20 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
306TH MEETING. OcToBER 29, 1887. 
> 
The President in the Chair. 
Forty-one members and guests present. 
Announcement was made by the President of the election to and 
acceptance of membership of Mr. Jrsss Herman Homes. 
The President also referred to the loss sustained by the scientific 
world in the death of Prof. Spencer F. Barrp, and announced 
that the General Committee had taken the preliminary steps for 
arranging a memorial meeting in commemoration of his life and 
scientific work. 
Mr. CLEvELAND ABBE read the following paper entitled 
THE SIGNAL SERVICE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF METEOROLOGY. 
Mr. ABBE stated that in 1872 he began, at his own expense 
and for personal use, a more systematic collection of the titles of 
works bearing upon all subjects that he was interested in, especially 
meteorology. After corresponding in 1874 with the committee 
of the Royal Society as to the probability of the publication of 
their proposed subject-index to their Catalogue of scientific papers, 
and being officially informed that this work would not be under- 
taken, he decided to complete his systematic examination of all 
the titles in that great work and copy the appropriate ones for 
his own use. In 1878, when this work was nearly completed, so far 
as regards the first six volumes, he addressed a note to Prof. Hann, 
of Vienna, stating what he had done and inquiring whether any 
one in Europe was similarly engaged. Almost simultaneously with 
this Prof. Hann received and published’ a letter from Dr. Hell- 
mann, of Berlin, dated January 10, 1879, urging the importance of 
a general index to the literature of meteorology. This letter had 
evidently been suggested by a circular issued in October, 1878, by 
the permanent committee of the first meteorological congress at 
Vienna, proposing a programme for the second congress about to 
be held at Rome in the approaching month of April, 1879. In this 
circular the committee asked that the delegates prepare catalogues 
1Ztschr. Met., Wien, 1879, xiv, 96. 
