REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 39 



two volumes of maps and other geographical publications ; to B. 

 Lepsius, for a nearly complete series of his philological and ethnolo- 

 gical works ; to the Naturforschende G-esellschaft, at Basle, for seventy- 

 three volumes of rare scientific- journals ; to the Geological Society of 

 France, for eleven volumes of its Bulletin, and four volumes of its 

 Memoirs ; to the Observatory at Milan, for fifteen volumes of Effem- 

 eridi ; to the University of Athens, for thirty-four volumes of modern 

 Greek works ; to the University of Tubingen, for twenty-eight folio 

 and quarto volumes of rare and curious incunabula ; to the Biks- 

 bibliotek of Stockholm, for three hundred volumes of proceedings of 

 the Swedish Diet ; to the London Admiralty, for ninety charts, pub- 

 lished from August, 1855, to August, 1856 ; to Dr. Thomas B. 

 Wilson, of Philadelphia, for a set of Buffon's works, 28 volumes, and 

 Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Historie Naturelle, 30 volumes ; to the Duke 

 de Lugnes, for a fac-simile of the inscription on the Sidonian sarco- 

 phagus, and the volume describing it, which were furnished at the 

 request of the Institution, for the use of some of our oriental scholars, 

 by its liberal author. 



In regard to the last mentioned donation the following account 

 may, perhaps, be interesting : A sarcophagus, bearing a long Phoeni- 

 cian inscription, having been exhumed in the vicinity of the ancient 

 Sidon, in the beginning of the year 1855, the American missionaries 

 on the spot, with praiseworthy zeal for learning, took copies of the 

 writing and transmitted them to this country and to Europe, and 

 scholars on both sides of the water immediately entered upon its 

 study and gave their interpretations to the world. Meanwhile, the 

 sarcophagus itself was purchased by the Due de Lugnes and presented 

 to the French government, who deposited it in the gallery of the Louvre. 

 It had become evident that the copies of the inscription on which the 

 first interpretation was based, owing to the imperfect means at com- 

 mand, were necessarily, in several respects, unreliable. At the re- 

 quest of Prof. E. E. Salisbury, of Yale College, and William W. 

 Turner, Librarian of the Patent Office, who had chiefly occupied 

 themselves with the study of the monument in this country, applica- 

 tion was made to the Due de Lugnes, who, with generous promptness, 

 presented to the Institution exceedingly well executed facsimiles of 

 the inscriptions on the lid and on the sides of the sarcophagus, and a 

 copy of the work illustrating the same, published by himself for 

 private distribution. Thus American scholars are afforded the same 

 opportunity as is possessed by their compeers in Europe of making 



