100 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



tributioii, accordiug to the loug-establislied policy of the Institution, and au edition 

 of 1,000 copies being issued as a numbered volume of the "Collections," for deposit 

 with the principal libraries and scientific societies of the world. 



658. "Index to the Literature of the Spectroscope," by Alfred Tuckerman. This 

 bibliooraphy is designed to give a list of all the books and smaller treatises, espe- 

 cially contributions to scientific periodicals, on the spectroscope and spectrum an- 

 alysis from the beginning of our knowledge upon the subject until July, 1887. The 

 work is arranged as an alphabetical index to topics as well as of substances which 

 have been spectroscopically examined, followed by an alphabetical list of the authors. 

 It comprises 3,829 titles and the names of 799 authors, and forms au octavo volume of 

 433 pages, including introductory matter and supplement. 



659. "A Table of Specific Gravity for Solids and Liquids (new edition, revised and 

 enlarged),'' by Frank Wigglesworth Clark. This work is a revised edition, entirely 

 re-written, of specific gravity tables, by the same author, published by this Institu- 

 tion December, 1873, and a suiJjdement to the same, published April, 1876. The 

 melting and boiling temperature appended to many of the substances in these earlier 

 tables have been omitted in the present. A general idea of the expansion given to 

 this important series of density determinations may be suggested by the statement 

 that the original work gave a list of 2,263 different substances, to which the supple- 

 ment added nearly 700 more, while the present work presents a list of .5,227 distinct 

 substances. And as many of the substances have had their 8i)ecific gravities inde- 

 pendently investigated by several eminent chemists, with slight variations in their 

 results, it may be well to add that the tables actually include 14,465 separate deter- 

 minations of these constants, averaging about two and three-fourths independent ex- 

 aminations to every substance catalogued. The large mass of material thus ex- 

 hibited furnishes a creditable record, both of the rapid extension of minute chemical 

 investigation in the last dozen years and of the diligence of the present compiler, Mr. 

 Clark, who has himself, moreover, done very meritorious work in the direction of 

 specific gravity determinations. 



The work lorms an octavo volume of 417 pages in all, and it is under consideration 

 whether it may not be well, in view of the intercBt of chemists in the table and the 

 demand for them, to put the sale copies in the hand of a publisher. 



660. "Miscellaneous Collections,*' Vol. xxxii. This volume is made up of the 

 two works last mentioned, in the order, first, Clark's Table of Specific Gravity ; second, 

 Tuckermau's Bibliography of Spectroscopic Analysis. It forms au octavo volume of 

 855 pages. 



661. " Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington," Vols, ix, x. Contain- 

 ing the minutes of the society and of the mathematical section for the years 1886, 



1887, together with the proceedings of the Baird memorial meeting, held January 11, 



1888. The bulletin for these two years forms au octavo volume of 376 pages, embel- 

 lished with a phototype likeness of Professor Baird. 



662. "Miscellaneous Collections," Vol. xxxiii. This volume consists entirely of 

 the bulletins of the Philosophical Society of Washington, and is made up of No. 543. 

 Bulletin, Vol. vi, for the year 1883; No. 592, Bulletin, Vol. vii, for the year 1884 ; No. 

 636, Bulletin, Vol. viii, for the year 1885, and No. 661, just previously described, 

 Bulletin, Vol. ix, for 1886, and Vol. x, for 1887. The following note is appended to 

 the general table of contents on page 5: "With this volume (containing the last five 

 volumes of the biilletins of the Philosophical Society of Washington) is terminated 

 the re-issue of these proceedings in the series of Miscellaneous Collections. It may 

 be stated that volumes 1, 2, and 3 of these bulletins formed Vol. xx of the Miscella- 

 neous Collections; volumes 4 and 5 were included in Vol. xxv of the Miscellaneous 

 Collections; and, lastly, volumes 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, together with the Memorial Pro- 

 ceedings in honor of Professor Baird, and a full index of the whole ten volumes, con- 

 stitute the present Vol. xxxin of the Miscellaneous Collections." This last forms in 

 all an octavo volume of 910 pages, with sevca:al wood-cuta aad one plate portrait. 



