applies also to some other classes, and to certain types of books, such as some government reports and some scientific monographs, which have no representatives in the group.  The next step was to supplement the collection by purchase.  All available publishers’ catalogues were examined, but after a period of twelve months it was found possible to spend only $65.00 in the purchase of 120 additional books.  A circular letter was then sent to ninety-two publishers, explaining the purpose of the collection and asking for information regarding books in fourteen-point type, or larger, issued by them.  To these there were received sixty-three answers.  In twenty-nine instances, no books in type of this size were issued by the recipients of the circulars.  In six cases, the answer included brief lists of from two to twelve titles of large-type books; and in several other cases, the publishers stated that the labor of ascertaining which of their publications are in large type would be prohibitive, as it would involve actual inspection of each and every volume on their lists.  In two instances, however, after a second letter, explaining further the aims of the collection, publishers promised to undertake the work.  The final result has been that the Library now has over four hundred volumes in the collection.  This is surely not an imposing number, but it appears to represent the available resources of a country in which 1,000 publishers are annually issuing 11,000 volumes—­to say nothing of the British and Continental output.  In the list of the collection and in the entries, the size of the type, the leading, and the size of the book itself are to be distinctly stated.  The last-mentioned item is necessary because the use of large type sometimes involves a heavy volume, awkward to hold in the hand.  The collection for adults in the St. Louis Library, as it now exists, may be divided into the following classes, according to the reasons that seem to have prompted the use of large type: 

1.  Large books printed on a somewhat generous scale and intended to sell at a high price, the size of the type being merely incidental to this plan.  These include books of travel, history, or biography in several volumes, somewhat high-priced sets of standard authors, and books intended for gifts.

2.  Books containing so little material that large type, thick paper, and wide margins were necessary to make a volume easy to handle and use.  These include many short stories of magazine length, which for some inscrutable reason are now often issued in separate form.

3.  Books printed in large type for aesthetic reasons.  These are few, beauty and artistic form being apparently linked in some way with illegibility by many printers, no matter what the size of the type-face.