EEPOET OF THE SECRETARY. 31 



on any point of practical or applied science, it does not shrink from 

 the responsibility, hut, after diligent and cautious inquiry, gives the 

 conclusions, whatever they may be, at which it has arrived. 



Library. — Extensive alterations are in the process of being made in 

 the wing of the building appropriated to the library, for the better 

 accommodation of the bocks. The shelving has been arranged in two 

 stories of alcoves, thereby more than doubling the space. Each lower 

 alcove is separately secured by a door ; a precaution which has been 

 found necessary in the library of the Institution as well as in that of 

 Congress. It is a fact to be regretted, but which it is necessary to 

 mention in order to vindicate the restrictions imposed upon an indis- 

 criminate access to the books, that there is in some quarters a lamentable 

 want of honesty with regard to the use of property of a public character. 

 Not only are works in many cases mutilated, merely to avoid the labor 

 of copying a few pages, but valuable sets are sometimes broken by 

 actual theft. 



The appropriation for the library must not alone be measured by 

 the sum assigned for the " cost of books ;" it must be recollected that 

 the library is principally increasing by means of the exchanges ; that 

 every year the Institution sends abroad, besides all the public docu- 

 ments which it can procure, some hundreds of copies of the quarto 

 volumes of its transactions, the marketable value of which is several 

 thousand dollars. It therefore ought to be distinctly understood that 

 the library is constantly increasing by the addition of the most valuable 

 series of the transactions of literary and scientific societies in all parts 

 of the world, and that this is at the expense of what are denominated 

 the active operations of the Institution. It is true the number of 

 books directly purchased is comparatively small, but indirectly pro- 

 cured in the way stated the annual addition is valuable. 



Among the numerous donations received during the past year it is 

 of course impossible in this report to particularize more than a few 

 of the most important. The Academies of Science of Vienna, St. 

 Petersburg, and of Brussels, have all contributed largely both of their 

 older and more recent issues. The Real Sociedad Economica, of 

 Havana, has been particularly liberal in this respect, furnishing nearly 

 complete series for many years back, as have also the Horticultural 

 societies of Paris and Berlin. The most extensive single gift during 

 the year has been that of the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles, in 

 72 volumes, and the Histoire Naturelle des Mammirfees, of Buffon 

 and Daubenton, in 15 volumes, from the Herzogliche Bibliothek der 



