DISCOURSE OF W. B. TAYLOR. 



297 



The catalogue should not be restricted to memoirs in Transactions 

 ut' Societies, hut should comprise also memoirs in the Proceedings 

 ot' Societies, in mathematical and scientific journals:" etc. - 

 " The catalogue should begin from the year 1800. There should 

 be a catalogue according to the names of authors, and also a cata- 

 logue according to subjects." The committee comprising Fellows 

 of the Royal Society of London finally succeeded in interesting that 

 grave body in the undertaking: and the result was that greatly to 

 Homy'- satisfaction, the entire work was ultimately assumed by the 

 Royal Society itself. 



In the course of ten years that liberal Society aided by a large 

 grant from the British Government gave to the world its half 

 instalment of the great work, in its admirable " Catalogue of Scien- 

 tific Papers" alphabetically classified by authors, in seven or eight 

 large quarto volumes. In the Preface to this splendid monument 

 of industry and liberality, stands the following history of its incep- 

 tion. "The present undertaking may be said to have originated in 

 a communication from Dr. Joseph Henry, Secri tary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, to the Meeting of the British Association at 

 Glasgow in 1855, suggesting the formation of a catalogue of Phil- 

 osophical memoirs. This suggestion was favorably reported on by 

 a Committee of the Association in the following year. - 

 In March, 1857, General Sabine, the Treasurer ami Vice President 

 of the Royal Society, brought the matter before the President and 

 ( ouneil of that body, and requested on the part of the British Asso- 

 ciation, the co-operation of the Royal Society in the project: where- 

 upon a committee was appointed to take into further consideration 

 the formation of such a catalogue. - - - Xo further step was 

 taken by the British Association or by the Royal Society in co-op- 

 eration with that body: but the President and ( 'ouneil of the Royal 

 Society acting on the recommendations contained in a Report of the 

 Library* lommittee dated 7th January, 1858, resolved that the prepa- 

 ration of a < 'atalogue of scientific memoirs should l>e undertaken by 

 the Roval Society independently, and at the Society's own charge."f 



Report Brit. Assoc. Cheltenham, Aug. 1S56, pp. JCo, IG1. 

 t Preface to Oatalogut of Scientific Papers, (1800-1863) vol. i. 1867, pp. lii. iv. The 

 second and most important division of this great and invaluable work,— the 

 classified Index to Subjects, — still remains to be accomplished. 



