695,610
Historical 26 742,572
Government none
Proprietary Public 124 1,079,359
Free Public 93 2,804,964
Miscellaneous 7 7,275

This, however, does not show what is spent yearly in buying books, an
item which only one in about twenty-three of the libraries report. The
amount is $562,407, and at $1.25 per volume, which is Mr. Winsor's
estimate of the average cost of books, the yearly acquisitions by
purchase are limited to about 450,000 volumes.

Figures such as we have presented are really no guide to the worth of an
individual library, or of a library system, to the people. That can be
learned only by the comparison of experiences by the men who have charge
of the books and their distribution, but the elements for such an
analysis are wanting. The yearly use of books in 742 libraries in 1875
was 8,879,869 volumes, or from two to two and a half times the number of
volumes on the shelves of the reporting libraries. Great differences
exist in this respect. Few libraries are so eagerly sought as the
military post library on Angel Island, California, which distributed its
772 books so often that its yearly circulation was 4,500! The Chicago
Public Library, with 48,100 volumes, circulated 403,356; Boston
Athenaeum, with 105,000 volumes, circulated 33,000; Boston Public
Library, with 299,869 volumes, circulated 758,493.

These statistics are sufficient. It is probable that the libraries of
the country, costing say $16,000,000 for books, and spending more than
$1,400,000 yearly, afford to the people the use of from twenty-four to
thirty million volumes every year. It cannot be doubted that they form a
very important factor in our social and national economy.

More than a thousand librarians are engaged in the conduct of the public
libraries, many of them men of great ability and culture. There can be
no doubt that their study of this important problem will result in the
establishing of an intelligent and harmonious system of supplying a
nation with the reading matter it requires.

JOHN A. CHURCH.

HOW NATIONAL BANK NOTES ARE REDEEMED.

There are few divisions in the Treasury department of the United States
at Washington less known to the public, and more interesting to
visitors, than that over the entrance to which is displayed the legend
"National Bank Redemption Ag