were found perfectly nioaiiingless, as "A few facts from Florida" 

 or "A popular experiment," has the article been read, the reason for 

 which is clearly indicated by the statement that a complete collection 

 of the publications of the Department includes al)out ;:^.,5<)0 books, 

 pamphlets, and circulars of from 1 to 1,500 pages each, some of 

 which contain fifty or more distinct papers. 



The Index entries to the rohimes listed are in man}^ cases greatly 

 abbreviated, as the full title and all information concerning the publi- 

 cation can be obtained from the entry in the Tables, but in the case of 

 analytical references the full title as given in the document has been 

 entered, in order to convey as much information as possible. 



In analyzing the annual reports of the chiefs of the various bureaus 

 or offices, only papers distinct from the main report, or which, if 

 included, have an individual author, are brought out in the Index, the 

 various subheads in the reports not being noted. 



When a date does not appear in an entr}^ in the Index it indicates 

 that there is more than one edition or print of the article indexed, 

 except in cases of undated pulilications, where a date could not be 

 given, or of annual report analyticals, where the date appears as the 

 book number. 



CONCLUSION. 



The greatest drawback to systematic classification and read}^ refer- 

 ence was the vast number of miscellaneous unnumbered publications. 

 An endeavor has been ^-:.^s ' . this list to classify in distinct series, 

 as far as possible, this unwieldy mass, and to that end numbers have 

 been assigned and series formed and named, or they were numbered 

 in either the series ""bulletins" or "circulars" when these series were 

 not already filled. 



There is no well-defined definition for either '"bulletin" or "circular" 

 as applied to public documents, as jvitnessed by the fact that the scries 

 of numbered "circulars" in the Surgeon-General's office. War Depart- 

 ment, contains both large quarto volumes and one-page letters, while 

 the circulars of other offices are single sheets of man}- varying sizes, 

 and of some of the scientific bureaus of the Agriculture Department 

 are small pamphlets. In assigning numbers in this list, however, 

 the series of "bulletins" have been filled with the more important 

 pamphlet publications, and the series "circulars," made up of the 

 ephemeral or smaller works, generally of one-page letters. 



The unnecessary nudtiplication of numbers on the title pages, espe- 

 cially of the publications of the Agriculture Department, is a subject 

 which does not lend itself to easy explanation, if indeed there is any 

 reason in it, and no account, therefore, has been taken in this list of 

 the various "whole numbers" of the divisions, nor the "serial num- 



16 



