A full set of (higher order) Casimir invariants for the Lie algebra
$gl(\infty )$ is constructed and shown to be well defined in the category
$O_{FS}$ generated by the highest weight (unitarizable) irreducible
representations with only a finite number of non-zero weight components.
Moreover the eigenvalues of these Casimir invariants are determined explicitly
in terms of the highest weight. Characteristic identities satisfied by certain
(infinite) matrices with entries from $gl(\infty )$ are also determined and
generalize those previously obtained for $gl(n)$ by Bracken and Green.$^{1,2}$