THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



to take some steps to meet the pressing need of integration 

 in respect of its own publications and those of the special 

 Societies. 



Putting aside book publication, which at the present 

 time is very little employed for making known original 

 work, there remain as the two chief methods for publishing 

 newly discovered knowledge, the scientific Journal and 

 the Proceedings and Transactions of learned Societies. 

 To meet the demands of the present time, it is of the highest 

 importance that the publications of scientific Societies 

 should appear with as little delay as may be, and should 

 be circulated directly, so as to reach them as soon as possible, 

 among the students of the particular branch of science to 

 which they respectively belong. In this respect the Pro- 

 ceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society have been 

 up to this time at some disadvantage. Papers on the 

 different branches of science printed in them do not circulate 

 so fully at once among the workers in those several branches 

 as they would do if they had been contributed to, and 

 published by, the special Societies formed for the pro- 

 motion of these several sciences. 



It appears to me that an important step would be taken 

 towards the removal of this disability, under which an 

 Academy or Royal Society, for the promotion of all the 

 sciences, necessarily labours ; and also, at the same time, 

 that an advance would be made in the direction of the 

 integration of scientific publications, if the Royal Society 

 were to offer to extend to the more important of the special 



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