AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 45 



have been contributed by each individual; we have doubtless 

 included in this number some few articles republished from 

 foreign Journals but we think they are even more than coun- 

 terbalanced by original communications without a name and by 

 editorial articles, both of which have been generally omitted in 

 the enumeration. 



Of smaller articles and notices in the Miscellany, we have not 

 made any enumeration, but they evidently are more numerous 

 than the regular articles, and we presume that they may amount 

 to at least 2500. 



Of party, either in politics or religion, there is no trace in 

 our work; of personalities there are none, except those that 

 relate to priority of claims or other rights of individuals. Of 

 these vindications the number is not great, and we could heartily 

 have wished that there had been no occasion for any. 



General Scope of Articles. Many references will be 

 found in the chapters following which throw light upon 

 the character and scope of the papers published in the 

 Journal, particularly in its early years ; a few additional 

 statements here may, however, prove of interest. 



One feature that is especially noticeable is the frequent 

 publication of articles planned to place before the read- 

 ers of the Journal in full detail subjects to which they 

 might not otherwise have access. These are sometimes 

 translations; sometimes republications of articles that 

 had already appeared in English periodicals; again, 

 they are exhaustive and critical reviews of important 

 memoirs or books. The value of this feature in the early 

 history of the Journal, when the distribution of scientific 

 literature had nothing of the thoroughness characteristic 

 of recent years, is sufficiently obvious. 



It is also interesting to note the long articles of geo- 

 logical description and others giving lists of mineral or 

 botanical localities. Noteworthy, too, is the attempt to 

 keep abreast of occurring phenomena as in the many 

 notes on tornadoes and storms by Bedfield, Loomis, etc. ; 

 on auroras at different localities ; on shooting stars by 

 Herrick, Olmstead and others. 



The wide range of topics treated of is quite in accord- 

 ance with the plan of the editor as given on an earlier 

 page. Some notes, taken more or less at random, may 

 serve to illustrate this point. An extended and quite 



