X PREFACE. 



Osten Sacken has also rendered much assistance in the Russian titles.* 

 Professor Coloman de Szily, of the Pol3^technic School of Buda- 

 pest, had the kindness to prepare an extensive list of Hungarian 

 titles with translations. Dr. E. H. von Baumhauer, of the Holland 

 Academy of Sciences, has examined the Dutch list. M. N. Rauis, 

 of the Secretary's office, Belgian Academ}' of Science, in return- 

 ing the revised sheets of the Belgian entries, was at the pains to 

 contribute a very extended list of all the serial publications of his 

 countr}^, and in selecting those that come under the subjects em- 

 braced in m}^ catalogue it will be seen that the first list has been 

 nearly doubled by the entries in the appendix. Hen* Richter, Secre- 

 tary of the Royal Public Library of Dresden, besides repeatedly 

 furnishing valued memoranda from the Dresden library, has revised 

 the sheets of the German entries — nearly one-quarter of the cata- 

 logue. Dr. O. Thorell has done the same for Italy, and the Hon. 

 James Russell Lowell, U. S. minister to Spain, has courteously 

 procured the revision by a competent person of the pages devoted to 

 the Spanish peninsula. Count Marsy, of Compi^gne, most gener- 

 ously forwarded a very extended list of the learned societies of 

 France, procured at great pains from documents in the Bureau of the 

 Ministry of Public Instruction, and in advance of the publication of 

 M. Robert's list, from the same source ; the latter I was also able 

 to employ at the last moment by delaying the proofs of the catalogue. f 

 Count Marsy has also answered man}^ special enquiries and revised 

 the sheets of the French portion. Dr. Henri de Saussure, of Geneva, 

 has kindly looked over the Swiss entries, and Messrs. H. T. Stainton 

 and R. M'Lachlan have answered special enquiries concerning P^ng- 

 lish periodicals. A very large number of data, which may be looked 

 upon as official, have been received from foreign societies and acade- 

 mies in response to circulars issued. 



* These titles were also submitted to a competent scholar, who says : — 

 In our transliteration of Russian titles we have avoided the use of all arti- 

 ficial signs, such as exist neither in Russian nor in English — though they may 

 be used in some of the other Slavic languages, and in imitations by specialists 

 in other linguistic fields — and have closely adhered to a plain method of render- 

 ing the Russian sounds, as far as possible, by English letters or combinations of 

 letters, using the vowels in their Continental (German or Italian) value. Thus 

 our tch stands for the Russian 4 (= Croat c, Polish cz, German tsch) ; slitch for 

 m (= Cr. Vc, Pol. szcz, Ger. scMsch) ; tz for u (=Cr. and Pol. c, Ger. and 

 Italian z) ; zh for 8( (=Cr. z, Pol. z, French /) ; kh for x (=Ger. and Pol. 

 cli) ; y consonant for tL {■— Ger. j) ; ya for fl ( = Ger. ja) ; ye for « and e (Ger. 

 je) ; and yu for K) (=Ger. ju). As a vowel, y stands for U (=Pol. y, resem- 

 bling Ger. •!(), and as a consonant it is replaced by i after a consonant beginning 

 a syllable {oidiel standing for otdyel = Ger. otdjel^ and izviestiya for izvyestiya 

 = Ger. isivjestija). The Russian letter r is replaced, according to the sound 

 which it happens to express, by g, h, or v ; all the three renderings of that letter 

 occur in title 3720, ' //idro^rafitcheski departament morskat-o ministerstva.* 



t It is to be regretted that the second part of Robert's list, relating to the 

 Parisian Societies, has not yet come to hand. 



