October 26, 1893] 



NA TURE 



6n 



We leave our readers to form their own opinions upon 

 conclusions Nos. 2 and 3. It is a pity they are to 

 be found in " Alolesworth,'' because they may lead students 

 and others to form the opinion that these most important 

 details are matters of no consequence. The compound 

 locomotive naturally is included in the new matter added 

 to this edition, andbeingof great interest to all connected 

 with railways, we expected to find the subject thoroughly 

 up to date. In this we are disappointed ; two-thirds of 

 a page is considered ample space to discuss this im- 

 portant question, the other third being taken up with a 

 few lines on American locomotive practice ! American 

 locomotive engineers do not consider the two-cylinder 

 arrangement for compounding "most suitable," nor does 

 Mr. F. W. Webb, the able locomotive superintendent of 

 the L. and N.W. Railway. Surely these two subjects are 

 worthy of more space and better treatment. 



On p. 466 we notice a formula having reference to 

 the blast pipe of locomotive engines, applying in par- 

 ticular to the exhaustive power of the pipe, as the efficiency 

 of a blast pipe seems to depend more on its vertical 

 position in the smokebox than on anything else. This 

 fact might have been noted with advantage. 



The rule given on p. 499 for the safe load on locomotive 

 springs, by Mr. D. K. Clark, is found to be rather exces- 

 sive ; the constant 11 "3 can be increased with advantage 

 to 15, the result thus obtained being the actual load to 

 be carried. Notwithstanding these few weaknesses, 

 Molesworth's Pocket-Book is,without doubt, incomparably 

 the best of its kind ; and so accustomed have engineers, 

 and particularly draughtsmen, become to the continual 

 use of this valuable book that most of them would be now 

 really lost without it. 



This book is clearly and well printed, nicely got up, 

 and is a credit to all concerned in its publication. 



THE AMERICAN CATALOGUE OF MEDICAL 

 LITER A TURE. 



Index Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-GeneraV s 

 Office U.S. Army. Vol. xii. (Reger — Shuttleworth), 

 pp. 1004, 1892, and vol. xiii. (Sialogogues — Sutugin), 

 pp. 1005. Imp. 8vo. Washington, (Government 

 Printing Office, 1S93.) 



IT is a great pleasure to all who are interested in 

 any form of library or literature to observe how 

 punctually, year by year, these magnificent volumes 

 appear, and show in a very practical way how American 

 enterprise can deal with old-world questions of gathering 

 together and keeping up a collection of books that is 

 superior in its own department to any other, and which 

 has been got together in little more than thirty years. 

 What is framed as an Index Catalogue of the Library of 

 the Surgeon-General's Office at Washington constitutes 

 in effect a dictionary of all medical and surgical litera- 

 ture, ancient and modern, with very few lacuna ; the 

 entries under authors' headings have now reached 240,007, 

 and under subject-headings 539,927 ; and the attempt 

 which at first sight may well have seemed too ambitious 

 — viz. to catalogue under subject-headings all the signed 

 articles which touch on medicine which exist in the 

 periodical publications of all languages, as well as to cross- 

 NO. T252, VOL. 48] 



catalogue all medical books and pamphlets of the world 

 under both author and subject-headings— has turned out 

 perfectly successful. In the first eleven volumes there 

 were mentioned 3,929 periodical publications which were 

 thus treated ; in the two more volumes which are before 

 us there are 341 additions, and though some of the older 

 ones may have died out, yet the labour remaining is ob- 

 viously no light one. The thirteenth volume brings us within 

 sight of the end, and it is probable that two years more 

 may finish the first edition of the catalogue ; yet it cannoi 

 but be that some provision, by supplement or otherwise, 

 must be made for the literature which during fifteen years 

 has been accumulating under the headings of the earlier 

 volumes, and some arrangement must be made for the 

 literature of the future. From the monthly issues of the 

 hiclex Medicus,\-i\i\Qh\z a catalogue issued by Mr. Billings, 

 on similarlines, of purely contemporary medical literature 

 we may estimate that the sum total of titles of additions 

 to the world's medical literature would amount to about 

 one such volume as the present every three years, which 

 leaves us no doubt that the successors to Mr. Billings, the 

 present librarian, will have occasion for all the indomitable 

 activity and accuracy he has shown. In the twelfth 

 volume, considerable use in various quarters has enabled 

 us to find only one trifling misprint of a well-known 

 physician's initials (xii. 449), but accuracy in such details 

 is indispensable when we have to do with 136 authors of 

 the name of Richter, 227 of the name of Smith, and 240 

 of the name of Schmidt. The student may be over- 

 whelmed at first by the 39 imperial 8vo. pages that are 

 required for a closely-printed catalogue of the titles 

 of the literature of scarlet fever, but he will find that 46 

 pages are needed for rheumatism, 63 for small-pox, and 

 102 for surgery. Under these large headings the sub- 

 indexing is excellent. The great importance of such a 

 classification under subject-headings should never be lost 

 sight of in a catalogue which deals mainly with matters 

 of observation and natural science, for, in a large majority 

 of cases, the importance of the record depends more on 

 the observation than on the observer, and the student for 

 whom all these volumes are such an invaluable help to 

 knowledge is much more likely to be wishing to pursue 

 an inquiry on a particular subject, regardless of those 

 who wrote on it, than to trace out the works of a parti- 

 cular author regardless of what he wrote upon. However, 

 Mr. Billings is extremely liberal to him, and gives him 

 an excellent chance of doing both, of seeing all the vast 

 mass of signed periodical literature as well as the books 

 written on the particular subject, and also of seeing a list 

 of all that each author has written with the exception of 

 the articles in periodical literature that he has not re- 

 published, and he will find that many authors have 

 republished in pamphlet form all that is worth reading. 



The task of classification under subject-headings of all 

 literature, both periodical and other, has been felt too 

 enormous for any first-rate general library, and, so far as 

 we know, has only been attempted by the Germans over 

 comparatively small branches of knowledge, e.g. Cams 

 and Engelmann's Verzeichniss der Scriften iiber Zoologie 

 welche in der feriodische Werken enthalten. The Royal 

 Society's " Catalogue of the Scientific Papers contained 

 in the Scientific Periodicals" (8 vols. 4to) contained only 

 a list under authors' headings of the publications between 



