CENTEALISING SCIENTIFIC PEEIODICALS 409 



while to meet the ensuing expenses of reform, whether in 

 publications or keep of library, MSS., and collections, £1000 

 was promptly raised among the Fellows, which * showed the 

 vitality there was in the old trunk.' 



The position of the Society was still further improved 

 in 1856. A great stir had been made * to get Govt, to 

 give us Burlington House as a site for the five chartered 

 Societies who promote abstract Science.' Now^ the Treasury 

 granted the Linnean apartments in Burlington House, w^hither 

 the Koyal and the Chemical went also, while the Geological 

 and Astronomical refused to move from Somerset House. 



Now that the Linnean was placed in juxtaposition with 

 the Eoyal and on an equal footing as regards position and all 

 other outward matters, it only needed a little active aid from 

 its members to raise it to its former position, and Hooker 

 was indefatigable in stirring up his fellow botanists to contri- 

 i™bute papers. As he wrote to Harvey (November 1856) : 



I have always considered that the service it rendered to 

 science between 1790 and 1830, by purchasing the Linnsean 

 collections at its own cost (for £3000), and by publishing 

 gratis to its fellows 20 quarto illustrated volumes of important 

 matter that could never else have seen light, were claims 

 enough upon every man of science to support it. 



But the resuscitation of the Linnean Society was only a 

 step towards a larger scientific object. This was to induce 

 Naturalists to concentrate their publications into well-estab- 

 lished periodicals and if possible to check the indiscriminate 

 scattering of their papers in numerous journals, many of 

 which were virtually locked to science. It was a most serious 

 evil, and he adds roundly, * The number of badly edited and 

 badly supported journals is quite incredible, and the present 

 practice of cramming Zoological and Botanical researches 

 into one periodical increases the evil many-fold.' Not that 

 the reformers had any intention of interfering with the pro- 

 vincial societies or Natural History journals, albeit true of 

 some that vehement exertions w^hip them into a spirited 

 beginning, only to fall away soon and remain burthens upon 



