CORRESPONDENCE WITH SCIENTIFIC MEN. 55 



he should choose to place in the hands of his pupils. My 

 third edition received its first approval from you five months 

 after its appearance. 



With respect to publishing any part of my letter of No 

 vember last, I really do not recollect on what subject it was 

 that I made any observations worth a place in your Journal. 

 I might immediately recollect if the subject was named. . . 



FROM MR. BAKE WELL. 



HAMPSTEAD, July 16, 1834. 



I AM sorry to observe that you have to tell your 



readers that your Journal fails in subscribers. I have no 

 hesitation in asserting that it possesses much more inter 

 esting matter than any of our English scientific journals 

 which, as you justly observe, are on the decline in number, 

 and I may add in value. If your Journal declines in sale, 

 I will freely tell you the cause, you do not endeavor to 

 make it sufficiently suitable to the market you have to 

 supply. You are more anxious to obtain the approbation 

 of a few scientific readers, than to excite and gratify the 

 curiosity of those who are most in want of information. 

 This is a rock on which our best journalists and lecturers 

 generally strike. They think only to please the few pur 

 chasers who are full and disregard the many purchasers 

 who are empty and hungry. 



William Nicholson began the first Scientific Journal in 

 England about 1800. He was a superior man, and in many 

 respects well qualified for such an undertaking, but he 

 aimed too high for the then state of information, and Mr. 

 Tilloch, greatly his inferior, began the " Philosophical Mag 

 azine," conveying much information, useful to artisans, sur 

 veyors, and half-informed people, and he soon took the 

 lead in the sale very much. I knew them both ; the latter 

 had few pretensions to science. Our present Journals are 

 sleeping, trading concerns, borrowing from foreign Journals 



