tajPPY— ^TRltflDAD PUbjAC LIBRARY. "" 469 
•Ate Very limited, and do not allow of its hiring a building 
for meetings, and for the deposit of books and other pro- 
perty, I have no doubt, that when a building is erected 
for a Public Library and Museum, some provision of the 
kind will be made for the Association. In the meantime 
it may be hoped that the Committee of the Trinidad Public 
Library, now that they have acquired better accommoda- 
tion, will allow to the Association the use of one of tho 
rooms. This will be a step to the union, in one building, 
of our scientific and literary* collections — 'for the use of the 
books and papers of the Association, will, I have no doubt, 
be readily granted to readers at the Library. 
Our collections have been augmented during the past 
year by the exchange of our Proceedings with the Lyceum 
of Natural History of New-Yoik, the'Sociedad de Ciencias 
de Caracas, and tho Smithsonian Institute of Washington. 
We have also had the usual number of donations of se- 
parate memoirs. 
The local Government has presented to us, for some time, 
copies of the Journal of the Society of Arts, but, apparently 
through indifference, the series is not continuous. One of 
the great functions to be filled by Scientific 'Societies in 
the future seems already plainly sketched out-— it is tho 
exchange and preservation of Scientific publications. One 
public institution has carried out this useful woi*k bn a 
grand scale, and in whatever part of tho world a United 
States Consul is to be found, there is also the Agent of the 
institution I refer to ; -the Smithsonian Institute of Wash- 
ington, which performs the functions of a national library 
and museum, and a scientific society, with a liberality 
worthy of its founder’s intentions, “ For the increase, and 
diffusion of knowledge among men.” 
The Public Library of Trinidad was founded in 1851, 
