18 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Vol. XXVI, 1919 



of government and more or less intimately connected with that 

 government. Our Proceedings are in a way public and official docu- 

 ments, since the State provides for their publication and it is perhaps 

 somewhat more convenient for a public official to attend to their 

 publication. The work has also been a very pleasant and enlighten- 

 ing one and it is not at all with the wish of shirking an unpleasant 

 duty that these statements are made. But the necessity for a change 

 is nonetheless urgent. This change must take the form, as pre- 

 viously suggested, either of the chosing of another editor who shall 

 have more time to devote to the work, or the assumption of more 

 responsibility by the authors of the papers to be published. This 

 latter alternative will be easy if each author will do his share. By 

 this I mean that in the first place he exercise the greatest care in 

 the preparation of his manuscript. I wish that each one of you 

 might have on your desks the little booklet issued by the United 

 States Geological Survey entitled Suggestions to Authors. This 

 contains many hints and discussions which are of value to writers 

 on any subject whatever and it is accepted as standard by the 

 Iowa Geological Survey except in a few points wherein the Sur- 

 vey's practice of long standing has been different. The general use 

 of such a book as this would tend much to lighten the work of the 

 editor. You will all agree I am sure that it is not fair for a writer 

 to send in a paper which must be read twice by the editor before it 

 can be sent to the printer, or one which must be sent back to be 

 typewritten or to be couched in more grammatical form. And yet 

 such cases are not unknown to the editorial sanctvun. In the second 

 place papers must be brief. I have mentioned this repeatedly and 

 will pass it by here with the statement of fact. 



Heretofore the editor has followed the practice of reading the 

 galley proof, then sending it, with copy, to the author, and later 

 reading the page proof. This plan places the responsibility for 

 the correctness of the paper with the author, but means a great deal 

 of work for the editor. One way in which the authors can assist 

 will be by reading the page proof, thus leaving only one proof 

 reading for the editor. Even this leaves a great amount of work 

 which must be done by the editor. 



Ill the matter of illustrations also there is room for improvement. 

 if authors will carefully plan the arrangement of the illustrations 

 in their papers and will see that they are economically and suitably 

 i,M()upe(l a great deal of unsatisfactory work will be spared the 

 editor and the authors will be better pleased with the results. This 



