List of Writings ox Determixants. 155 



4. The order of arrangement of the titles is meant to be the 

 order of their dates, and this not merely so far as the year is con- 

 cerned, but the month as well. It has to be noted, however, that 

 such accuracy is far from being completely attainable, and will never 

 be attainable until there is some general agreement made anrl acted 

 upon as to the mode of dating scientific writings in all the different 

 mediums of publication. 



In the domain of mathematics these mediums are practically 

 not more than four in number, viz. : (i) The serial publications of 

 .societies; (2) publications of the magazine class; (3) books and 

 pamphlets separately published ; (4) school-programms and university- 

 dissertations. In regard to the first of these it would seem desirable 

 that every printed paper should bear the date of its receipt by the 

 .secretary of the society, or the date of its presentation to the societ}-, 

 or both dates; and, further, that the fasciculus of the society's pub- 

 lication which contains the paper should bear the date of its issue 

 to the public. Some of the leading societies already comply with 

 all these requirements ; most societies comply in part ; but, strange 

 to say, there are still laggarrls whose publications have only a year- 

 date on the title-page of each volume — a year-date which very pro- 

 bably is not appropriate to even a minority of the papers which the 

 volume contains. 



In the case of magazines, journals, etc.. there is still more 

 variety and more carelessness than in the case of the serials of 

 societies. The best editors print at the end of each paper the date 

 placed there by the author, and in addition print on the cover of 

 •each fasciculus the date of its issue. Such editors, however, are 

 few in number: and, unfortunately, some of those in England are 

 among the worst, the authors date being almost invariably awant- 

 ing. and the month mentioned on the cover being often quite mis- 

 leading. 



Books and pamphlets sometimes bear two dates, the day-date 

 at the end of the preface and the year-date on the title-page : the 

 date of actual issue to the public is almost never ascertainable from 

 the book itself, and e.xceedingly diflficult to obtain othenvise. 



Degree-dissertations and the papers contained in school-pro- 

 gramms usually bear the date of the occasion on which thev were 

 "held up to honour, and. like other separate publications, bear "a year- 

 date on the title-page. They show no exact date of publication, 

 and there is the further difficulty that they are not catalogued in the 

 ordinary dated bibliographies issued for the informarion of book- 

 sellers. 



5. In the great majority of cases the language of the printed 

 title given in the following list is the language in which the pap^r 

 originally appeared. When a different course is taken an English 

 translation of the title is given, and for distinction's sake is enclose<i 

 in brackets. The languages which have been thus treated are Rus- 

 sian, Polish, Hungarian. Czech, and others less commonlv known. 

 When there is no title in the original, an English title descriptive of 

 the contents is given and enclosed in the same wav. 



