The International Scientific Series. 269 



their special subjects to a series to be published simul- 

 taneously in several countries and languages. Fur- 

 thermore, by special contract with publishing houses 

 of high reputation, the author was to receive the or- 

 dinary royalty on every copy of his book sold in every 

 one of the countries in question, thus anticipating inter- 

 national copyright upon a very wide scale, and giving 

 the author a much more adequate compensation for his 

 labour. To put this scheme into operation was a task 

 of great difficulty, so many conflicting interests had to 

 be considered. Youmans's brilliant success is attested 

 by that noble series of more than seventy volumes 

 on all sorts of scientific subjects, written by men of 

 real eminence, and published in England, France, Italy, 

 Germany, and Russia, as well as in the United States. 

 In mid-ocean, bound upon this important errand, 

 he wrote to his mother the following letter, thoroughly 

 characteristic, though more occupied with himself than 

 usual, because, in his own humorous phrase, it was an 

 occasion that would never occur again : 



LATITUDE 41 N., LONGITUDE 57 W., June 3, 1871. 

 MY DEAR MOTHER : It is my fiftieth birthday, and away 

 out here on the Atlantic all alone I celebrate it. The 

 weather is fine ; the ocean like a pond, smooth and still as 

 glass, and has been so all the way from New York. The 

 passengers are agreeable, and the living is tolerable. Meals 

 could be enjoyed but for the horrible, sickening ship smells. 

 Yet these things do not occupy me much to-day, for my 

 thoughts go back through the years I have spent, with too 

 little good result back forty years to Greenfield, which I 

 left after the first ten years. Old Greenfield is still very 

 dear in my memory, for my recollections of early childhood 

 are very vivid and pleasant. There is still nothing that I 

 so much enjoy as seeing the persons and reviving the memo- 



