wards taken up by various governments which, through treaties, bound themselves to exchange their own publications in the same way. Since the inaguration of this service, 5,000,000 pounds weight of books and pamphlets have been carried to every portion of America and of the world. The institution existing not only for America, in which it has over 8,000 correspondents, but for the world, has throughout Europe,
second secretary of the smithsonian institution, 1878-1887.
Asia, Africa, and the islands of the sea, nearly 28,000 correspondents more without the United States than within—justifying the words 'Per Orbem,' as the device on the Smithsonian seal.
Other work has been intrusted to the institution by the government, such as the Bureau of American Ethnology, for studies relating to the aborigines of this continent; the Astrophysical Observatory,
