inous and costly of these works grants have been made
by Parliament (in the "Miscellaneous Estimates"), year
after year,
but no account has ever been submitted of
the total cost of such works, of the regulations under
which they are printed and illustrated, of the prices
at which they are sold, or the degree, if any, to which
they are practically made accessible to such students of
the subjects they relate to as may not have it in their
power to purchase them.

IV. WORKS OF THE PATENT OFFICE.

The publications of "Her Majesty's Commissioners of Patents under the Great Seal" date only from the 1st of October 1852, but are already very voluminous. They comprise (1.) The specification and the accompanying drawings, if any, of every sealed patent of invention granted subsequently to the date above mentioned, and also of every application for a patent which may have reached one or other of the preliminary stages, but may have failed to pass the seal. (2.) Chronological indexes of all patents of Invention which have been granted from the time of James I. to the present date. (3.) Subject-matter indexes of the same, arranged in classes. (4.) Reference indexes of the same, in which are entered under the short title of every patent, references to such periodical and other works as contain either its specification or an abstract thereof. (5.) Alphabetical Indexes of Patentees from the time of James I. to the present date. (6.) A collection of the original specifications and illustrative diagrams of all Patents of Invention, from the first issue of such Privileges down to the passing

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Specifications and Indexes of

Patents.

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of the New Patent Law in 1852. This series is now Public Historio- (1858) rapidly advancing towards completion. And (7) the Journal of the Commissioners of Patents,' published twice a week, which contains the names of applicants for patents, the titles of all the specifications filed, and of all patents sealed during the intervals of publication. The total number of Specifications already printed, it may be added, exceeds 17,000.

Ordnance Surveys.

By a clause in the Act of Parliament which constituted this Commission it was expressly enjoined on the Commissioners that they should take measures for the due promulgation of the Specifications and Indexes, but nothing was done, or done efficiently, in this direction until the spring of 1855. Since that period, however, a liberal distribution has been organized and all the publications of the Commission are forwarded to most of the great towns in the Kingdom.

V. PUBLICATIONS OF THE BOARD OF ORDNANCE. Of the value of the Ordnance Surveys of the United Kingdom it would be superfluous to say anything. But as to their distribution it needs to be said that the arrangements on that head correspond neither with the cost to the Public of those Surveys, nor with the interests of science in their application; and precisely the same statement may be made as to the "Geological Survey of Great Britain," and the "Records of the School of Mines." VI. OTHER WORKS PRINTED-WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY— AT THE PUBLIC CHARGE.

There are many minor publications—minor as to their extent, but of considerable intrinsic value-which ap

pear in various forms by authority of government departments and Boards, and the expense of which is, wholly or in part, defrayed from the public purse. Some of these relate to the natural sciences-some to archæology and the arts-some to the affairs or contents of particular national establishments-others again to Political Affairs, domestic or foreign. There is nowhere any complete list of such works. No systematic scheme for their distribution has ever been framed. No one public officer could tell-even had he the offer of a well-paid "Commissionership" of something for his reward-what they have cost, or what stock of them remains on hand. And, very recently, when a member of Parliament desirous of getting some information on these points, after consulting various official persons, found at last the functionary within whose province it seemed to lie, he was assured that it could not be supplied for two reasons: the first-that the obtainable information on the subject was so little as to be valueless; and the second, that the cost of printing it (it was proposed to obtain a "return" in the ordinary form) would be "enormous."

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of distributing

al and State Documents.

Before dismissing this section of the subject it may American system be useful to glance at the system of dealing with Con- the Congressiongressional and State documents which obtains in the United States of America. Often in point of literary workmanship, and always in point of typographical execution, these American State papers make a poor figure beside our own. But in respect of their systematic use for the creation of public opinion and for

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the furtherance of education, the American practice is Public Historio- greatly in advance of ours. This liberality of distribution is, I believe, carried sometimes into profusion and excess, but taking it as a whole it is useful and praiseworthy. Of the current Congressional Debates every Member of Congress is entitled to 24 copies for distribution. A collective series of the "Annals of Congress" from 1789 is in course of publication, in an edition of 2000 copies. Of these, each of the 282 members of Congress has one copy; five copies are assigned to the Library of Congress; two to those of the executive departments; one to that of the President; 50 copies to the Library of the House of Representatives; 25 to the Document Room of the Senate; 306 to Public and Incorporated Libraries, Colleges, and other literary institutions; 85 copies for foreign legations and exchanges; two copies to the executive office of each State and Territory; and one copy to Circuit-Court and District-Court of the United States; the residue being deposited in the Department of State subject to the future disposition of Congress. Of Reports and Papers presented to Congress the number printed is various according to the character of the paper; 1500 is the minimum number and the maximum has-in one instance, at least; that of the Patent Office Report upon Agriculture,―reached 100,000. Of all papers 500 copies are uniformly reserved to be bound at the end of the session into sets for the Public Libraries, Historical Societies and Colleges of the Union. By a law dating as far back as 1814, it was provided that all incorporated Colleges and Historical Societies throughout the Union

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graphy and Public Printing.

Publications of

the Legislature

of the State of

New York.

shall receive a bound set of all the documents gratuitously, and the list of institutions and Libraries thus Public Historioprivileged has been enlarged by several subsequent laws. A similar course has been pursued with the Collections of the Laws and Treaties of the United States. As respects the public documents of the principal individual States of the Union, a like liberality obtains, and this is especially true of the State of New York, the Legislature of which has distinguished itself by the production of some scientific works of great value, amongst which, the Natural History of the State (in seventeen volumes, quarto, published between the years 1842 and 1852,) is very noticeable. The liberality which has characterized the distribution of all the works I have mentioned, has been by no means confined to the Union itself, but has largely extended to foreign countries. Very wisely, however, it has been sought to make this foreign circulation the basis of INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES, a subject to which I now advert.