836 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



Properly speaking, to " collate " is to compare 

 two things with each other, in order to estimate 

 or judge the one by a reference to the other taken 

 as a standard. In our library usage the word has 

 very nearly this sense when duplicate copies of 

 the same work are collated, to see whether they 

 coincide page for page. But as we currently use 

 the word, to collate a book is simply to examine 

 it carefully from beginning to end, to see whether 

 every page is in its proper place and properly 

 numbered, whether any maps or plates are miss- 

 ing or misplaced, whether the back is correctly 

 lettered, or whether any leaves are so badly torn 

 or defaced as to need replacing. In English cloth-, 

 bound books this scrutiny involves the cutting of 

 the leaves, a tedious job which in half -bound 

 books from the Continent is seldom required. En 

 revanche, however, the collating of an English 

 book hardly ever brings to light any serious de- 

 fect, while in the make-up of French and German 

 books the grossest blunders are only too common. 

 Figures are unaccountably skipped in numbering 

 the pages; plates are either omitted or are so 

 bunglingly numbered that it is hard to discover 

 whether the quota is complete or not ; title-pages 

 are inserted in the wrong places ; sheets are 

 wrongly folded, bringing the succession of pages 



