Contents xxxi 



PAGE 



different. I am not able to offer any satisfactory explanation 

 of what Baily's phenomenon is, but it certainly is not due to 

 the interruption of the solar rays by the mountains of the 

 moon 409 



No. 15. THE PUBLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS. (From Nature, 



August 10, 1893, Vol. XLVIII, p. 340.) . ... . 410 



The complaint is frequently heard from abroad that im- 

 portant papers by British scientific men are almost inaccessible 

 to the foreigner, because it has been the fashion to communi- 

 cate them to local societies and to rest content with such 

 publication as is secured by their being printed in the Society's 

 Proceedings or Transactions, and the circulation of these is 

 confined to exchanges with other scientific societies. They 

 are not dealt in by the bookselling trade .... 410 



A plan is sketched in the paper whereby what is at present 

 inefficiently and extravagantly done by a multitude of amateur 

 publishers scattered over the country, could at much less cost 

 be efficiently done by a central publishing office as a matter 

 of business .411 



One great advantage of this would be that it would get 

 rid of the censorship on the part of the Councils of the 

 Societies, which is the disgrace of British scientific life. It 

 is now (1916) twenty-three years since this paper was pub- 

 lished and the publication of scientific papers in Great Britain 

 remains as it was. 



No. 16. THE ROYAL SOCIETY.. (From Nature, January 28, 1904, 



Vol. LXIX, p. 293.) 413 



This paper is a summary of what I said at a special 

 meeting of the Fellows of the Royal Society, when the con- 

 stitution and functions of the sectional Committees were under 

 consideration. 



The main function of the sectional Committees is to refer 

 papers received by the Society from Fellows . . .413 



In so far as the public is concerned the effect of the 

 reference is to make doubtful the declared authorship of any 

 paper taken at random in the publications of the Royal 

 Society, inasmuch as it may have been altered to an un- 

 known extent by a person unnamed in the title. 



The practice of the Royal Society in dealing with papers 

 by its Fellows is compared with that of the French Academy 

 of Sciences, and to the advantage of the latter . . . 414 



