226 



NATURE 



{July \, 1889 



posed manifestation is of itself enough to secure its 

 success. Allow me, my dear colleague, to express my 

 feelings of affectionate devotion." 



AN INDEX TO SCIENCE. 



I HAVE lately received the " Sach Register" of the 

 Berichte dcr Deutsche7i Chemischcn Gesellschaft, 

 1868-87, in three volumes, indexing the twenty years of 

 publication (thirty-six volumes). The work is admirably 

 done, and is of inestimable value to the student of science 

 generally. German scientific men and scientific Socie- 

 ties are far in advance of the English in the art of making 

 the results of scientific research readily accessible. Wit- 

 ness the admirable " Bibliotheca Zoologica," by Engel- 

 mann and Carus, and still continued by Taschenberg ; 

 the " Sach Registers" to lAG-hig^s Aftnalen der Chemie, 

 1832-83, to Poggendorff's (now Wiedemann's) Annalen 

 der Physikund Chetme, 1824-87, and to the Journal fur 

 Praktische Chemte, 1833-87; and the " Repertorium 

 Commentationum a Societatibus litterariis editarum," by 

 Reuss, in sixteen quarto volumes, which last valuable 

 production covers the whole ground down to the end of 

 the last century. 



The fact is very suggestive with regard to the English 

 neglect of the scientific knowledge, experiment, and dis- 

 covery locked up in the long series of English scientific 

 journals to be found in our public libraries. The journals 

 have usually, but not always, a short index at the end of 

 each volume, obliging the student to occasionally spend 

 days and weeks in searching through the series for what 

 has been written on a subject he is investigating. The 

 volumes accumulate on the shelves, and the experiments 

 and investigations are repeated again and again. 



The Royal Society, with a lively sense of the necessity 

 for a remedy to the existing chaos, some twenty years 

 ago commenced, and continues at intervals the issue of 

 " A Catalogue of Scientific Papers contained in the 

 Transactions of Societies, Journals, and other Periodi- 

 cal Works from the Year 1800." It is an author-list, 

 and does not at all meet the requirements of the case. 

 It necessitates a knowledge, by the inquirer, of the 

 names of all the men who are likely to have written on 

 the subject of inquiry. Life is not long enough for this. 

 Librarians are occasionally of some assistance in the 

 matter, but they often fail. What occurred lately has 

 occurred to me often : I submitted to a chemist of some 

 note the records of experiments published in 1820, which 

 would have saved him many months of investigation of the 

 same subject if a reference to the previous work had been 

 accessible by index or by personal knowledge. It is the 

 experience of all men of science that days may be spent 

 in obtaining a reference to what may be read in five 

 minutes, usefully or uselessly. 



The Royal Society Catalogue originated from a sugges- 

 tion of the late Joseph Henry, the Director, for thirty 

 years, of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington) for 

 the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge, who said 

 ("Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," vol. xxi. p. 

 295):— 



" One of the most important means for facilitating the 

 use of libraries (particularly with reference to science) 

 is well-digested indexes of subjects, not merely referring 

 to volumes of books, but to memoirs, papers, and parts 

 of scientific transactions and systematic works. I know 

 of no richer gift which could be bestowed upon the 

 science of our own day than the provision of these. 

 Everyone who is desirous to enlarge the bounds of 

 human knowledge should, in justice to himself as well 

 as to the public, be acquainted with what has been pre- 

 viously done in the same line." 



Henry afterwards communicated with the British Asso- 

 ciation on the subject (in 1855). The Association appointed 



a Committee (Mr. Cayley, Mr. Grant, and Prof. Stokes), 

 who reported : — 



" The Committee are desirous of expressing their sense 

 of the great importance and increasing need of such a 

 Catalogue. . . . The Catalogue should not be restricted 

 to memoirs in Transactions of Societies, but should com- 

 prise, also, memoirs in the Proceedings of Societies, in 

 mathematical and scientific journals, &c. . . . The Cata- 

 logue should begin from the year 1800. There should be 

 a Catalogue according to the names of authors, and also 

 a Catalogue according to subjects" 



The Committee succeeded in interesting the Royal 

 Society of London in the undertaking, and that body 

 ultimately assumed the direction of the work. 



But they have achieved an instalment only of the 

 recommendation of the distinguished Committee at whose 

 suggestion they took action. They have produced an 

 author-list, but the " Catalogue according to subjects " is 

 wanting. All the subjects in the Royal Society's Catalogue 

 should be at once placed under a subject-heading as well 

 as under the author-heading in alphabetical arrangement, 

 as near a concordance as possible by means of cross- 

 references, and should be systematically continued and 

 published annually. What has been done by Mr. Poole, 

 of Chicago, for the great portion of English general 

 periodical literature in publishing a subject-list, al- 

 phabetically arranged, of the articles contributed to 

 238 periodicals from 1802-81, and to 141 periodicals 

 in the supplemental volume for 1882-87, should be done 

 for all the scientific publications. The principle of 

 the work is simple, and could be readily carried out. 

 " The main purpose of this (Poole's) work was to meet 

 the average wants of students, literary men, and writers 

 for the press — in other words, to help general scholars, who 

 are many, in preference to the few who give their whole 

 attention to a single topic." From an experience of 

 thirty-two years in libraries, I must say, with all due 

 deference to Mr. Poole, that a subject-index of the 

 scientific journals would be of vastly greater benefit to 

 the community — material benefit, if he pleases. I ought, 

 however, to add my meed of praise to the practical, 

 sensible, and sufficient way in which the work that he 

 attempted has been done. 



An attempt at remedying our great literary defect was 

 made by Robert Watt, 1819-24, when he added to the 

 two quarto volumes of an alphabetical list of 40,000 

 authors in his " Bibliotheca Britannica, or General Index 

 to British and Foreign Literature," an additional two 

 volumes of an index of subjects. This has all the disad- 

 vantages of a first attempt. The study of bibliography 

 was little known, and less cultivated, at the time. The 

 book is almost entirely out of date. A great deal more 

 may be said in favour of the combination of authors and 

 subjects in one general catalogue, as successfully achieved 

 by Lieutenant-Colonel Billings in the " Index Catalogue 

 of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, United 

 States Army," as far as the letter N, in nine volumes, 

 royal octavo. This is a specimen of cataloguing almost 

 perfect : every article, and every disease, and the com- 

 plications of every disease, with the various organs, 

 being catalogued and sub-catalogued with their cross- 

 references. 



The history of scientific research exhibits a continual 

 tendency towards specialization ; and as the sphere of the 

 labourer has become limited each area of research has 

 expanded, so that it has become essentially necessary 

 that every subdivision of knowledge should be digested 

 and arranged. With the co-operation of a few librarians, 

 a subject-catalogue of all scientific literature might be 

 readily undertaken by the Royal Society or the Society of 

 Arts, the publications contained in the British Museum 

 being marked by an asterisk or other sign. Or a system 

 similar to that of the "Smithsonian Catalogue of Scien- 

 tific and Technical Periodicals (1665-1882)" might be 



