i6o 



NA TURE 



[June 14, 1894 



I 



and the needs of physics are so great that no time should be 

 lost. We, in this Society, can never be too grateful to 

 Professor Williamson for having led the storming parly to 

 victory which established our system of abstracts ; he foresaw 

 that when such a scheme was successfully launched it was 

 bound to become self-supporting, and such has long since proved 

 to be the case. Let us hope that the physicists have at their 

 disposal some one equally bold and far-sighted, who will over- 

 come the fears o( the timid, and initiate a thoroughly com- 

 prehensive scheme. Chemists are directly interested in the 

 work, as we are bound to take notice of the progress of physics, 

 and the want of an English record is much felt by us. We 

 had no society with cognate aims to help us, so that the physi- 

 cists are in a far stronger position than we were, as the 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers should be prepared to 

 forward such a cause. I believe it will be found to be of the 

 utmost importance to them to do so. Indeed, the electrical 

 engineer of the present day, I fear, is fast becoming a specialist 

 of the deepest dye : having had expeiience of several hundreds, 

 I know that when a student he is most difficult to deal with, as 

 he will only pay attention, even in physics, to what he believes 

 to be of immediate importance to him ; as to chemistry, he will 

 scarce notice il, forgetting, or not realising, that the whole 

 field of electro-chemistry is yet untitled. It is, therefore, very 

 necessary that no effort should be spared to make the electrical 

 engineer better informed regarding physics generally. . . . 



"The Royal Society of London has recently issued to the 

 scientific world a circular having reference to the preparation of 

 complete catalogues of science by international cooperation, 

 which raises questions of such importance that I do not hesitate 

 to reproduce it. 



" ' Sir, — The Royal Society of London, as you are probably 

 aware, has published nine quarto volumes of The Catalogue of 

 Scientific Papers, the first volume of the decade — 1874-83^ 

 having been issued List year. 



" 'This catalogue is limited to periodical scientific literature, 

 i.e. to papers published in the transactions, &c. , of societies, 

 and in journals ; it takes no account whatever of monographs and 

 independent books, however important. The titles, moreover, 

 are arranged solely according to author's names ;and though the 

 Society has long had under consideration the preparation of — 

 and is hoped may eventually issue as — a key to the volumes 

 already published, a list in which the titles are arranged 

 according to subject-matter, the catalogue is still being prepared 

 according to author's names. Further, though the Society has 

 endeavoured to include the titles of all the scientific papers pub- 

 lished in periodicals of acknowledged standing, the catalogue 

 is — even as regards periodical literature— confessedly incom- 

 plete, owing to the omission of the titles of papers published in 

 periodicals of little importance or not easy of access. 



" ' Owing to the great development of scientific literature the 

 task of the Society in continuing the catalogue, even in its 

 present form, is rapidly increasing in difficulty. At the same 

 time it is clear that the progress of science would be greatly 

 helped by — indeed, almost demands — the compilation of a 

 catalogue which should aim at completeness, and should contain 

 the lilies of scientific publications, whether apjiearing in peri- 

 odicals or independently. In such a catalogue the title should be 

 arranged not only according to authors' names, but also accord- 

 ing to subject-matter, the text of each paper and not the title 

 only being consulted for the latter purpose. And the value of 

 the catalogue would be greatly enhanced by a rapid periodical 

 i.ssue, and by publication in such a form that the portion which 

 pertains 10 any particular branch of science might be obtained 

 separately. I 



" ' It is needless lo say that the preparation and publication of 

 iuch a complete catalogue is far beyond the power and means of 

 any single society. 



" ' Led by the above considerations, the President and Council 

 of the Koyal Society have appointed a committee lo inquire into 

 and report upon the /,a\i/iiiiiy of such a catalogue being compiled 

 through inlernalional co operation. 



" 'The Commiileeare not as yet in a position to formulate any 

 di.<tinct plan by which such international co-oper-ation might be 

 brought about ; but it may be useful, even at the outset, to make 

 the following preliminary suggestions: — 



" ' The catilogue should commence with papers published on 

 or after Janu.iry i, 1900, 



" 'A ccnir.il office, or bureau, should be established in some 

 place, lo be hereafter cho<en, and should be maintained by 



NO. 1285, VOL. 50] 



] international contributions — either directly, that is, by annual 

 I or other subsidies — or indirectly, that is, by the guarantee to 

 I purchase a certain number of copies of the catalogue. 



"' This office should be regularly supplied with .all the in- 

 formation necessary for the construction of the catalogue. This 

 might be done either by all periodicals, monographs, &c., being 

 sent direct to the office to be catalogued there, or by various 

 institutions undertaking to send in portions of the catalogue 

 already prepared, or by both methods combined. 



" ' .\t such an office, arrangements might be made by which, 

 in addition to preparing the catalogue, scientific data might be 

 tabulated as they came to hand in the papers supplied. 



" ' The first step, however, is to ascertain whether any scheme 

 of international co-operalijn is feasible and desirable. The 

 Committee, accordingly, is desirous of learning the views upon 

 this subject of scientific bodies and of scientific men. 



" ' We, therefore, venture to express the hope that you will be 

 so good as, at some early opportunity, to make known to us, 

 for the use of the Committee, your own views on the matter. 

 " ' Should the decision you report be in any way favourable to 

 the scheme, may we further ask you to communicate to us, for 

 the use of the Committee, any suggestions which you may 

 think it desirable to make, as to the best methods of inaugurat- 

 ing such a scheme, as to the constitution and means of main- 

 tenance of the Central OlTice, as to the exact ch.aracter of the 

 work to be carried on there, as to the language or languages in 

 which the catalogue should be published, and the like ? 

 " ' We are, 



" ' Vour obedient servants, 



" ' M. Foster, Secretary A'.S. 

 " ' Rayleigh, Secretary R.S. 

 " 'J. Lister, J-'oreign Sec. M.S.' 



" If any such scheme as is here foreshadowed could be carried 

 out, it would obviously be of the greatest value to the world 

 and productive of much saving, both of time and treasure. 

 But the subject is full of difficulty, owing to the very numerous 

 interests concerned. I trust, however, that when the time 

 comes to deal with the chemical section — and, indeed, in the 

 case of any future catalogue of chemical work, that we shall 

 not be satisfied with a mere alphabetical arrangement, but that 

 we shall classify the subject-matter alphabetically in sections, 

 so as to lighten the labour of ascertaining the state of knowledge 

 in any particular group. Already we do not know very many of 

 the names recorded in our indexes, and, in the future, we shall 

 be ignorant of a still larger proportion, unless our system of 

 nomenclature be made so significant that each name will explain 

 itself; and in the case of an alphabetical arrangement, sub- 

 stances belonging to the same group, having names with 

 different initial letters, occur interspersed throughout the index: 

 so that it is a matter of the greatest difficulty, if not impossible, 

 by consulting such an index, to ascertain the references to all 

 the members of the group. An alphabetical index also affords 

 no indication of the extent to which knowledge of any particular 

 group has increased during the interval covered by it ; and, in 

 fact. It only becomes of real use when provided with a key, such 

 as licilstein affords, in which the names of the known members 

 of any particular group may be first looked up before consulting 

 the ali)habetical index. Also, in using a lengthy alphabetical 

 index it is very easy to miss entries, and it is necessary to pay 

 far more attention when consulting it than is the case when one 

 of limited extent is used. 



" I do not believe that there would be any real difficulty in 

 arriving at a system of chassification which, at all events, would 

 limit a reference to comparatively lew pages. We are told that 

 by the liertillon system, dealing with the card records of 90,000 

 convicts, it is possible — when the necessary measurements have 

 been taleen — lo ascertain whether a prisoner has been before 

 convicted, as it may be said, with considerable, if not absolute, 

 confidence, that, in that case, his card will be found in a drawer 

 containing only about 400. Surely, we ought to be able to 

 devise a system which would equally limit our search." 



Tf/E WORK OF HERTZ. 



Additions and Corrections to the Lecture reported last week, by 



Dr. Oi.ivkr Lodge. 



(~^N page 135, middle of first column, the word "clearly" 

 ^"^ ought to have been probably : for I am by no means clear 

 that the gradual discharge of negative electrification from the 



