86 REPORTvS ON INVESTIGATION.S AND PROJECTS. 



press the volume for North and South America. Innumerable diffi- 

 culties have been encountered which could not have been foreseen. 

 The inaccuracy and inadequacy of the information supplied by the 

 societies themselves in manj' cases have made it necessarj^ to carry on a 

 great deal of supplementary correspondence, both with the societies 

 and with the libraries which have complete files of their publications. 

 The early publications of many of the societies are bibliographically 

 very irregular and there exists no printed information on which reli- 

 ance could be placed. Difficulties of this character will be fewer 

 in the case of most foreign countries, because there is a considerable 

 number of reliable bibliographies to which reference can be made. 



Volume I, /. e., North and South America, is now in the press. 

 About I GO pages are already in type. 



The engagement of the regular office force will be terminated at 

 the end of October. This will leave practically all of the supple- 

 mentary grant made in the spring of this year still available for proof- 

 reading in the various foreign languages in the remainder of the 

 Handbook. The completion of the editorial work for the foreign 

 societies and the printing of the remaining volumes will take about 

 twelve months longer. 



In October of last year a brief account of the undertaking was 

 presented at the conference of the American Librars- Association at 

 St. Louis. 



Weeks, F. B. (under direction of Dr. G. V . Becker i. Bibliography of 

 Geop/iysics. Grant No. 170. (For first report see Year Book 

 No. 3, p. 81.) $5.ooo- 



The work has been conducted by Mr. Weeks for a period of seven 

 months, April i to October i. The references are being brought 

 together under the following general heads, leaving the minor subject 

 heads to be determined after all of the literature has been examined : 

 General works and text-books ; bibliography ; periodicals ; cosmical 

 physics, divided into earth-moon system, meteorites, origin, con- 

 stitution ; origin of earth, divided into nebular and other hypoth- 

 eses ; movement of earth in space ; rotation of earth in space ; terres- 

 trial magnetism ; electric earth currents ; auroras ; earth's interior, 

 divided into magmas, rocks, igneous rocks, and vulcanism ; litho- 

 sphere, divided into origin, etc., and dia.strophism ; metamorphic 

 rocks ; sedimentary rocks ; ore deposits ; earthquakes ; atmosphere ; 

 hydrosphere ; climatology ; glaciology ; geologic processes ; phy.siog- 

 raphy ; ocean topography ; and geologic history. 



