276 RECORD OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 



(afterwards Sir George Gabriel) Stokes ; and their report was presented next 

 year at the Cheltenham meeting of the Association. The scheme set forth in 

 this report was that of a catalogue embracing only the mathematical and 

 physical sciences, but comprising a subject catalogue as well as a catalogue 

 according to the names of authors. There were to be paid editors, 'familiar 

 with the several great branches respectively of the sciences to which the 

 catalogue relates, 1 and the work was to include, besides Transactions and 

 Proceedings of Societies, journals, ephemerides, volumes of observations, and 

 other collections not coming under any of the preceding heads \ 



In this form the scheme came before the Royal Society in March 1857, 

 General Sabine having requested, on the part of the British Association, the 

 co-operation of the Society in the undertaking. The scheme, after discussion, 

 was narrowed to a manuscript catalogue, the question of printing being 

 deferred ; it was to be a catalogue of periodical works in the Royal Society's 

 library only ; the suggested American co-operation, moreover, was dispensed 

 with, and the work was undertaken at the Society's own charge. In one impor- 

 tant respect, however, the scheme was greatly widened ; for the idea of confining 

 the catalogue to the mathematical and physical sciences, which had been put 

 forward in the report to the British Association, was abandoned, and it was 

 decided 'that all the sciences should be comprehended'. The tentative 

 restrictions were, of course, finally relaxed. It was resolved to extend the 

 indexing to works contained in other libraries but not in the library of the 

 Royal Society ; and in 1864, when the question of printing had to be deter- 

 mined, it was decided to offer the Catalogue to Government for publication. 



The cost to the Society of compiling the material for the first series of the 

 Catalogue was considerable, and many of the Fellows had spent no small 

 amount of time, not only in superintending the progress of the work at home, 

 but in corresponding with Academies abroad, with the view of making the list 

 of serials to be catalogued as complete as might be. It was therefore with 

 good reason that the Lords of the Treasury, in resolving to print the Catalogue 

 at the public expense, stated that they had regard ' to the importance of the 

 work, with reference to the promotion of scientific knowledge generally, to the 

 high authority of the source from which it comes, and to the labour gratuitously 

 given by members of the Royal Society for its production '. The printing of 

 this first series of the Catalogue, covering the scientific serials from the year 

 1800 to 1863, was commenced by the Stationery Office in 1866, seven Fellows 

 of the Royal Society undertaking to read the proof-sheets gratuitously. The 

 sixth and last volumes of the series, completing the alphabet, were issued 

 in 1872. 



An additional decade of serials, embracing the years 1864-73, containing 

 about 90,000 titles, and filling two additional quarto volumes (vols. 7 and 8), 

 was completed in January 1876, and published by Her Majesty's Stationery 

 Office in 1879. But a difficulty now arose from the fact that the Treasury 



