28o Edward Livins'ston Youmans. 



i3- 



As these works are designed to address the unscientific 

 public, they will require to be thoroughly explanatory and 

 expository in character. It is hoped to secure in this series 

 the greatest freedom from technicalities and the utmost 

 simplicity of style compatible with clearness and precision 

 of scientific presentation. The form of publication pro- 

 posed is that of handbooks of from two hundred to three 

 hundred pages, about four hundred words to a page. They 

 will be issued in uniform style, with some suitable title 

 for the series. Illustrations will be employed wherever 

 needful. 



The subjects treated being of equal interest to people 

 of different countries, it is proposed to organize the under- 

 taking upon an international basis. The proposition comes 

 from the United States, which will give efficient support to 

 such an enterprise. That country now contains a popula- 

 tion of nearly forty millions, eminently a reading and book- 

 buying people. Education is extending and improving 

 among them, and the interest in science, especially in its 

 progressive aspects, is also becoming more earnest and 

 general. There are good grounds for believing, therefore, 

 that such a scheme of publications as that now contem- 

 plated — essentially popular and carrying the weight of 

 authoritative names — would have an extensive American 

 patronage, and would become a powerful agency of public 

 education. 



To secure the international advantages of such a series 

 of books to English authors, they will be produced by 

 London publishers who will pay the most liberal rates. 

 Duplicate stereotype plates will then be taken for reprint- 

 ing in the United States, and the books will be simul- 

 taneously issued in the two countries. The American pub- 

 lishers will engage to pay the foreign contributors to the 

 series the usual rates that are allowed to American authors. 

 The project, in fact, implies that the English authors are to 



