442 



NATURE 



[September 8, 1892 



vulcanolog/ I can give some of my experiences. In the first 

 place it means a very big slice of time to read (for without this 

 the thing had better be left alone) and review the annual litera- 

 ture of such subjects ; for this there is no recompense whatever, 

 but as I shall show actual money out of pocket. It is impos- 

 sible for the reviewer, unless residing in such towns a^ London, 

 Paris, or Berlin, to see all the literature of his subject. He, 

 therefore, has to send out circulars, the expenses and postage of 

 which, without counting labour of addressing, I found to come 

 to about 2/. annually. A considerable proportion of these cir- 

 culars are not even answered by those who have published papers 

 on the subject during the year, and I am sorry to say that in one or 

 two cases I have had a reply insinuating that I had baen 

 " cadging" for a copy of the author's paper or book. After the 

 review is published come protests from authors (not many in 

 my case, fortunately,) whom, out of common courtesy, time and 

 money must be spent in answering. Finally, with every care 

 such a work is far from complete. I would, therefore, hazard 

 the following propositions :— A preliminary committee to be 

 formed as soon as possible to study the question of international 

 records of scientific literature. That such comaiittee should 

 determine the language of such records, the methods of organ- 

 ization of each separate subject committee, the means and re- 

 sources of siich, and invite the co-operation of other nations 



To my mind each record committee— say, for example, that 

 of geology — should invite the specialists who are willing to 

 collaborate to do so, should examine their manuscripts before 

 going to print, keep a list of all known workers in that par- 

 ticular branch, and find as many subscribers to the work as 

 possible. The central committee should nominate the subject 

 committees, treat with governments, societies, and universities 

 for support, and keep a loose card catalogue of all scientific 

 investigators in the world, to whom should be posted annually a 

 circular requesting the dispatch of their publications, if p )ssible 

 with a short abstract by themselves, to the reviewer of their 

 special subject, the names and addresses of whom should be 

 appended to the circular. In this way reduplication of reviewers 

 circulars would not take place ; and if a botanist wrote a paper 

 on aa earthq lake, for example, he would be reached by the ap- 

 plication from the vulcanologist as well as by the botanist. 

 Finally, should profits accrue in the future, I would suggest that 

 they be equally divided annually amongst the reviewers. I 

 really hope that the subject will be taken by the horns before we 

 reach — and we are near — a great scientific literary deadlock. 



Harrogate, August 30. H. J, Johnston-Lavis. 



A Suggestion for the Indexing of Zoological 

 Literatute. 



It is obvious that the numerous records of all sorts which com- 

 prise the zoological literature of each year are only of use so far 

 as we have access to and knowledge of thfem, and that their 

 existence is actually a very serious encumbrance to those workers 

 who are unable to make use' of them. 



It is self-evident that sooner or later, if zoology is to be pre- 

 served from chaos, every fact of any importance will have to be 

 indexed for reference. Otherwise, nearly the whole lives of 

 zoologists will come to be spent in libraries, until the thing gets 

 so intolerable that some one suggests that we burn all the books, 

 and start afresh from nature. 



Of course, a great deal of indexing has been done, and is 

 being done. The ' ' Index Gen. et Spec. Anim. " is well on the way, 

 and the " Zoological Record " and other works of a like nature 

 appear annually. But these are mainly records of names of 

 species and genera described as new, and the "Zoological Re- 

 cord," admirable and invaluable as it is, is not always complete, 

 nor in some sections (notably the last on mollusca) entirely 

 accurate. Much indexing is continually being done in mono- 

 graphs, such as the Brit. Mus. Catalogues, and the value of 

 this work can hardly be over-estimated, but here again it mostly 

 relates to species as such. Then there is the Royal Society's 

 " Catalogue of Scientific Papers," which is good so far as it goes, 

 and the still more perfect Engelmann and Taschenberg. Putting 

 aside, for the present, the question of indexing past records, 

 would it not be a great advantage if we could begin now, and 

 index everything as it appears ? Possibly this could be done on 

 the following plan : — 



Let a society be formed, called, say, the Zoological Index 

 Society, consisting of all writers on zoological subjects who 

 will join. 



NO. II 93, VOL. 4.6] 



The members of the society to be provided with uniform 

 record slips at cost price, on which they will undertake to record 

 everything in their writings that they believe to be important or 

 new. These records might be under various heads, e.g., the 

 " semi-melanoid variety" of the leopard, described to the Zoo- 

 logical Society on November 20, 1883, might be indexed under 

 Felis pardus, under Melanism, and under Cape Colony. 



These slips to be sent to the secretary of the society, who would 

 arrange them in alphabetical order, in cabinets provided for the 

 purpose. The slips, under each special heading {e.g.. Species, 

 Higher Groups, Variation, Distribution, &c.) would form con- 

 tinuous series. The slips of each year might be kept separate 

 for six months, and then merged in the general index. 



The members would be required to pay a subscription sufficient 

 to cover the expenses of the above ; but it would probably be 

 possible to obtain assistance from some ofthe scientific societies, 

 and the most suitable place for the index to be kept is doubtless 

 the Natural History Museum. If this were accomplished, it 

 would still be desirable to raise further funds, in order to increase 

 the utility of the index in the following ways : — 



(i) By obtaining an assistant secretary, whose duty it would 

 be to copy out records from the index for workers residing in 

 the country or abroad, at a certain small charge. The applicant 

 might ask, e.g., for Limax, or Jamaica, or Albinism, and would 

 pay according to the number of records. 



(2) By publications. Possibly some arrangement might be 

 made with the Zoological Record Committee, and special publi- 

 cations containing the records relating to matters then of 

 interest might appear as often as possible. 



Volunteer work in indexing earlier works would be accept- 

 able. Thus, some admirer of Darwin might be willing to index 

 the works of that author. But in such cases a careful list 

 should be kept of the books indexed, and every index should be 

 complete. Presumably no one will dispute the utility of an 

 index as proposed, but some may doubt the possibility of getting 

 sufficient co-operation. If the idea of such an idex became 

 familiar to writers, it can hardly be doubted that each would 

 desire to place his writings on record along with the rest. If a 

 man's writings are not worth this trouble, they are surely not 

 worth printing, unless, of course, they are of such, a nature 

 [^e.g.^ educational works) as not to require indexing in this 

 manner. T. D. A. Cockerell. 



Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica, August 15. 



Rain with a High Barometer. 



In Nature of September i in your note on the Annual 

 Report on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad, you emphasize 

 the fact that at Trinidad it always rains with a high barometer. 



This is a not uncommon phenomenon in other parts of the 

 vvorld. Last year I made a series of meteorological observa- 

 tions in Mashonaland, and more especially while stopping 

 during June and July at Zimbabwe, and I there found that a 

 high barometer was invariably accompanied by rain, and the 

 higher the barometer the more certain and heavy was the rain. 

 The atmosphere was driest when the barometer was lowest, and 

 then the difference of the readings of the dry and wet bulb 

 thermometers sometimes exceeded 20° F. 



This state of climate in Mashonaland is I think mainly due to 

 the configuration of the country, which is such that moisture can 

 only be carried there by southerly and south-easterly winds, and 

 they— as winds blowing towards the equator generally do — 

 increase the atmospheric pressure. 



It will be interesting to know if some such explanation will 

 not account for the condition of things in Trinidad, and if any 

 of your readers can tell of a similar state of climate elsewhere. 

 Robert M. W. Swan. 



IS, Walmer Crescent, Glasgow, September 3. 



The Perseids. 

 With reference to the note, August i8th, that no news of 

 the Perseids had then come to hand, I fancy the shower must 

 have been fairly bright this year. One of our scholars, C. E. 

 Elcock, while crossing from Belfast on the 9th, saw some bright 

 meteors in ten minutes between 9 and 9.30, one lasting some 

 time. Afterwards only occasional ones occurred. 



J. Edmund Clark. 

 Bootham, York, August 29. 



