ESSAY-REVIEWS 



A NEW AID TO MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE, by C. : on 



Catalogue of Current Mathematical Journals, etc., with the names of 

 the Libraries in which they may be found. Compiled for the Mathematical 

 Association. [Pp. 40.] (London : G. Bell & Sons, 19 13. Price 2s. 6d.) 



The pamphlet which is here reviewed recalls to mind a piece 

 of similar work done by Augustus de Morgan about fifty 

 years ago, the well-known catalogue of Arithmetical Books. 

 It may be doubted whether either Prof, de Morgan or Mr. 

 W. J. Greenstreet, who from internal evidence appears to be 

 the editor of this Catalogue, would have addressed themselves 

 to their heavy and self-imposed tasks if they had not been 

 trained by studies in which scientific co-ordination is a com- 

 pelling force. The trained librarian achieves tasks which, it is 

 true, are of greater magnitude, but his work is done under con- 

 ditions which the amateur cannot imitate. There is another 

 point of similarity between the catalogues ; each represents a 

 special piece of work which at the moment of its execution 

 does not fall within the routine of a library. De Morgan's 

 work was perhaps the first of a series of special catalogues 

 which are now repeated in a hundred forms every year ; indeed, 

 it is the hall-mark of a bookseller of the first rank that he pub- 

 lishes such special catalogues devoted to one or other particular 

 class of books. Mr. Greenstreet too has compiled an essentially 

 new kind of catalogue, and one which must surely, before long, 

 have many imitations in other subjects. It is with the object 

 of drawing attention to the design of the Catalogue and in the 

 hope that others may do for different branches of science the 

 service which the editor has rendered to mathematics, that 

 this article is written. 



Mathematicians are well served with catalogues of the 

 literature of their subject. The Royal Society issues its great 

 International Catalogue of scientific papers at regular intervals, 

 while the classified list of scientific papers up to the close of the 

 nineteenth century is now complete, both for mathematics and 



