KEPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 13 



Tbo most important service by far which the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion has rendered to the nation has been that from year to year, since 

 184G — intangible but none the less appreciable — by its coustaut coop- 

 eration with the Government, public institutions and individuals in 

 every enterprise, scientific or educational, which needed its advice, 

 support or aid from its resources. 



There have been, however, material results of its activities, the ex- 

 tent of which can not fail to impress anyone who will look at them; 

 the most important of these are the Library and the Museum, which 

 have grown up under its fostering care. 



The library has been accumulated without aid from the treasury of 

 the United States ; it has, in fact, been the result of an extensive sys- 

 tem of exchanges, the publications of the Institution having been 

 used to obtain similar publications from institutions of learning in all 

 parts of the world. 



In return for its own publications the Institution has received the 

 books which.form its library. 



This library, consisting of more thau a quarter of a million volumes 

 and parts of volumes, has for over twenty years been deposited at the 

 Capitol as a portion of the Congressional Library, and is constantly 

 being increased. In the last fiscal year more than twenty thousand 

 titles were thus added to the national collection of books. 



Chiefly through its exchange system the Smithsonian Institution had, 

 in 18G5, accumulated about forty thousand volumes, largely publications 

 of learned societies, containing the record of the actual progress of the 

 world in all that pertains to the mental and physical development of 

 the human family, and affording the means of tracing the history of at 

 least every branch of positive science since the days of revival of let- 

 ters until the present time. 



These books, in many instances presents from old European libra- 

 ries, and not to be obtained by purchase, formed even then one of the 

 best collections of the kind in the world. 



The danger incurred from the fire of that year, and the fact that the 

 greater portion of these volumes, being unbound and crowded into 

 insufficient space, could not be readily consulted, while the expense to 

 be incurred for binding, increase of shelf-room, and other purposes con- 

 nected with their use threatened to grow beyond the means of the In- 

 stitution, appear to have been the moving causes which determined 

 the Regents to accept an arraugement by which Congress was to place 

 the Smithsonian library with its own in the Capitol, subject to the right 

 of the Regents to withdraw the books on paying the charges of bind- 

 ing, etc. Owing to the same causes (which have affected the Library of 

 Congress itself) these principal conditions, except as regards their cus- 

 tody in a fire- proof building, have never been fulfilled. 



The books are still deposited chiefly in the Capitol, but though they 

 have now increased from 40,000 to fully 250,000 volumes and parts of 



