National University

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR: COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY.

1. 1844.

(Officer reporting: O. H. Tittmann, superintendent.)

3. (a) The library contains 36,000 books and pamphlets, mostly on subjects concerning the operations of the survey; 35,000 maps and charts, relating mostly to the United States and outlying territories; 61,647 volumes, cahiers, sheets, and rolls of records; 5,800 original sheets of topographic and hydrographic surveys; 9,230 negatives and prints of photographs.

(b) None.

(d) As computers in geodesy, tides, and magnetics, and as cartographers. (e) No provision.

4. No special students. Many persons engaged in the study of particular problems relating to the subjects mentioned in the next paragraph have consulted the office in person or by letter. In the majority of cases by letter and for the purpose of direct practical application, but data are furnished also for theoretical study.

5. The use of the library and archives. The latter containing geodetic and magnetic, tidal, and seismic records, as well as original hydrographic and topographic maps, and records relating to the physical condition of our harbors and coasts commonly classified under physical hydrography. See 3.

6. It is suggested that the use of the facilities to students be limited to those pursuing original investigations calculated to advance the boundaries of knowledge and graduate students of higher institutions of learning.

Room could be found for about six persons.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR: BUREAU OF FISHERIES.

(Unsigned.)

1. The Bureau of Fisheries was established as the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in 1871, and continued as an independent bureau until it was incorporated in the Department of Commerce and Labor July 1, 1903. Its original purpose was scientific, economic, and statistical investigations in relation to the fisheries, but the work of practical fish culture was soon added as a necessary part of its functions.

2. From its beginning it was found necessary to secure the cooperation of investigators in addition to those permanently employed by the bureau, and there soon grew up the practice of employing qualified persons connected with schools, colleges, and other institutions of learning, who carried on work related to the bureau's proper functions. At a later period, and especially after the establishment of a laboratory at Woods Hole in 1885, laboratory, library, and collecting facilities were supplied to students who were desirous of conducting research on problems of marine biology more remotely related to the fisheries. Another laboratory was established at Beaufort, N. C., in 1902.

3. The bureau offers opportunities for students at Washington, Woods Hole, Mass., and Beaufort, N. C., the facilities being as follows:

Washington.-(a) The library contains about 21,000 volumes, and is well supplied with matter relating to the commercial fisheries and fairly well provided in matter relating to aquatic zoology. The books of the National Museum and the Library of Congress can also be borrowed when required.

(b) The laboratory facilities are fairly satisfactory as to equipment and material, but are cramped as to space. It is not possible to furnish tables to more than one or two students.

(c) There is no provision for the supervision of the work of students, but the regular employees furnish such assistance as is consistent with their other duties.

(d) The official duties of those occupying scientific positions provide good facilities for study and training under the supervision of the more experienced men. (e) No provision is made for student assistants at the Washington office.

Woods Hole and Beaufort laboratories.—(a) Libraries are provided at both stations. That at Woods Hole is fairly well equipped with works on marine biology and on the local fauna and flora.

(b) The laboratory facilities consist of tables, aquaria, glassware, microtomes reagents, fresh and salt water supplies, boats, nets, collecting outfits, and practically everything necessary to the investigator excepting microscopic and dissecting instruments, which must be supplied by the persons availing themselves of the privileges of the institution.

(c) Tables are assigned to a limited number of trained specialists, who are accorded all of the above facilities and work independently.

Each season a few trained specialists are employed on salary for two or three months to study problems pertaining to the work of the bureau. They are always men capable of independent work, and their reports are submitted to the bureau.

A few temporary scientific assistants are employed for a period of two or three months each season. They receive as pay an amount little more than sufficient to cover their expenses and are engaged in the various investigations of the bureau. To assist these and the paid investigators, student assistants are employed at compensations designed to pay expenses. They work under supervision of the experienced workers, and earnest young men receive good training.

4. During the summer of 1907 there were employed at the Woods Hole laboratory eight paid investigators, six scientific assistants, and six student assistants.

At the Beaufort laboratory there were one paid investigator, four scientific assistants, and eight student assistants.

5. The facilities offered during the fiscal year 1909 are essentially those mentioned under answer 3. It is possible that a laboratory on the Mississippi River, for which an appropriation has been made, will be opened during the summer of 1909.

6. Specialists desiring to avail themselves of the privileges of the laboratories are required to make application on the attached form, which stipulates the conditions under which they are accommodated.

The paid investigators are selected by the bureau for their fitness to carry on the studies to which they are assigned.

The temporary scientific assistants are selected from college students and instructors who have had training in biology, and whose applications are properly indorsed as to fitness and character.

Student assistants are selected from properly indorsed applicants from high schools and institutions of related grade.

[Form of application.1

I hereby make application for the use of a table in the laboratory of the Bureau of Fisheries at for a period of about weeks, beginning about

I wish to carry on special studies on

190...

In the publication of the results of my investigations carried on in the laboratory or on materials collected while there, due credit will be given to the Bureau of Fisheries for the use of the laboratory and its equipment, and six copies of my papers will be sent to the Bureau of Fisheries at Washington for its various libraries.

and was published.

(date).

My last paper was entitled While occupying a table in the laboratory I will neither collect nor preserve materials to be sold or used for general classroom work, except in the latter case, by permission of the director. I will not use the laboratory reagents for preserving such classroom material.

7. The publications of the Bureau of Fisheries consist of reports and bulletins, of octavo and quarto size respectively, embracing scientific and economic papers relating to the fisheries. Papers submitted by workers at the laboratories will be published by the bureau if suitable.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR: BUREAU OF STANDARDS.

1. July 1, 1901.

(Officer reporting: W. F. Hillebrand, acting director.)

4. No exact list can be given of those who availed themselves of the facilities of the bureau for study and research. They included scientific instructors at the universities, technical experts in large industries, and advanced students.

5. The facilities of the bureau include the fundamental standards of length and mass of the United States, calibrated working and derived standards, scales, balances, and verified instruments and accessory apparatus for precision measurements and research in the following lines: Length, mass, capacity, density, time, heat (including thermometry and pyrometry), electrical resistances, electromotive force, electrical capacity and inductance, magnetism, electrical instruments, light (including interference methods, polarimetry, spectroscopy, radiometry, and photometry), and the testing of materials.

The bureau library consists of 4,000 volumes on the technical subjects connected with the bureau's work. The bureau regularly receives the publications of similar institutions of other countries and 150 technical journals covering the physical sciences, engineering, and related fields.

6. Applications should preferably be made by personal consultation, although preliminary arrangements could be made by correspondence.

The facilities are open to any well-qualified advanced student, unless this will interfere with the regular work of the bureau. The conditions governing such work are flexible, and the bureau will be glad to aid as above any serious student. Experts of manufacturing and industrial laborato.ies have found it of great value to spend short periods of time at the bureau, in order to study the latest advances in the lines of work enumerated above (see No. 5).

7. In addition to the tests and comparisons made by the Bureau of Standards, its work includes such researches as are involved in the establishment and maintenance of the various standards and units of measurement, the development of measuring instruments and methods of measurement, and the determination of physical constants and the properties of materials. The results of these investigations are published in pamphlet form; a descriptive summary of the contents of these papers is given in the List of Publications of the Department of Commerce and Labor. They cover a wide range of subjects in the field of physical measurements, and are issued for general distribution to the scientific, technical, and industrial interests concerned with the subjects treated. The papers will be sent upon request, and may be designated by the numbers which precede the titles in the list.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR: BUREAU OF STATISTICS.

(Officer reporting: Morris Jacobson, librarian.)

1. The Bureau of Statistics was established by act of July 28, 1866,1 as part of the Treasury Department. Its main work, the collection and publication of the Statistics of Foreign Commerce and Navigation, formerly devolved upon the office of Register of the Treasury, which contained divisions of tonnage and commerce and navigation, in pursuance of act of February 10, 1820, for the periodic publication of import, export, and navigation accounts. The bureau was organized by Mr. Alex Delmar, as director, in 1866,2 who was succeeded by Gen. Francis A. Walker; the latter took charge of the bureau as Deputy Special Commissioner of the Revenue, and continued to act in that capacity until February 7, 1870, when he became Superintendent of the Ninth Census.

The organization of the office, as adopted by Gen. Walker, practically remains unchanged, except that a Division of Internal Commerce was added later, which was made an integral part of the bureau about 1900.

2. The library of the bureau, when first established as part of the office, contained about 3,000 volumes, mainly statistical, economic, and historical works, bearing more or less directly upon the work of the office, and containing, among others, such official reports of our own and foreign governments as could then be spared from the library and other divisions of the Treasury Department. Since then it has grown mainly by exchanges and gifts and now contains probably the fullest collection of foreign trade reports in the country.

3. As the work of the bureau is mainly of a routine character, i. e., the compilation of the monthly and yearly statistics of our foreign and internal trade, scientific students and investigators, unless especially interested in the methods of compilation and tabulation used in the office, as a rule, have been able to utilize the library material only. This material is composed mainly of economic and statistical matter bearing upon industrial and commercial questions. The library has fairly complete sets of the standard statistical and commercial publications, such as the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, the Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute, the Journal of the Statistical Society of Paris, the London Economist, the Économiste Français, the Journal des Économistes, etc. Of late some of the more important German economic and statistical publications have been received by exchange, including the Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, the Allgemeines Statistiches Archiv, as well as some of the Russian financial and commercial publications.

Of American publications of similar character the library has, among others, full sets of the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Bradstreet's and Dun's Reviews, the Banker's Magazine, etc. Sets of earlier publications, of value to the student of the industrial and financial history of the United States, on file include Niles's Register and Hunt's Merchant's Magazine. The statistical publications of the various departments of the Government, as well as of the various States, constitute another important section of the library.

1 Thirty-ninth Congress, first session, chapter 298, 1866.

2 See Finance Ieport, 1867, page 240 and following. Finance Report, 1868, page 400 and following. Fortieth Congress, second session, chapter 176, 1868: An act making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government.

Of official foreign publications of similar character the library has bound sets of the Deutsches Handels Archiv, Das Handelsmuseum, Le Moniteur Officiel du Commerce, with annexes containing the published reports of the German, Austrian, and French consuls to their home governments, also the Bulletin de Statisque and the Viestnik Finansov (Russian).

4. Notwithstanding the crowded condition of the library, quite a number of American and even more of foreign students have been making use of the material on file during recent years. No record has been kept of such persons, and I am therefore unable to give their names. The library is used a good deal by the Washington correspondents of the daily papers, and especially of the trade publications, in order to glean current news, particularly during the summer months when Congress is not in session. No discrimination has been shown in favor of any class of inquirers or investigators. We have been trying to accommodate and assist them to the best of our knowledge and ability, though the overcrowded condition of the library and the absence of special reserve space for outsiders may have acted as a deterrent in some cases.

The main function of the library has been to assist the work of the chief and experts of the bureau in the preparation of the numerous commercial monographs which have appeared from time to time since the organization of the bureau, as well as in the compilation of the Statistical Abstract of the United States. The experts in the Bureau of Corporations have also had frequent occasion to use its material in connection with their official work.

INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

(Officer reporting: Leroy Stafford Boyd, librarian.)

1. The Interstate Commerce Commission, created by act of February 4, 1887, is an independent bureau of the Government, which has for its object the administration of the various acts of Congress relating to the regulation of interstate carriers. Prior to the act of March 2, 1889, the commission was required to make its annual report to the Secretary of the Interior, to be by him transmitted to Congress, and the accounts of the commission were to be jointly approved by the chairman of the commission and the Secretary of the Interior; but since the above-mentioned date the commission has been an independent body, subject only to the action of Congress and the President.

The library of the commission was established in 1894.

2. The records of the commission are complete from its organization on March 31, 1887, are admirably arranged and indexed, and, with few exceptions, are accessible to the public. The annual reports of the commission contain lists of cases, abstracts of decisions, and other material, which not only serve to indicate in some detail the character of the more important files, but in many cases make recourse to the original papers unnecessary.

3. In accordance with the act to regulate commerce and the amendments thereto, the Division of Rates and Transportation receives the following from carriers doing an interstate business:

(1) Schedules (or tariffs) of freight rates and passenger fares of steam and electric railroads, and of steamer and other water lines subject to the act.

(2) Schedules (or tariffs) of transportation charges of express companies, sleepingcar companies, and pipe lines.

(3) Contracts and agreements pertaining to traffic arrangements between common

carriers.

This division, popularly known as the "Auditor's office," has received and filed since its organization in 1887 approximately 3,100,000 tariff schedules relating to freight and passenger traffic of the nature above described, each tariff containing from 1 to 500 pages and from 1 to 1,000,000 different rates, taking into consideration different commodities and different distance points.

Besides the tariff schedules the archives of the division include 1,093,116 Letters of Transmittal and 2,950,496 Certificates of Concurrence, the latter begun in 1894. The tariffs filed by the companies are completely indexed and cross-indexed as to commodities and places, in sets of indices prepared for each company. The files of this division are open to the public.

The Division of Statistics and Accounts has, in the original, a complete set of annual reports filed by all interstate carriers from 1888 to the present time, and also the correspondence between the division and the carriers in the preparation of these reports for publication in the annual volume of Statistics of Railways in the United States. By the terms of the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906, these annual reports are made "public records," and there is little doubt that the annual reports filed prior to that act are also open to public inspection.

Beginning with July 1, 1907, this division has received monthly statements of revenues and expenses from carriers by rail. While these are not by law "public records," yet they are so treated, and are made available for use by anyone who may care to consult them.

This division has from time to time undertaken special investigations covering points respecting which information was desired not covered in either the annual or monthly reports. Some of these investigations are of general interest, and, while not regarded as "public records," they may become available for the student upon such conditions as the commission may prescribe.

The correspondence of the division relative to the reports and accounts, especially the correspondence of the last two years, during which time the formulation of a system of accounting has been under consideration, contains a vast amount of material which might prove of interest to students of transportation. Permission to use these files, however, is granted only upon special request.

This division expects in the near future to have on file complete records showing the laws passed by the various States regulating railroads, and also the rulings and findings of the several State railroad commissions.

In addition to the reports of steam railroads, this division also receives reports from express companies, electric railways, sleeping-car companies, water carriers, and pipe lines in all cases where they do an interstate business.

The library of the commission is of increasing value each year for reference purposes. The commission receives many requests for information on questions pertaining to railroads and other transportation subjects, and its library has proven invaluable in answering such inquiries. It is the aim of the commission to accumulate a complete collection of books and pamphlets, public and private, relating to all phases of transportation, both domestic and foreign, and to include railroads, canals and other waterways, telegraphs, telephones, and common roads. In fact, it hopes to obtain all literature which would be of interest to the student of transportation, its management and regulation. The largest outlay in the administration of the library is the annual expense for works of purely legal character relating to the Federal regulation of railways. A large periodical list is maintained, and about 80 per cent of all accessions are without cost to the commission. The work of administration calls for constant study and indefatigable labor. It is gratifying that the collection has been of value to the growing needs of the public in general, to students of railway economics all over the country, to representatives of the press, and to foreign representatives residing in Washington. The value of the library to the commission and to the other departments has been amply demonstrated by its continued usefulness for the past 15 years, during which time it has received the constant support of the commission.

The library consists of 13,000 bound volumes and 11,000 unbound pamphlets, a large percentage of which are fugitive and noncopyrighted. A system of exchange with other libraries is maintained, by which the library has been greatly enlarged. A detailed description of the library may be found in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Commission, 1900, pages 85-86, and in a report submitted on April 21, 1906, to the Keep Commission on Departmental Methods.

The following publications comprise some of the leading features of the library: Publications of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Books

National University: Hearings Before the Committee on Education, House of ...