20 A CENTURY OF SCIENCE 



in geography, man's energy has in recent years removed 

 the reproach of a "Dark Continent," of "unexplored" 

 central Asia and the once "inaccessible polar regions," 

 so in the different departments of science, he has opened 

 up many unknown fields and accumulated vast stores of 

 knowledge. It might even seem as if the lim.it of the 

 unknown were being approached. There remains, how- 

 ever, this difference in the analogy, that in science the 

 fundamental relations as, for example, the nature of 

 gravitation, of matter, of energy, of electricity; the 

 actual nature and source of life the solution of these 

 and other similar problems still lies in the future. What 

 the result of continued research may be no one can pre- 

 dict, but even with these possibilities before us, it is 

 hardly rash to say that so great a combined progress of 

 pure and applied science as that of the past hundred 

 years is not likely to be again realized. 



Scientific Periodical Literature in 1818. 



The contrast in scientific activity between 1818 and 

 1918 is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the 

 amount of scientific periodical literature of the two 

 periods. Of the thousands of scientific journals and reg- 

 ular publications by scientific societies and academies 

 to-day, but a very small number have carried on a con- 

 tinuous and practically unbroken existence since 1818. 

 This small amount of periodical scientific literature in 

 the early part of the last century is significant as giving 

 a fair indication of the very limited extent to which 

 scientific investigation appealed to the intellectual life of 

 the time. Some definite facts in regard to the scientific 

 publications of those early days seem to be called for. 



Learned societies and academies, devoted to literature 

 and science, were formed very early but at first for occa- 

 sional meetings only and regular publications were in 

 most cases not begun till a very much later date. Some 

 of the earliest not to go back of the Renaissance are 

 the following : 



1560. Naples, Academia Secretorum Naturae. 



1603. Eome, Accademia dei Lincei. 



1651. Leipzig, Academia Naturae Curiosum. 



