NA TURE 



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THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1894. 



THE CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. 

 Catalogue of Scientific Pa/>ers {1S74-1SS3). Compiled 



by the Royal Society of London. Vol. X. (London : 



Clay and Sons, 1S94.) 



WE are glad to welcome this new volume of the Royal 

 Society's great Catalogue. In February 1S92 we 

 noticed Vol. IX., which was the first of the three volumes 

 that are to contain the titles of papers published in 

 the decade 1874-83. The present volume, containing 

 the second instalment of the material for those years, 

 forms the tenth in the entire series of that monumental 

 piece of bibliography for which the scientific world is 

 indebted to the Royal Society. The section of the 

 alphabet it includes e.^tends from Gis to Pet, covers 

 1048 pages quarto, and contains considerably over 

 30,000 entries, giving references to the papers published 

 in some 570 different serials. In a year or two 

 we may hope to have the concluding portion in our 

 hands, and our only regret is that the complete index 

 could not have been issued within the ten years follow- 

 ing the close of the period it covers. Such a biblio- 

 graphy is a work of enduring value, but it is undoubtedly 

 most urgently needed and its services most readily 

 appreciated in the years more immediately following the 

 dates of the papers themselves. However, if ten or 

 twelve years should appear an over-long interval, we 

 must remember the magnitude of the task and the fact 

 that the Royal Society have carried out the work single- 

 handed. The six volumes of the first series of the 

 Catalogue sufficed for something more than six decades 

 (1800-1863), but for the next ten years (1S64-73) two 

 volumes were required, and now three are found neces- 

 sary for 1874-83. Moreover, it is probable that the pro- 

 portion of important serials which the Catalogue has 

 not taken cognisance of, has gone on increasing. At any 

 rate the Society, as we know, have now found it advisable 

 to devote a supplementary volume (which we believe 

 is in active preparation) to the contents of these 

 hitherto neglected series. This want of comprehensive- 

 ness, which is, perhaps, the only blemish on this great 

 work as it stands, is the more noticeable as the selection 

 of serials for indexing shows traces of having been either 

 arbitrary or dependent upon some fortuitous circum- 

 stance. Thus it may puzzle a medical writer, whose 

 work has appeared in both, to find papers of his cited 

 from the New York Medical Journal, but none from the 

 British Medical Journal. I5ut no doubt the Royal 

 Society would be the last to claim perfection for their 

 work, for which, as it stands, they are entitled to the 

 highest praise. These volumes are handsomely printed, 

 the contents are easy to consult and astonishingly free 

 from inaccuracies of any kind. This last, their crowning 

 excellence, is one that can be appreciated best by those 

 who make the most use of the work. Our own experience 

 is that for checking a series of references, to turn to the 

 Royal Society's Catalogue is practically the same as 

 hunting up the originals themselves, and of course vastly 

 more expeditious. And the volumes now issuing are 

 even more easy to consult than their predecessors ; for 

 NO. 1289, VOL. 50] 



instance, the volume numbers are now given in Arabic 

 instead of Roman numerals — a much more legible 

 fashion and much safer, especially in the case of high 

 numbers. Again, the year of publication is printed in 

 heavy type, so that this vitally important particular 

 catches the eye at once. The abbreviations of the titles 

 of the serials remain practically as before, and though no 

 doubt much longer than specialists are in the habit of 

 using in their own notes and publications, they possess 

 the great advantage which is claimed for them — that they 

 are "so clear as to speak for themselves." For the 

 chemist Ber. may be quite sufficient, but would require 

 interpreting to his fellow-workers in other departments of 

 science, who would recognise at the first glance the 

 meaning of the abbreviation adopted in the Catalogue — 

 Berlin Chein^ Ges. Ber. Perhaps, however, so familiar a 

 series as the oft-quoted " Comptes Rendus" might safely 

 admit of a shorter form than Paris Acad. Sci. Contpt. 

 Rend. 



Altogether, anyone with any acquaintance with biblio- 

 graphy cannot be insensible to the enormous amount of 

 tedious labour involved in the production of these 

 volumes. Perhaps not more than half the entries are 

 mere reproductions of a single title and reference, the 

 title simply transferred as it stands from its original 

 source to its place in the Catalogue. Many titles to make 

 them at all intelligible have had to be amplified, in some 

 cases they have been entirely supplied, the names of new 

 species described are filled in, and so forth ; while a large 

 percentage of the entries contain two or three, or even 

 more references, to reprints, translations, abstracts, &c., 

 which with such a mass of material implies a task of 

 i alarming magnitude in their satisfactory collation. Then 

 there is the perplexing work of distinguishing rightly 

 among the numerous authors bearing the same name — 

 thus we count more than fifly Midlers, and nearly as 

 many Meyers. There is, too, the initial difficulty which 

 besets the compiler in the case of serials of 

 general or technical character, of deciding which 

 "papers" are proper to be indexed, and which 

 should be passed over. The result, as presented in these 

 volumes, is no doubt not an exhaustive enumeration o 

 all the contributions in the whole body of scientific serial 

 literature, but it is a catalogue of all the best and the 

 most worth studying. More than this no bibliography 

 is ever likely to be. 



But withal the Catalogue of Papers furnishes but the 

 one half of what is required. It furnishes the key to 

 the workers, and only through them to the work. The 

 complementary volumes, which should supply a direct 

 key to the work, and thence to the workers, are still a 

 desideratum. L'ntil this also is supplied, equally sys- 

 tematically and comprehensively, the bibliography of 

 science at large will remain regrettably one-sided, in 

 spite of the numerous special Records, Fortschritte, and 

 jahreslierichte. The fact of course is that a great Sub- 

 ject-catalogue or index is a far more difticult undertaking 

 than the Author-catalogue to which it would run 

 parallel. We all know the object to be aimed at — to 

 enable the worker in science to ascertain readily what 

 work has already been done upon his particular subject 

 — and we are all agreed as to the desirability of attaining 

 it. It is in the practical execution of the work that the 



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