32 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



Library. — The library has continued to increase, principally by 

 the addition of all the current transactions of societies and of scientific 

 journals. By exchanges there have been received 645 octavo, 153 

 quarto, and 25 folio volumes, 2,754 pamphlets and parts of volumes, 

 and 109 maps and charts— total 3,686. In the appendix to this report 

 will be found a list of the foreign societies and individuals which have 

 made donations to the library of the Institution, with the number of 

 works received from 1860 to 1864. 



Lectures. — Up to the occurrence of the fire no lectures had been 

 given this season; indeed, on account of the increased expenditures 

 incident to the advance of prices, it was thought advisable to diminish 

 the number of lectures, since this part of the operations of the estab- 

 lishment has not been considered of so much importance as other sec- 

 tions of the general plan of organization. It can scarcely be doubted 

 that the publication in the late annual reports of synopses of the 

 lectures has been of more service in the diffusion of knowledge than 

 their delivery in the hall of the Institution, and that their place may, 

 with equal advantage, be supplied by occasional and popular exposi- 

 tions of certain subjects in a similar form. 



The foregoing is the substance of what was intended for presenta- 

 tion to the Board of Regents as an exposition of the state of the In- 

 stitution at the close of 1864, and of what had been accomplished 

 during that ye'ar in the way of carrying out the programme of organi- 

 zation. On account of the burning of the original draft of the report, 

 and of a large portion of the records of the establishment, the state- 

 ments are not as full in some particulars as they would have been 

 had they been prepared under more favorable circumstances, but the 

 deficiencies in this respect can be made up in the report for next 

 year. 



The danger from fire at the Institution has been to me, from the 

 commencement of the occupancy of the building, a source of constant 

 and anxious solicitude. The combustible character of the two wings, 

 of the two connecting ranges, and of the interior of the towers; 

 together with the plan of heating originally adopted, rendered an 

 accident by fire far from improbable, and led me to enforce a system 

 of vigilance, the strict observance of which I hoped would insure 

 safety. The flame, however, was communicated at a point where 

 danger was least suspected, and through one of those contingencies 

 against which all circumspection is unavailing. 



