ws:

_Libraries._ _Volumes._

1. Government 35 695,633
2. State and Territorial 47 834,219
3. Garrison 40 32,745

The official libraries are of several kinds, and as many of them are of
prime importance, we may be permitted to specify them more minutely than
those of any other class:

_Volumes._

Library of Congress 300,000
" House of Representatives 125,000
" Surgeon General 40,000
" State Department 29,000
" Senate 25,000
" Patent Office 23,000
" War Department 13,000
" Attorney General 12,000
" Treasury 8,440
" Solicitor of Treasury 6,000
" Post Office 6,301
" Hydrographer's Office 7,000
" Dep't. Agriculture 7,000
" Bureau Statistics 6,000
" Naval Observatory 7,000
" Coast Survey 6,000

Many of these are scientific collections and the only large ones of
their kind in the country. Their presence, in conjunction with the
Smithsonian Institution, has made Washington one of the most active
scientific centres in the country. Government publications are
sometimes referred to as mere trash, but aside from the remarkably
thorough and admirable reports which the several public surveys have
produced within a few years, and aside from such notable publications
as the reports of Wilkes, Perry, and Kane, the ordinary issues of the
Government printing office are anything but undeserving documents. They
are in most cases necessary, useful, and interesting to some one. As
special reports, made to cover some field that is narrow, however
necessary it may be, and limited to that range by the law which
authorizes them, they cannot possibly often be publications of general
interest. In fact it is their extremely special character that gives
them value. We are sometimes told that a government may be obliged to
publish its State papers as matter of record, but it is noticeable that
these volumes of documentary history are less