NATURE 



385 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1896. 



THE CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. 

 Cdtalooue of Scientific Papers (1874- 1883). Compiled 



by the Royal Society of London. Vol. xi. [Pet— Zyb]. 



Pp. 902. (London : Clay and Sons, 1896.) 



THIS volume marks the completion of the third 

 series of the Royal Society's contribution to the 

 bibliography of science. With it the " Index Auctorum " 

 for the ten years 1874-83 is completed, as originally 

 planned, but in order to make the list of papers as 

 exhaustive as possible, the Society are, as is known, 

 actively preparing a supplementary volume to contain 

 additional titles and references, taken from serials pub- 

 lished not only during that decennium, but also of earlier 

 date, which from one cause or another are not included 

 among those at present indexed. When this supplement 

 is issued, as we hope it may be within the next two or 

 three years, we shall be in possession of a practically 

 complete author-index to the whole vast mass of the 

 serial literature of science, back from the year 1883 to the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century. 



Such a register, simple and straightforward, but 

 accurately and systematically compiled, must always 

 form an invaluable and indispensable basis on which to 

 elaborate any further schemes of indexing which may 

 attempt to furnish a guide to the contributions to each 

 of the special departments of science. The whole 

 problem, how best to grapple with the task of record- 

 ing and indexing the ever-increasing mass of scientific 

 literature, is one of the burning questions of the time 

 for all cultivators of science. This problem the Royal 

 Society have been steadily attacking since the middle of 

 the century, when (in 1858) they commenced work upon 

 their great Catalogue. 



In our notice of vol. ix., the first of the present series 

 (Nature, vol. xlv. p. 338, February 1892), we gave a brief 

 summary of the origin and progress of the Royal Society's 

 bibliographical undertaking, and in the same article we 

 referred to the long-canvassed and still unsettled ques- 

 tion of a parallel subject-index. To this we will recur 

 further on. Meantime, a short analysis of the contents 

 of the series now completed may furnish some particulars 

 at once instructive and interesting. 



The total number of individual papers entered in the 

 2900 odd pages of these three volumes we estimate to be 

 between 89,000 and 90,000. The number contained in 

 the two volumes for the preceding decennium (1864-73) 

 we make, by a similar estimate, about 70,000. This 

 shows an increase of about 25 per cent., and such may 

 probably be taken as fairly representing the actual 

 amount of increase in scientific activity during the second 

 ten-year period, on the assumption that the two series 

 comprise a like proportion of the total literature of 

 science. The original series, covering the long period 

 1 800- 1 863, indexed the remarkably high total of 1500 

 publications. The exact number indexed for the second 

 series (1864-73) 's not quite apparent. The number for 

 the present series is 570, a rather unaccountable decrease 

 when compared with the large number just quoted, and 

 undoubtedly too small to furnish a sufficiently exhaustive 

 NO. 1374. VOL. ^l'\ 



record of the scientific work of the world. The Society 

 themselves recognise this, and, as we have said, are 

 making provision for the amplification of the Catalogue 

 by indexing some hundreds of additional serials. The 

 greater part of these must doubtless be of minor im- 

 portance, but there are also a considerable minority of 

 publications of a high order ot merit which, as we pointed 

 out in our notice of vol. x. of the Catalogue (Nature, 

 vol. 1. p. 241, July 1894), were unhappily not included in 

 the list the Society originally worked from. 



Of those indexed in this third series we count 192 

 publications bearing English titles, equal to about 33 

 per cent, of the whole ; 116 French, or about 20 per cent. ; 

 and 165, or about 29 per cent., German. These numbers 

 may possibly give a fair idea of the actual proportion 

 obtaining between the contributions to the total literature 

 of science as divided among these three languages; but 

 we need not go further, and attempt to draw conclusions 

 from them as to the relative scientific activity of the 

 peoples speaking them. 



The proportions in which the various branches of 

 science contribute to the aggregate of serial literature is 

 not very easy to determine. So far as a somewhat rough 

 estimate may suffice, we should say that nearly 40 per 

 cent, of the entries in the list of publications are devoted 

 to general science, about 35 per cent, to biological, and 

 25 per cent, to physical and mathematical science. The 

 distinction, however, is not always easy, but there seems 

 a decided preponderance of biological over physical 

 literature. 



The printing of the three volumes of this series has 

 occupied some six years, and the supplementary volume 

 will, we imagine, not be issued before another two years at 

 least, making a total interval of fifteen years between the 

 date to which the work extends and the date of complete 

 publication. It is easier to deplore these long intervals 

 than to avoid them, especially while one Society en- 

 deavours to cope single-handed with the vast and ever- 

 increasing mass of material. In his address at their 

 last anniversary, Lord Kelvin said that "the continuation 

 of such a work was almost beyond the resources of the 

 Royal Society," and referred to the efforts that were being 

 made to secure effectual international co-operation. As 

 a step towards this, the Society have issued invitations 

 to an International Conference to be held in London 

 during the coming summer, at which the whole question 

 of cataloguing and indexing the literature of science may 

 be discussed from an international point of view, and at 

 which it may be hoped the outlines of a scheme may be 

 agreed upon, the details of which could be filled in later 

 on. As a result co-operative work on a comprehensive 

 and well-considered system might be definitively com- 

 menced, say, with the turn of the century, starting as 

 from January i, 1901. 



If the same research work is often needlessly done 

 twice or thrice over, it is equally certain the same 

 cataloguing and indexing work is done needlessly many 

 times over when once might have sufficed. To save this 

 waste of time and labour, organised collaboration on a 

 large scale seems the one thing needful, and we see no 

 reason to fear that this cannot be successfully arranged. 

 The desideratum of comprehensive and accurate subject- 

 indexes makes itself more acutely felt with every year 



