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2.

quarto size and are too large for library card size, but it would seem as if all possible pains should be taken to keep the blanks of this size as few in number as possible, and to refer all which can be so referred to size No. 2 or No. 4.

Number four is so largely in use in the Museum already as to need no comment except that many of the small blanks, which might and should be of this size, differ from it a little, and yet enough to prevent their being filed in the standard card catalogue case and so to diminish ease of reference to them.

Monthly reports.---The filing of the monthly reports promptly is a very desirable thing to bring about and yet has not been so generally accomplished on account of the amount of writing it occasions the already overworked curators who find it difficult to spend time writing and copying written documents of a chiefly formal nature, when administrative work of pressing importance needs attention on every hand. Some departments, perhaps, like my own, owing to the overwhelming amount of arrears and other weighty considerations may have found it impracticable to prepare monthly reports at all without serious detriment to more important matters. 

By a simple series of blanks the U.S. Coast Survey has enabled its officers even in the midst of the most pressing field duty to forward their monthly reports with a minimum of time and labor. A tentative scheme of a monthly blank for the use of the Curators of the Museum is herewith submitted in the hope that it or some modification of it may meet the circumstances of the case.