TENTH LECTURE. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY, — A STUDY OF RESOURCES. 



CHARLES SEDGWICK MINOT. 



The growth of science depends on three things : — 



First. The unknown, which is discoverable. 



Second. Raw knowledge. 



TJiini. Assimilated knowledge. 



Our laboratory has for its special purpose to work in the 

 first of these fields, and every one of you ought to gain largely 

 from the discipline and inspiration here placed at your com- 

 mand. Bibliography inventories the resources of the second 

 and third field, while text-books are intended to give compre- 

 hensive surveys of the third. Now text-books are not exces- 

 sively numerous, and it is not really difficult in this age of 

 incessant advertisement to ke.ep tally of the best text-books, 

 their successive editions, and* new rivals in one's special field 

 of biology. Far different is the case when one wishes to 

 retain command of the literature of original research, where 

 the gains of raw knowledge, as I have called it above, are 

 made. It needs but little experience to teach even the begin- 

 ning student that it is excessively difficult to keep track of the 

 numerous publications in which the current work, even in a 

 narrow field of biology, is recorded. With these difficulties 

 you are all' more or less familiar, and know from your own 

 experience that they are due chiefly to two factors : first, the 

 very great number of the publications ; second, their being 

 scattered without law or order in many different publications 

 issued in many different languages. The biological bibliogra- 

 pher is like an explorer in a forest, — he finds no open way 

 to travel, but must laboriously hunt for the specimens which 



