THE STUDY AND USE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



THE great difficulty that besets both the professional 

 and the amateur student of natural science at the 

 present day is to find out what has already been 

 written on the subject he may have in hand. 

 And the difficulty is the greater in the case of 

 the amateur, because the professional, who is nowadays 

 generally a specialist, has by long training learnt how to 

 lay his hand on most of the literature bearing upon his 

 own particular branch of study — or, at all events, knows 

 the best way of finding out desiderata. 



Apart from the enormous volume of scientific literature 

 annually poured out by societies in all parts of the globe 

 and in all languages, one great reason why the study and 

 use of such literature is so difficult is due to the fact that 

 scarcely one society in the zoological division keeps to 

 any one particular subject. To take our own country, we 

 have the Zoological Society not only publishing descrip- 

 tions of animals and papers on their geographical distri- 

 bution, but others on anatomy and paleontology. Cut the 

 Linn.Tan, which is primarily a botanical society, likewise 

 publishes zoological papers ; and the Geographical has 

 lately taken to include memoirs on the distribution of 

 animals. Anatomical papers are published by the 

 Jiiiinial of Anatomy and Physioloiiy, while the Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History sends forth a monthly nii'lange 

 on all kinds of biological subjects. As regards paleonto- 

 logy, the PaliEontographical Society is specially devoted to 

 this subject, but a large number of papers appear in the 

 publications of the Geological Society ; while stratigraphi- 

 cal geology is represented not only in these volumes, but 

 in the issues of the Geologists' Association and a host of 

 provincial societies. Then, again, we have the Royal Society, 

 which is supposed to suck the cream of all the scientific 

 discoveries of each year, and whose publications conse- 

 quently contain papers on almost every conceivable scientific 

 subject. Much the same scattered distribution of papers 

 occurs in the case of botany, chemistry, and astronomy. 

 And when we remember that British memoirs form only 

 a very insignificant moiety of scientific literature, and that 

 the same mixture of subjects occurs in the publications of 

 foreign learned societies, the amateur student may well 

 be appalled at the difficulty of obtaining an adequate 

 knowledge of the literature of any particular branch of 

 science. 



Although it would, of course, have no effect on the past, 

 it would undoubtedly be a vast advantage to science if the 

 various learned societies of each individual country could 

 agree among themselves to restrict their own publications 

 to one particular subject, so that in each country there 

 would be one particular journal where we should find all 

 the zoological information, another the geological, a third 



the botanical, a fourth the chemical, and so on. But this 

 consummation, however devoutly to be wished, is one we 

 are not likely to see realized for many a long day, and 

 we must perforce make the best of things as they are. 



To remedy this state of chaos has been and is one of the 

 great objects of many of the learned bodies of the present 

 day. And the only way in which this can be done is by 

 publishing annual records of the work accompHshed in 

 each and every l)ranch of science. The marinum opns of 

 this nature in Britain is the Royal Society's " Catalogue 

 of Scientific Papers," which is now approaching within 

 measurable distance of being up to date, but which has 

 the serious drawback of only containing a list of paper's 

 arranged imder the heading of authors, without any 

 subject index. In certain branches of science there are, 

 however, admirable records now published, containing not 

 only references to papers arranged according to authorship, 

 but also classified under subjects. One of the foremost of 

 these is the Xooloyical Tlccord, and a few years ago we had 

 the equally valuable (ieoloyical Record, although this un- 

 fortunately came to an end in 1889. To fill its place, the 

 Rev. Mr. Blake started in 1890 the Annals of British 

 Geology, a work admirable so far as it goes, but necessarily 

 imperfect, as it deals only with papers bearing on the 

 geology and paleontology of Britain, and geological and 

 paleontological papers published in this country. More 

 recently the Geological Society has started another record, 

 but this is, unfortunately, limited to the works contained 

 in the Society's library, and therefore fails to meet all the 

 wants of writers. Moreover, both these records deal with 

 paleontology, which is also treated of to a certain extent 

 in the Zoological Record, so that much valuable space 

 and time are wasted. It is to be hoped that in the near 

 future the two societies will arrange between them that 

 this subject is taken in hand by one only, and then done 

 completely. Records — more or less nearly approaching 

 completeness — are also undertaken by the Chemical, 

 Meteorological, and other societies. Messrs. Cassell's 

 Year Book of Science, which enjoyed a too brief exis- 

 tence in the earlier years of the present decade, was 

 intended to provide a more popular guide to scientific 

 literature of all kinds, and ought to have been of great use 

 to the amateur worker. Unfortunately there appear too 

 few of the latter class to support the cost of publication of 

 such a work, which is necessarily heavy. 



At the present day a record " made in Germany " is 

 ahead of any of our own, since index-slips on any scientific 

 subject are now supplied by the Bureau of Scientific 

 Literature at Berlin, and are issued at the shortest possible 

 interval after the date of publication of the memoirs. 

 There are, however, hopes of better things ahead, the 



