THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE STATE 



accord by the scientific world. The organisation consists 

 mainly of a Central Bureau in London under the Royal 

 Society, in connection with Regional Bureaus, established 

 in thirty countries for collecting material in the form of 

 catalogue slips, and transmitting them to the Central 

 Bureau. The Royal Society has taken upon itself prac- 

 tically the financial responsibility of the undertaking, 

 making contracts in its own name with a printer and a 

 publisher, the latter undertaking the technical duties as 

 agent for the Society, which is its own publisher. The 

 first year's issue of the Catalogue has appeared, dealing 

 in twenty-one volumes with the seventeen sciences decided 

 upon by the Conference. 



The International Association of Academies, the realisa- 

 tion for the first time of the great scientific idea of a Uni- 

 versal Academy, open without restriction of language or 

 of country to every nation under heaven, owes its establish- 

 ment to the initiative of the Royal Society. In 1897 

 the Royal Society was invited to send representatives to a 

 Conference of a Union of German Academies and Societies 

 which met from time to time. The Society sent delegates, 

 but declared that the Society's permanent adhesion to any 

 such association must be conditional on its being made 

 truly international in character. The principle of an 

 international association of learned Societies suggested 

 by the Royal Society was accepted, and a conference was 

 held at Wiesbaden in 1899 for the purpose of taking steps 



for the formation of such an association. Statutes were 



79 



