Physical Sciences, but should not include Natural History, Physiology, Geology, 

 Mineralogy, or Chemistry, which, it was suggested, would properly form the subject- 

 matter of one or more distinct Catalogues ; further, that the Catalogue should not be 

 restricted to Memoirs in the Transactions of Societies, but should comprise also 

 Papers in other Periodical Publications, and that it should begin with the year 1800. 



In March 1857, General SABINE, then Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal 

 Society, brought the matter before the President and Council of that body, and 

 requested, on the part of the British Association, the co-operation of the Royal 

 Society in the project; whereupon a Committee* was appointed, "to take into 

 " further consideration the formation of such a Catalogue, and to report to the 

 " Council on the precise mode of preparing and dealing with the manuscript, and 

 " on the probable cost of getting it ready for the Press." 



In June of the same year that Committee presented a preliminary Report, in 

 which, besides entering into various particulars, they recommended that the main 

 publication should be a " Serial Index," that is, a list of the Papers in each Series 

 of Transactions, Journals, or other Periodical Works, put down in the order in 

 which they occur in the several Volumes ; and that to this, other Indexes should 

 be attached, an Index of Authors' names certainly, and a classified Index of 

 Subjects, if it could be done. In regard to the matter to be included, the Report 

 agreed substantially with that presented to the British Association. 



No further step was taken by the British Association, or by the Royal Society in 

 co-operation with that body ; but the President and Council of the Royal Society, 

 acting on the recommendations contained in a Report of lihe Library Committee, 

 dated 7th January 1858, resolved that the preparation of a Catalogue of Scientific 

 Memoirs should be undertaken by the Royal Society independently, and at the 

 Society's own charge. It was then also determined not to limit the scope of the 

 Catalogue to Physics and Mathematics, as had been contemplated, but to extend 

 it to all the branches of Natural Knowledge for the promotion of which the Royal 

 Society was instituted, excluding matter of a purely technical or professional 

 character. 



* The Committee consisted of Mr. Cayley, Professor De Morgan, Mr. Graham, Mr. R. Grant, Professor 

 W. II. Miller, and Professor Stokes. 



