396 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



and physical sciences, but should exclude natural history and physiologj*, 

 geology, mineralogy, and chemistry, which would properly form the subject 

 matter of a distinct catalogue or catalogues. The difficulty of drawing the 

 line would perhaps be greatest with regard to chemistry and geology ; but 

 the committee would admit into the catalogue memoirs not purely chemical 

 or geological, but having a direct bearing upon the subjects of the catalogue. 

 The catalogue should not be restricted to memoirs in transactions of societies, 

 but should comprise also memoirs in the proceedings of societies, in mathe- 

 matical and scientific journals, in Ephemerides and volumes of observations, 

 and in other collections not coming under any of the preceding heads. The 

 catalogue would not comprise separate works. The catalogue should begin 

 from the year 1800. There should be a catalogue according to the Hames of 

 authors, and also a catalogue according to subjects, the title of tht memoir, 

 date, and other particulars to be in each case given in full, so as to *void the 

 necessity of a reference from the one catalogue to the other. The catalogue 

 should, in referring to a memoir, give the number as well of the last as of 

 the first page, so as to show the length of the memoir. The catalogue should 

 give in every case the date of a memoir (the year only) namely, in the case 

 of memoirs published in the transactions of a society the date of reading, and 

 in other cases the date on the title-page of the volume. Such date should be 

 inserted as a distinct fact, even in the case of a volume of transactions refer- 

 red to by its date. The catalogue should contain a list of volumes indexed, 

 showing the complete title, with, in the case of transactions, the year to 

 which the volume belongs and the year of publication ; and in other cases 

 the year of publication, and the abbreviated reference to the work. The 

 references to works should be given in a form sufficiently full to be easily 

 intelligible without turning to the explanation of such reference. The author's 

 name and the date should be printed in a distinctive type, so as to be con- 

 spicuous at first sight ; and, generally, the typographical execution should be 

 such as to facilitate as much as possible the use of the catalogue. As to the 

 catalogue according to the authors' names, the memoirs of the same author 

 should be arranged according to their dates. As to the catalogue according 

 to the subjects, the question of the arrangement is one of very great difficulty. 

 It appears to the committee that the scheme of arrangement cannot be fixed 

 upon according to any d priori classification of subjects, but must be deter- 

 mined after some progress had been made in the preliminary work of collect- 

 ing the titles of the memoirs to be catalogued. The value of this part of the 

 catalogue will materially depend upon the selection of a proper principle of 

 arrangement, and the care and accuracy with which such principle is carried 

 out. The arrangement of the memoirs in the ultimate subdivisions should be 

 according to their dates. The most convenient method of making the cata- 

 logue would appear to be that each volume to be indexed should be gone 

 tlirough separately, and a list formed of all the memoirs which came within 

 the plan of the proposed catalogue. Such list should be in triplicate : one 

 copy for reference, a second copy to be cut up and arranged for the catalogue 

 according to authors' names, and another copy to be cut up and arranged for 

 the catalogue according to subjects. The committee have endeavored to 



