September 8, 192 1] 



NATURE 



41 



with F. casertaniim. In Cwm Clyd on Y Garn, in 

 Korth Wales, I have taken P. casertaniim within a 

 few yards of P. clessini, but the former was in a 

 shallow swamp which warmed up in the summer, 

 while the latter was living in the very cold water of 

 Llyn Clyd. A. VV, Stelfox. 



National Museum, Dublin. 



Scientific Publication. 



There is at present much discussion of the diflRcul- 

 5 of scientific publishing, and such discussion with 

 sultant action is necessary, for there are few, if 

 any, signs of reduction in printing costs, and the out- 

 put of manuscript is steadily increasing. Societies 

 j issuing journals cannot meet their expenses unless the 

 j present high subscriptions are maintained, or in many 

 II cases increased, and most of us can w^ith difficulty 

 j withstand the present drain upon our resources, and 

 ; certainly cannot afford another penny in this direc- 

 i tion. There would seem to be three alternatives 

 before us. One is to ask each author to pay for or 

 subsidise the publication of his own paper. This in 

 many cases is financialh' impossible, and in any event 

 introduces a whole series of new and very difficult 

 problems, which renders it an extremely undesirable 

 solution. The second is to reorganise our scientific 

 societies and publishing boards with a lumping 

 together of transactions, journals, annals, etc., and a 

 consequent cheapening of direction and production.- 

 This is, to my way of thinking, the obvious solution, 

 but few seem to agree thereon. The third method is 

 to make a radical change in the format of our 

 scientific journals, with or \vithout an alteration in 

 the existing structural relations of the learned socie- 

 ties. This is the substance of the present "letter. 



Perhaps there are two main reasons why people 

 write scientific papers : first, that the authors really 

 believe that their work will help forward the pro- 

 gress of science ; and, secondly, that, having spent 

 one or more years investigating a problem, thev 

 naturallv wish to justify their time to themselves and 

 their colleagues, to keep their names before the scien- 

 tific public, and to give a basis for promotion in the 

 scientific hierarchy. The memoirs are very stereo- 

 typed, being written in moderate detail with selected, 

 and occasionally digested, original matter, and rounded 

 off with a little summary ; and so the ver\- necessary, 

 and more ignoble, aim is achieved. But is this time- 

 honoured method of scientific publication really the 

 best way to advance science? Moreover, in these 

 stringent post-war days can we really afford, both 

 financially and scientifically, to continue unaltered 

 in our pre-war habits? Can we expect to publish our 

 papersof pre-war length in pre-war style, or must we 

 recognise that times have changed and modify our 

 scientific ways and our journals accordingly? 



What, after all, is the fate of a technical research 

 paper in, let us say, botanical science? So many 

 papers are published that it is a sheer impossibilitv- 

 to read more than a tithe. Moreover, the various 

 aspects of botany are so specialised that the memoirs 

 from one branch are not very intelligible to workers 

 in other branches, or at the best do not arouse any 

 great enthusiasm. In consequence, when a journal 

 is published, many botanists just glance through the 

 contents (who has not done this?), and if nothing 

 catches their eye the journal is returned to the shelf ; 

 others read the summaries and are content ; whilst a 

 few, a very few, read carefully through the entire 

 journal, or, more usually, through some particular 

 memoir. Again, a morphologist reading, shall we 

 say, a physiological paper is often lost in the data 



NO. 2706, VOL. 108] 



and formulae, and longs for a clear-cut statement of 

 what it is ail about ; and a physiolc^ist reading the 

 same memoir sighs sceptically over the abbreviated 

 tables and graphs, and wishes to see more of the 

 original figures and experimental details. The posi- 

 tion is, in fact, that for the great majority of us all 

 that is really necessary or useful is a very full sum- 

 mary or a precis of the paper — unless we happen to 

 be one of the dozen or so investigators of like or 

 cognate problems, when what we really need is a 

 much more detailed presentation of the original 

 matter. The present method, tr\ing to please everj-- 

 body, satisfies no one. 



Now what I would say is this. Let us face reality, 

 and let us quite frankly recognise — as sooner or later 

 we shall be compelled to recognise— the financial 

 limitations of our pockets and the space limita- 

 tions of our periodicals. If we are to cater for 

 the specialist, let us do it properly and write up our 

 investigations in great detail with full original data, 

 both negative and positive. Then very few re- 

 searches can be published, for a journal could con- 

 tain only one or two; and we should depend for our 

 general literature, as of course we do now, on ab- 

 stracting journals. If we are single-minded, and 

 consider only the progress of knowledge, * there is 

 much to be said for this plan, for most of us admit 

 that two-thirds of the scientific papers published are 

 merelv records of time spent, and have no permanent, 

 and little (if any) temporary, value in the advance- 

 ment of learning. 



The alternative plan, and perhaps the more 

 feasible, is to retain the scientific journals for the 

 general scientific public and delete the long and verv 

 technical portions of the memoirs. The journals 

 would then contain a number of ver\' full summaries, 

 the real essence of the studies, with the minimum 

 of original data necessary for their comprehension. 

 This would mean that the essential results of inves- 

 tigations could be produced much more rapidly, and 

 this, with the volume of manuscript awaiting pub- 

 lication, would be advantageous; and, secondly, that 

 the results would become much more widely known, 

 being more readable. Further, in the majority of 

 cases, owing to the elimination of expensive tables 

 and plates (in any case most plates are, except in 

 very special cases, a sheer anachronism and luxury in 

 these days), the costs of production would be reduced 

 by more than one-half, and this — there is no use 

 blinking the fact — is for most of us a verj- material 

 consideration indeed. 



With regard to the full results of the investigations 

 for specialist purposes, I would suggest that these be 

 written up in the greatest detail, incorporating the 

 essential working notes^ so that anyone repeating the 

 work could find in the memoir everv* required datum. 

 These memoirs, together with the original drawings 

 and photographs, type-slides, and specimens, would 

 then be filed for reference in a kind of Somerset 

 House for scientific records. This might be a central 

 institution, as the British Museum, or preferably a 

 decentralised scheme would be adopted, and botanical 

 memoirs filed at Kew, zoological ones at the Natural 

 History Museum, chemical ones at the Institute of 

 Chemistry, and so forth. Ver\' Important papers 

 much in demand might be mimeographed, or dupli- 

 cated by photography or some other cheap process, 

 and copies purchased at cost price by the principal 

 research laboratories, or in special cases the originals 

 could be sent to responsible investigators. These and 

 many other elaborations could be adumbrated. 



The above is the merest suggestion of what I can- 

 not help thinking Is a feasible scheme that would go 



