§ MR. COBBOLDasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the Government will consider the expediency of providing copies of the Official Report of 1654 the Surveying Voyage of H. M. S. "Challenger," as mentioned in the Report of the Controller of the Stationary Office, to such museums, libraries, and institutions as are supported by borough and other rates, and thus allow many who would otherwise be precluded to share in the advantages of the "advancement of science" obtained by the expenditure of public money?
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHThe question of the gratuitous distribution of the Report of the Challenger expedition was most carefully considered by the Treasury when the arrangements for the printing and publication of that Report were made in the year 1878. The Report will comprise not less than 15 volumes; and the cost of the whole work, including paper, printing, engraving, and agency for sale, but not authorship or editing, will not be less than £30 per copy. Applications for copies of the Report, free of charge, are incessantly being made from every variety of Institution throughout the United Kingdom; and if the determination to restrict the gift of the Report to Institutions of a national character were to be abandoned, the difficulty of drawing a line between those Institutions which should be presented with the Report and those which should not would be almost insuperable, and the expenditure involved would be very large.