Vlll PREFACE* 



he has fallen. This is the entry of the publications of institutions 

 under the place of publication indicated on the title page (excepting in 

 institutions having no fixed head-quarters — when they appear at the 

 head of the country) rather than under the place where the institutions 

 are established, the latter receiving only a cross-reference. Usually of 

 course the two coincide ; the place of publication was chosen because 

 that can always be learned from the bibliographies ; but the place of 

 location would so rarely be uncertain, as to give little trouble. 



The plan here adopted, of entering all serial publications, independ- 

 ent or otherwise, under the place of publication (or location) seems far 

 better than of arranging them by the first words of the title. For 

 societies the first plan only can be defended. For independent 

 journals it is also better : first, to secure uniformity in the mode of 

 entering all serial publications, and because it is often difficult to de- 

 cide whether a journal is independent or not ; and second, because- of 

 the time required to pass the eye over all the various '• journaux," 

 " zeitschriften " or " magazines " to find the one sought ; while in the 

 abbreviated form in which these appear in the index of titles this 

 is far easier and answers every alphabetical purpose. There is 

 also the advantage that one may see at a glance how prolific the dif- 

 ferent book-marts have been, or how enterprising the publishers or 

 editors in some small countiy town. In the case of journals or soci- 

 eties which have changed their location, the plan has been followed, 

 either of giving, under each place, the part relating to each, with ref- 

 erences back and forth ; or of entering the whole under the place of 

 first location and referring back from the later. This will account for 

 the large number of cross-references, of which it did not seem possi- 

 ble to be too lavish in a printed work of this nature. 



Necessarily this catalogue is in large measure a compilation. Years 

 of labor and prolonged visits to a hundred European libraries would 

 not suffice barely to verify at first hand all the titles here colleeted. 

 How much longer to select them from the general mass of literature 

 one would best not estimate until he has himself made the experi- 

 ment. Although undertaken in the first instance from a personal 

 want, scared equally by my colleagues in scientific work, a growing 

 appreciation of the magnitude of the unwonted task would still have 

 deterred me from its completion, had I not received, in man}' cases 

 from strangers, such generous assistance and encouragement. 



No pains, however, have been spared to secure accuracy. Many, 

 perhaps most, titles have been procured by the examination of at 

 least a dozen references ; and where these conflicted, and when the 

 originals could not be examined, the search was continued in biblio- 

 graphical sources. Of printed documents, the list may be said to be 

 based upon the well-known bibliographical works of Dryonder, 

 Calliscn, Cams and Engelmann, Agassiz and Strickland, Poggendorff, 

 tiie Smithsonian Catalogue, and the lists prefixed to the different vol- 



