370 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



For to keep such a quantity of printer's metal 

 lying idle year after year would of itself entail 

 great trouble and expense. The plates would 

 take up a great deal of room and would need to 

 be kept in a fire-proof building ; and the interest 

 lost each year on the value of the metal would by 

 and by amount to a formidable sum. It is per- 

 haps doubtful whether, in the long run, anything 

 would be saved by this cumbrous method. Pos- 

 sibly unless some future heliographic invention 

 should turn to our profit the least expensive 

 way, after all, may be to print at long intervals, 

 without stereotyping, and to depend throughout 

 the intervals on card-supplements. But this ques- 

 tion, like many others suggested by the formi- 

 dable modern growth of literature, is easier to 

 ask than to answer. 



In this hasty sketch many points connected with 

 a librarian's work remain unmentioned. But in 

 a brief paper like this, one cannot expect to give 

 a complete account of a subject embracing so 

 many details. As it is, I hope I have not wearied 

 the reader in the attempt to show what a libra- 

 rian finds to do with his time. 



November, 1875. 



