcely 

 be procured by purchase, and it has facilitated the use of the books by 

 collecting them in one locality, under the same system, readily accessible 

 to the public. Some special works required for immediate use are still 

 occasionally rrarckased, and besides these a working library is retained 

 at the Institution, principally, however, of duplicate volumes, while such 

 series as are needed for special investigation are brought back for the 

 purpose. The care of these and the cost of those purchased make up 

 the small expenditure given in the report of the executive committee 

 under the head of the library. 



The Library of Congress, or, as we think it should now be denomina- 

 ted, the "National Library," contains about 180,000 volumes, exclusive 

 of unbound pamphlets and periodicals, and is rapidly increasing, the 

 accessions during the year ending December 1, 1868, according to the 

 report of Mr. Spofford, the librarian, amounting to 8,408. This library 

 is emphatically a library of progress, for while it continues to increase 

 by purchase in its own series of standard works of all times, its addi- 

 tions, through the contributions to it of the Institution, include the trans- 



