height and pressure of sea-waves; bolting cloth; air pockets and their effects upon the stability of various types of airplanes; history of domestic hardware and cutlery; valuation of dams and waterworks; list of airports; first use of mechanical stokers; tanning of shark-skin; bleaching of jute; manufacture of rubber hose; manufacture of surgical bandages.

To the chemistry room came the representative of a department store, stating that a customer had brought suit for damages involving the possible use of a rash-producing chemical in the dyeing of a fur coat. He desired to know if the claim were fact or fiction. A moderate amount of investigation indicated that if quinonediamine had been used its conduct was worth looking into. The constant interest in motor fuels has been accelerated by the recent Bergius process of making synthetic gasoline from coal. Political controversies centering around the Muscle Shoals plant have increased interest in the nitrogen fixation industry. The infant cellulose industry has already attained surprising proportions and has created a constant demand for information on new kinds of pigments, solvents, resins, and plasticizers. Interest has also been aroused in the new chromium plating process with its many possible adaptations.

The less technical patron of the Library has given evidence that his faith in the capabilities of science has by no means diminished. To him, apparently, there is the "one chemical" which will meet his ends. His purpose may be to remove a stain, to restore hair, or to annihilate some undesirable parasite. The small but assiduous group that works with the fifteenth and sixteenthcentury books on alchemy gives little indication of the particular problems it is trying to solve, and whether the philosopher's stone or the elixir of life beckons these readers on is certainly not in the province of the librarian to inquire.

CURRENT PERIODICALS DIVISION

About 6,000 periodicals are now handled in Room 111, the others going either to other special reading rooms or direct to the Preparation Division from the Acquisition Division. Of these 6,000 periodicals 5,673 were sent through for binding. Improved methods of noting and trying to fill gaps in current files have shown results. In 1923 out of 5,168 magazines prepared for binding, 968, or almost 20 per cent, had to be forwarded in temporary manila rope wrappers, rather than permanent boards, because the files were incomplete. Last year only 446, slightly less than 8 per cent of the 5,673 handled, had to be given the temporary manila rope treatment. Naturally all members of the staff have set firmly before themselves the goal of one year when all volumes will be complete as to number of issues, titlepages, indexes, and in every other respect.

It has not been possible adequately to meet the demands made by readers. Their numbers are increasing, and the insistence for speed in response is

increasing. It is flattering to realize how readers take for granted a knowledge on the part of librarians that encompasses the most distant portions of the field covered by current periodicals, but it is not infrequently disconcerting when no indexes exist for those fields.

NEWSPAPER DIVISION

Aside from the pressure of increasing numbers of readers, which, indeed, has almost come to be accepted as normal, the outstanding feature with 1927 in retrospect is the addition to the stock of New York City newspapers. From the publishers of four papers came 9,115 bound volumes, 223 from the Sun, 6,350 from the World, 1,735 from the Telegram, 807 from the Journal of Commerce. All are welcome, many as new comers, others as replacements for volumes now so badly worn as to be near dissolution.

Of the papers presented by the World, 5,767 volumes were different editions of the World, and 583 of other New York City papers. By this gift the file of the Evening World is practically complete from its establishment in 1887 to 1926. The semi-weekly edition now runs from 18611901, tri-weekly from 1860-1916, weekly from 1860-1894, although these files are not entirely complete. The volumes of the morning edition of the World which were presented, were all duplicates. Before this gift there were very short runs of all editions of the World, except the morning edition, which was already complete.

The gift from the New York Telegram, made the file of the New York Herald practically complete from 1835 (the year of its establishment) to March, 1924, when it united with the New York Tribune. The Evening Telegram file is now complete, except for a few numbers, from 1868-1924. Scattered volumes of other titles completed this gift.

The Journal of Commerce presented 807 volumes. There were 464 volumes of the Journal of Commerce, giving the Library a nearly complete file from 1827, the year of its establishment, to date, and 172 volumes of the New York Commercial, a complete file from 1898-1926. Previous to this gift the file began with the year 1910. The remaining volumes from this source were various titles of New York City commercial and financial papers.

The total number of readers who signed slips for newspapers during the year was 184,230; the number of bound volumes and packages of unbound papers issued was 200,052; making a daily average of 505 readers, and 548 volumes. In addition, there are from a thousand to twelve hundred readers who daily make use of the papers displayed on racks, for which use no signature is necessary.

The chief interest of research workers who used bound volumes during the past year, seemed to be in biographical fields, the persons about whom information was sought being of such diversified talents as Jesse James and Henry Ward Beecher.

Biography, however, was not the sole object of students of long files of newspapers. Histories of individual papers and studies of the newspaper as an institution derived some help from the collections stored here. Advertisers, students of the history of the stage, searchers for lost heirs, may be taken as typical of the catholicity of the field covered by the research in this room. Corneille, Jewish characters in fiction, a comparative study of foreign intelligence in newspapers, the "Japanese menace" in 1921 and 1922, the effect of publicity on the theater, educational journalism, the history of sport in America, the conflict between politics and finance in China, such topics as these indicate that the usefulness of the collection appeals to many types of students.

It is no satisfaction to realize how the men working on such topics have to do their investigating among so many physical difficulties as confront them in the newspaper room. It is obvious that work of this kind can not be done easily in a room where the bustle, chatter, noise, shuffling, whispering that seem to be inevitable in a room devoted to consultation of many current files of newspapers combine to make concentration hard for the man delving into a topic that bears little relation to so confused and distracting a scene. If space permitted the Library certainly would separate the student using bound volumes from the casual reader glancing at current files. That, however, is not possible at present, and the Library can but ask its readers to be patient and to remember that the unpleasant features are as little to the liking of the staff as to them.

ACQUISITION DIVISION

During 1927 the number of pieces received by purchase, gift and exchange was 229,769. The corresponding number for 1926 was 219,664. Gifts were somewhat less than in the previous year, but purchases were greater, as were exchanges.

Of the total of 229,769 pieces, 25,693 volumes and 5,509 pamphlets were acquired by purchase, 50,922 volumes and 126,346 pamphlets by gift, and 19,858 pieces by exchange.

The Library also acquired by purchase 75 maps and 122 prints, and received as gifts 1,067 maps and 177 prints. (In addition mention should be made also of 812 photographs of maps relating to America, now in French, Spanish, Portuguese archives, selected by Prof. Louis C. Karpinski of the University of Michigan.) Documents purchased numbered 5,483 pieces; and document gifts, 23,383 pieces.

The amount involved in priced exchange during the year was $5,114.47, as contrasted with $973.99 in the preceding year.

During 1927, the total expenditure for new material was $105,355.76, of which general funds furnished $40,156.67 for books and $44,830.53 for serials. The remaining $20,368.56 came from special funds.

The total number of periodicals now received by the Library is 25,007, an increase of 1,420. Of these, 10,125 are issued annually and the remaining 15,000 with greater frequency. Detailed analysis is given in Table 3 of the appendix.

The net increase of 1,420 represents 2,276 titles added and 1,350 titles deducted. New titles, therefore, were added at about the rate of seven in every working day.

The valuation of gifts in 1927 was $25,180.07, slightly less than the preceding year.

In unpriced exchange the volumes received numbered 2,219; pamphlets, 14,951; a total of 17,170. The volumes sent total 6,711, and pamphlets 9,492, an aggregate of 16,203.

During the past year the transfer of Reference Department duplicates to the branch libraries was greatly increased.

GIFTS

Gifts have been acknowledged as usual in current issues of the Bulletin throughout the year, and a complete record of donors is given at the end of the Statistical Appendix. It is possible to mention here only some of the larger groups given since the last report was submitted.

Mr. James C. McGuire presented 33 hornbooks, a gift that added more specimens of this early form of book-making than the Library had hitherto been able to collect. A list of the books, with an account of the way the collection came into the hands of Mr. McGuire, was printed in the Bulletin for December.

The May Bulletin told the story of another gift of unusual interest, a collection of manuscripts, clippings, photographs, letters relating to Udo Brachvogel and his contemporaries, presented by Miss Claire and John K. Brachvogel.

Julius Ensign Rockwell spent many years of his life in the service of the federal government, and in his spare moments collected books on shorthand and made notes for a bibliography of shorthand. His bibliography was printed as one of the publications of the United States Bureau of Education. After his death the books he had gathered came to the shorthand collection in the Library as a deposit from the National Shorthand Reporters' Association.

The Friends Book Store of Philadelphia gave an extensive collection of Quaker books. Some 97 volumes relating to Catholics in the United States were presented by the Knights of Columbus, Charles Carroll General Assembly, Fourth Degree, of New York City. Mr. Edwin Walker sent 124 volumes, 1,050 pamphlets, 1,700 periodicals, a miscellaneous collection of radical publications, including files of Lucifer, The Lightbearer, Mother Earth, etc.

A description of an unusual lot of publications in a hundred or more tongues current in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics was printed in the Bulletin for January, 1927. This came from the Marx-Engels Institute of Moscow, and offers eloquent demonstration of the variety of nationalities that go to make up what formerly was known as Russia.

Out of the many gifts relating to the Orient, mention may be made of the following: An account of Tsing Hua College Library, in Chinese, given by the author, Lincoln H. Cha, and printed at Peking. "Impressions of the Washington Conference" (1923) and "Tariff Autonomy and National Sovereignty” (1927) from the author, Chia Shi-Yi, of the Ministry of Finance, Nanking. From Mr. Li Siao-Yuen, of Nanking, his "A Proposed National System of Libraries for China," Nanking, 1927. From Mr. Chung P. Lum, of New York, his "Chinese Verse," New York, 1927. From Japan came "Japanese Ceramic Art and National Characteristics," by Kikusaburo Fukui, printed at Tokio in 1926. Lafcadio Hearn's "History of English Literature, in a Series of Lectures," given by the Hokuseido Press. From Torazo Nishio, of Long Island City, "Life of Dr. Jokichi Takamine" (in Japanese); from Setsuzo Sawada "The Crown Prince's European Tour," by Count Yoshinori Futara and Setsuzo Sawada, printed at Osaka in 1926; "Present-Day Japan,” an English Supplement of the Osaka Asahi and the Tokyo Asahi, 1927; The Yamato Society of Tokyo, "Masterpieces of Chikamatsu," the Japanese Shakespeare, translated by Asataro Miyamore, London, 1926.

Prince Youssouf Kamal of Cairo gave the first volume of his important "Monumenta Cartographica Africae et Aegypti," 1926. Mr. Lincoln Ellsworth presented autographed copies of the account of the "First Crossing of the Polar Sea" by Roald Amundsen and himself. Commander Radler de Aquino, of the Brazilian navy, gave his "Altitude and Azimuth Tables," London, 1910, and the issue of the United States Naval Institute Proceedings containing his article on "Modern Methods in Sea and Air Navigation." Viscount Lee of Fareham presented the catalogue of his collection of paintings, privately printed at Oxford in 1926. Mr. Clarence H. Mackay gave an autographed copy of Dr. Valentiner's catalogue of the paintings in his collection belonging to the Italian school. Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff sent Seymour de Ricci's catalogue of the early Italian majolica in his collection, printed at New York in 1927.

His Eminence, Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Mr. Grenville Kane, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, Hon. Morgan J. O'Brien, General William Barclay Parsons, and Mr. I. N. Phelps Stokes are among the Trustees who gave books during the year, and mention should be made also of such friends of the Library as Mr. William Andrews Clark, jr., Mr. Robert Smith Phifer, of Mississippi, Dr. Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Mrs. Bella C. Landauer, Mrs. Charles S. Fairchild, who have continued to show their interest by gifts.

Gifts worthy of note have come for the music collection, the Print Room, the Hebrew collection, extensive files of New York City newspapers from