6 3 6 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 30, ii 



glass beads on a vertical aluminium wire in the axis of 

 rotation. Here they have scarcely any influence on the 

 swing of the coil. The damping effect of the oil, which is 

 contained in a small globular receptacle, like a fish-bowl, 

 between the fixed coils, is very complete and satisfactory. 

 I had the pleasure of presenting the first rough instrument 

 thus made to Prof. Johnson for the physical laboratory of 

 McGill College. W. H. Stone 



LIBRARY CATALOGUES* 



THERE is a wide difference in function between the 

 old " literary and philosophical " libraries, such as 

 are now dying out in various parts of the country, and 

 the " free public " libraries which are steadily, though re- 

 markably slowly, on the increase in England — libraries 

 which lay before readers of all classes Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer's denunciations of what an evil sign of the times 

 their organisation for the diffusion of knowledge is, com- 

 pared with Lord Brougham's old Society for the same 

 purpose. 



The old library was in principle a museum of books, 

 where, after a few readers who might be trusted to handle 

 the choice volumes cautiously and reverently had enjoyed 

 the luxury of making themselves acquainted with their 

 contents, each of such volumes was put up in its place to 

 form part of the " collection " of which the librarian was 

 proud, and from which he was as little anxious to pro- 

 mote abundant issues as the proprietor of Dickens's old 

 curiosity shop was to make sales of its contents ! 



But the other — the modern — type of library, is a stock 

 of the literature for which either the public itself mani- 

 fests the greatest appetite, or philanthropists and public 

 educators are most desirous to disseminate and cultivate 

 a taste : the happiest fate wished for any book in such a 

 store being that it should be fairly thumbed to death. 

 The new library is worked on the principle of the city 

 warehouse where the whole stock should be turned over 

 several times in the year ; and am thing which cannot 

 be " moved " is an incubus upon which the manager's 

 eye falls day after day with more and more impatient 

 determinations. 



The catalogues of the respective types of library ac- 

 cordingly should be widely different productions. That 

 of the former should be an accurate register of sizes, 

 dates, and editions ; the compiler fairly taking it for 

 granted that its consulter is intimate with the subject he 

 is inquiring upon, and that a difference, even in the 

 edition, from the one sought, may make the book as far 

 from what he wants as Blackstone's " Commentaries " 

 from Caesar's. 



But the main object of the catalogue of the new library 

 is again like that of the commercial advertisement. Its 

 consulters are not such as know exactly what they want, 

 and its maker is anxious to display in it his books and 

 their contents to the best advantage ; like the salesman, 

 his greatest triumph being, not to supply a customer with 

 the article most in demand, but to allure him to higher 

 qualifications and raise a new taste which will lead him 

 along tempting paths of expenditure. In drawing it up, 

 accordingly, the librarian will hardly take a better ex- 

 ample than that of the commercial world in its advertise- 

 ments of books ; to be followed soberly, however, for it 

 would doubtless raise a distrust in catalogues if they 

 heaped up the favourable critiques which are to be found 

 there. Nor, again, are the frequenters of a free library 

 able to judge from titles which pleased authors' fancies 

 what those authors' books contain, and an import- 

 ant matter is to bring within their ken the contents 

 of volumes many of whose titles are indefinite, some 

 figurative, and not a few positively misleading or absurd. 



1 " Catalogue of the Halifax Public Library, Lending and Reference 

 Departments." (Halifax, 1882.) 



In such an institution, therefore, where the books may 

 not be examined before taking out, or the librarian have 

 a literary discussion with each applicant, time can hardly 

 be better spent than in making the catalogue supply as 

 much as possible this information. 



The handsome and carefully-printed catalogue now 

 under notice, giving 100,000 references to 25,000 volumes, 

 has carried this out to a very creditable extent ; under 

 most collected essays and doubtful titles giving a list of 

 the subjects and the ground gone over, and under each 

 subject-head referring the reader to the principal works 

 where it is treated upon, or from which information may 

 be picked up, whereas many other catalogues have placed 

 together only those books in whose titles the name of 

 such subject occurs. Thus under the head of Canada, 

 while thirteen titles are quoted containing the name, 

 there are also placed before the reader thirty-two titles 

 which do not contain it. Although there is no book 

 upon a special subject like " Carpets," he is referred to 

 " Manufacturing Industries " ; and under that burning 

 subject, " Capital and Labour," though not a book bearing 

 the title is to be found, master or man is referred to six- 

 teen books on political economy. A danger in attempting 

 this is shown, however, by comparing any two such cata- 

 logues together. Not half of the books in a large library 

 bearing upon any great subject can be thus quoted, and a 

 very intimate knowledge is required to select those of most 

 general superiority ; and even then a shade is unfairly 

 thrown over books of nearly equal ability. Why, for 

 instance, should only four of Hugh Miller's books be 

 quoted under the head of Geology, and only two of those 

 of the Geikies ? 



Of course this mischief increases as the greatness and 

 importance of the subject increases. It is easy to cite all 

 the books devoted to an account of New Zealand, but 

 useless to attempt to give a full list of those which bear 

 upon Europe or Asia. This catalogue carefully divides 

 Africa into Central, East, North, South, and West, and 

 quotes ninety-four works upon it, while upon America 

 seventy-four make up the selection. The literature of 

 Edward IV. may be fully compiled in a few titles, yet the 

 forty-five works relating to Charles I. and II. do not 

 nearly exhaust the books directly touching upon matters 

 of that period, and sixteen works upon the English 

 Commonwealth is not a great number to refer readers to. 



Such a collection of books as the Halifax Library must 

 have its deficiencies. Why are there only two books 

 on the cruise of the Challenger, neither of them Sir 

 Wyville Thomson's, whose name is not to be found ? 

 And if Lardner's Cyclopaedia entire is not now thought 

 indispensable, surely Thirlwall's "Greece" and some 

 of his later books ought not to have been passed 

 over. 



It is difficult to see the advantage of the puzzling sub- 

 stitution in this catalogue of A for 10,000. It saves 

 nothing till 10,000 is reached, and as soon as 11,000 is 

 reached it takes up more room than the figure which re- 

 quires no explanation. We are told that the Catalogue 

 enumerates 25,000 vols., but not what substitute is made 



or to be made for 20,000. Again, if a is used to save 



printing an author's name a second time, why should 

 "Capital and Labour "be printed in full nineteen times, 

 or " United States" 125. 



The printing has been unusually well corrected, but we 

 are inclined to ask, were the "wines of Cyprus" in the 

 head of the compiler when he quoted Mr. " Cyprus " 

 Redding as the author of " Modern Wines " ? 



The date of 18S2 on the title-page, while the quarterly 

 reviews come down to the bound vols, for 1883 with tables 

 of their contents, is explained by the first part of the work, 

 consisting of a catalogue of the novels and books in the 

 ■uvenile department which were "most in demand," being 

 issued at the earliest date possible, Part II. containing all 

 [he more important classes not being completed till this 





