234 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



guidance of librarians, and examples for illustration. This work is 

 comprised in seventy-eight pages, and though not large, it has been 

 produced at the expense of much time and labor. 



3. A second emission of the Report on the Recent Improvements in 

 the Chemical Arts has been printed and in part distributed. This work 

 is stereotyped, and therefore copies can be supplied at any time, at a 

 comparatively small cost. 



4. A description of the Portraits of the North American Indians in 

 the gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, by the painter of the portraits, 

 J. M. Stanley, esq. This is a pamphlet of seventy-six pages, and con- 

 tains brief sketches of the characters and incidents in the history of 

 forty-three different tribes of Indians. 



5. The first part of the collection of tables to facilitate meteorological 

 and other calculations, by Professor Guyot:.this was mentioned in the 

 last Report, and has been stereotyped and distributed. It is a very 

 acceptable present to the meteorological observers of the Institution, 

 and other persons engaged in scientific investigations. 



Several reports on different subjects are in progress of preparation ; 

 but the appropriation for this part of the programme of operations is at 

 present so small, that the completion of them has not been urged upon 

 the authors. The first part of the report on forest trees, by Dr. Gray, 

 of Cambridge, will be ready for the press the latter part of the present 

 of beginning of the next year. 



Distribution of ^uhlications and exchanges. 



Copies of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge are sent to 

 all the first-class libraries and literary and scientific societies of the 

 world, and in return the Institution receives an equivalent in Transac- 

 tions and other publications. After the printing of the first volume of 

 Contributions was completed, a copy of it and of the programme of or» 

 ganization were sent to the principal foreign literary and scientific insti- 

 tutions, with the request that they would exchange publications, on the 

 condition that a volume of equal importance should be presented to them 

 annually. At first the number of responses to this proposition was 

 small ; but since the character of the Institution has become known and 

 appreciated, the works received in exchange have rapidly increased in 

 number and importance. The whole number of articles received during 

 18-52 is four thousand seven hundred and forty-four, which is more 

 than three times that of all the previous years. The publications re- 

 ceived in many cases consist of entire sets of Transactions, the earlier 

 volumes of which are out of print, and cannot be purchased. They 

 are of use in carrying on the various investigations of the Institution, 

 and of value to the country as works of reference. They ought not to 

 be considered as donations to the library, but as the products of the active 

 operations, which the Institution is at liberty to dispose of in the man- 

 ner best suited to further its designs. ' The principal object, however, 

 of the distribution of the Smithsonian volumes, is not to procure a large 

 library in exchange, but to diffuse among men a knowledge of the new 

 truths discovered by the agency of the Smithsonian fund. The worth 

 and importance of the Institution is not to be estimated by what it accu- 



