454- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



aided him, and know the difficulties that were to be contended with, 

 and a good deal concerning the negotiations. The purpose was to have 

 a series of books written by the best men of the time, in all the various 

 sciences, which should treat of certain small divisions of the sciences 

 that are in states of rapid growth — giving to the public, in popular 

 form, the highest and latest results ; and it was proposed, as a means 

 of achieving this end, that there should be an international arrange- 

 ment, which should secure to authors certain portions of profits coming 

 from translations, as well as jorofits from originals at home, and the 

 hope was that some publisher might be obtained who would remunerate 

 these authors of the highest type at good rates, so as to induce them to 

 contribute volumes to the series. Well, this attempt, after much trouble, 

 succeeded. A number of the leading scientific men of England, France, 

 and Germany, were induced to cooperate. A publisher was found, or 

 rather publishers here and elsewhere, to enter into the desired arrange- 

 ments ; and an English publisher was found who offered such terms to 

 authors in England as led men in the first rank (and I may mention 

 Professor Huxley, and Professor Tyndall, and Professor Bain, and Pro- 

 fessor Balfour Stewart, and a great number of others) to promise to 

 write volumes. These men, I know, were reluctant, as busy men, with 

 their many avocations, and their incomes to get for their families, would 

 naturally be, and were induced to enter into the scheme only on its be- 

 ing made manifest to them that they would reap good profits. The 

 English publisher offered a twenty per cent, commission on the retail 

 price, paid down on first publication, and for every subsequent edition 

 paid six months after date ; and there were certain smaller percentages 

 to come from abroad. Now, the English publisher proposed to give 

 those terms, knowing that it would be impossible for him to get back 

 his outlay unless he had a number of years in which to do it. He had 

 to stereotype, he had to pay at once these sums to authors, and he had 

 to publish the books at a cheap rate ; for, by the way, I ought to have 

 said that part of the plan was that these books should be sold at low 

 prices : I may instance a volume of four hundred and twenty pages for 

 five shillings. These terms would, I take it, have been absolutely out 

 of the question had there been such an arrangement as that under which 

 the publisher, instead of having many years to recoup himself, would 

 have had rival editions to compete with in the space of three years. I 

 do not, however, put that as an opinion. I have taken the precaution 

 to obtain from Mr. King, the publisher, a definite answer on this point. 

 This is the paragraph of his letter which is specially relevant : "Authors 

 can have no difficulty in proving that this " (meaning the system which 

 I told him was proposed) " would be most unjust to them, a confiscation, 

 in fact, of their property ; but I, from a publisher's point of view, should 

 like to declare that the terms on which my firm have undertaken the 

 ' International Scientific Series ' would be impossible on such a limita- 

 tion." NoAv here, then, we have a series of highly valuable books, I 



