REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 17 



merits to which appropriations had been granted for payment of freight 

 on publications sent abroad through the Institution, leaving a deficit 

 of $788.56, which was paid from the Smithsonian fund. 



With reference to this deficiency let me observe that in the history of 

 the Government's connection with the exchanges three periods may be 

 distinguished. The first was in 1867 and 1868, when, after twenty years 

 of useful work in the interests of knowledge, a new duty was imposed 

 upon the service by acts of Congress* which established for the benefit 

 of the Congressional Library an international exchange of works pub- 

 lished by the Government and made the Smithsonian Institution the 

 agency for this exchange. The second was in 1878, when the Institu- 

 tion was distinctly recognizedt by the Department of State as the agent 

 of the United States in the exchange of all Government publications 

 (including exchanges for the benefit of Bureau libraries) and also in the 

 exchange between learned societies. 



The Institution possessed unequalled experience and facilities for 

 such work, and though the new class of books brought to the exchange 

 department was partly foreign to its original object, the propriety of 

 its assuming such a service, if the Government's interest could be pro- 

 moted by this experience, is evident. It certainly, however, was not to 

 have been anticipated that the Institution should conduct a purely ad- 

 minis trative work of the General Government out of its private funds, 

 as it appears to have done for thirteen years, from 1868 to 1881, when 

 the first appropriation of $3,000 was made by Congress. 



In the act! °f March 3, 1881, makiug this appropriation it appears to 

 have been the intent of Congress to apply the amount indifferently to 

 all exchanges, whether to those which it undertakes for the Library of 

 Congress, to those of Governmental bureaus, or to other literary and 



*Statates at Large, vol. 14, p. 573, Thirty-ninth Congress, second session, resolution 

 55. Statutes at Large, vol. 15, pp. 260, 261, Fortieth Congress, second session, resolu- 

 tion 72. 



t Letter from Hon. Wm. M. Evarts, Secretary of State, to the Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Annual Report for 1881, p. 785. 



t " International exchanges, Smithsonian Institution, 1882: For the expense of 

 exchanging literary and scientific productions with all nations by the Smithsonian 

 Institution, $3,000 (act March 3, 1881)." This was changed in 1883 to the follow- 

 ing: "International exchanges, Smithsonian Institution, 1883: For expenses of the 

 international exchanges between the United States and foreign countries, in ac- 

 cordance with the Paris convention of 1877, including salaries and compensation 

 of all necessary employes, $5,000 (sundry civil act August 7, 1882)," and in 1886 

 it again was changed to " International exchanges, Smithsonian Institution, 1886 : 

 For expenses of the system of international exchanges between the United States 

 and foreign countries, under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, includ- 

 ing salaries or compensation of all necessary employe's, $10,000 (sundry civil act 

 March 3, 1885)." 



328a 2 



