them a reader can tell with assurance whether 

 the article deals with anything of interest to 

 him. It is well known that one can not rely 

 upon the author's title alone, for many articles 

 contain incidental information or a variety 

 of information which a short title can not 

 fully describe. The first and last articles ab- 

 stracted above are good instances of this fact. 

 On the other hand, the subtitles of this type 

 of abstract, since they may be as numerous 

 as is necessary, can give in all cases the pre- 

 cise scope of the information contained in the 

 article; in particular they can call attention 

 to incidental results whose presence would not 

 be suspected from the title, such as the data 

 relating to the occlusion of oxygen given in 

 the article on the atomic weight of iodine. 



Besides providing a complete index in the 

 form of subtitles, the abstracts are required 

 to describe the new information with sufficient 

 precision and to summarize the results with 

 sufficient completeness and in sufficient de- 

 tail to satisfy the needs of the great majority 

 of readers. Each abstract should be a care- 

 fully prepared report on the contributions to 

 scientific knowledge set forth in the article, by 

 a scientist who feels his responsibility to his 

 scientific colleagues to make it complete and 

 accurate. 



But why go to the trouble of preparing such 

 abstracts? Why not let each reader glance 

 through each article and determine what it 

 contains for himself ? Because for each scien- 

 tist to do his own abstracting, as this would 

 amount to, is as wasteful as for each to pre- 

 pare his own indexes of the reference books 

 he uses ; it means not only an unnecessary du- 

 plication of effort but, worse still, a poor 

 quality of abstracting, in most cases. Then 

 there is to be considered the waste involved in 

 the simultaneous abstracting of each article by 



