PROMOTION OF ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC DISCOVERY. 319 



subject catalogue sliould be prepared, and the services of Dr. Murie 

 were secured, to work at it under tlie control of Dr. Mill. He bas since 

 given the society the benefit of bis remarkably wide knowledge of 

 geography and travel, and of his rare perseverance and organizing 

 ability. The three essentials of this catalogue are that it is to be 

 exhaustive, systematic, and exclusively geographical, many works in 

 the library that are not geographical appearing only iu the authors 

 catalogue. A subject catalogue fulfilling these conditions will be an 

 invalual)le contril)ution to geography, serving as a guide to all workers 

 in all parts of the Avorld, as well as rendering the contents of the library 

 accessible to fellows. It involves enormous labor. All the titles of 

 books and pamphlets iu the printed catalogues, numbering 18,000, have 

 been cut out and classified; and all transactions and periodicals have 

 been rearranged. Dr. Murie calculates that the number of titles of 

 papers in periodicals will amount to 84,000; so that the complete cata- 

 logue will comprise about 110,000 titles, occupying 5,000 octavo pages 

 of print. Dr. Murie is now i)ut upon his metal to complete the work 

 in not more than two years. 



Dr. Mill gave a new form to the bibliography in tlie Journal when it 

 was commenced last year. It was made to include not only books and 

 separate pamphlets, but all the longer geographical papers which 

 appeared in the periodicals received in the library. Thus an analysis 

 of current geographical work is presented each month. From these 

 notices a subject card catalogue has been compiled since June, 1892, 

 divided into continents and subdivided into countries and provinces, 

 the arrangement being assisted by the use of differently colored cards. 

 As it is kept up to date, this card catalogue forms an appendix to the 

 great subject catalogue. 



As soon as the alphabetical catalogue is finished I intend to estab- 

 lish two desiderata books — one for fellows to enter any book they may 

 have asked for which is not in the library, and the other to contain a 

 complete list of works which are wanting" to make our library perfect. 



I am very anxious that the accommodation for readers should be 

 improved and that they should be made more comfortable, in order 

 that their numbers may increase and that more use may be made of 

 the library. Several suggestions have been made with this object in 

 view from time to time, and now the question of either improving and 

 enhirging the accommodation in our present house or of buying other 

 premises is occupying the very serious attention of the council. 

 Momentous financial and other questions are involved, and the subject 

 is one which calls for most careful consideration. It will not be decided 

 hurriedly, and no irremediable step will be taken without the consent 

 of the fellows of the society assembled at a special general meeting. 

 At the same time a final decision is rather pressing, as all the work is 

 kept in an unsettled state until it is known whether we are to remainin 

 our i)resent house or to go elsewhere. For instance, the press marking 



