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PUBLICATIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIKTY 275 



which the papers were read, the report of each meeting being headed hv 

 a brief account of the business which preceded the reading of the papers. The 

 4 short title', in fact, Incomes from this time onwards ' Proceedings of the Km.il 

 Society'; but the title-page still stands 'Abstracts of the Papers print,, I j n 

 the Philosophical Transactions ', a description which is not ^trutlv accurate, 

 since, even so early in the series as the third volume, many Abstracts were 

 published of papers which never appeared in the ' Philosophical Transaction . 



With the seventh volume (1854-5), a still further change began. ]U 

 papers were published in full in this and the subsequent volumes which woe 

 not published in the 'Philosophical Transactions" at all. These papers were 

 for many years only the briefer or less important communications, the more 

 bulky or more valuable papers being reserved for the quarto form. In time 

 even this distinction became less marked, some papers of great importance 

 appearing only in the ' Proceedings '. In this connexion, it may be noted that 

 the Statute (Chap. Ill, Stat. V), which stands in the edition of 1871 and 

 previous editions, privileging All who have become Fellows of the Society 

 after December the llth, 1834, and who have contributed a paper, which has 

 been printed in the " Philosophical Transactions " ' to compound for their 

 annual contributions for the sum of Forty Pounds, instead of Sixty Pound-, 

 disappears in the next edition ; and in the year 1887 a further remnant of the 

 distinction is effaced by the removal from the List of Fellows of the marginal 

 letter P, which had hitherto been placed against the names of those Fellows 

 who had contributed a paper to the ' Philosophical Transactions '. 



The bulk of the 'Proceedings' increased so much that in 1904 the Society 

 determined to divide them into two series : (A) Mathematical and Physical 

 Papers and (B) Biological Papers; and at the same time the page was 

 enlarged into royal octavo form. The last volume (75) of the original series 

 is made up of a collection of Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased, which had 

 previously been issued from time to time as a separate publication. The new 

 series, beginning in 1905 with volume 76 in each division, has now in 1912 

 reached volume 86 in the Mathematical and Physical Series and volume 85 in 

 the Biological Series. 



'CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS.' 1 



The Royal Society's ' Catalogue of Scientific Papers ' is the outcome of a 

 movement which dates back more than half a century. At the Glasgow 

 meeting of the British Association which was held in 1855, a communication 

 from Professor Henry, of Washington, was read, ' containing a proposal for 

 the publication of [a catalogue of] philosophical memoirs scattered throughout 

 the Transactions of Societies in Europe and America, with the offer of 

 co-operation on the part of the Smithsonian Institute.' This proposal was 

 referred to a committee consisting of Mr. Cayley, Mr. Grant, and Professor 



1 Reprinted in part from 'Nature', vol. 45, p. 338. 

 T 2 



