CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 397 
good of the Societies that the Delegates should try to get their journals 
printed in a regular orthodox fashion, with contents in front and index 
at the end. And do not go re-paging from No. 1 every single yearly 
issue. A Society which he had represented had committed this error for 
the last four years, and had occasioned him much inconvenience. The 
parts should be paged continuously, so that they may form a much more 
dignified kind of volume. When each part is paged separately, the only 
thing to be done is to put, in binding them, a stiff piece of coloured paper 
between each number and the next, otherwise it takes a long time to 
find any particular part. 
Mr. T. W. Shore (Hampshire Field Club) said that as one who worked 
a good deal in the British Museum he thought they might do a little more 
than Mr, Whitaker had suggested. He had not had any experience of 
the publication of pamphlets, but he did know the extreme use of them, 
having been for some eight years a constant worker in the reading-room. 
He thought that the Delegates, as a Conference, might represent to the 
authorities of the British Museum that they were losing some out-of-the- 
way information of a very valuable kind in some of the Societies’ 
publications ; and might ask them to reconsider their position, and to 
receive the publications, however small, of any Society. 
The Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing said that his own experience was that the 
Museum had not got room for its books and pamphlets, and did not care 
for any more. Moreover, if these pamphlets are filed there, you have to 
wait perhaps half or three-quarters of an hour before you get what you 
want. But if you go to the British Museum at South Kensington, 
and apply to the Librarian there, you probably get whatever you want 
in two or three minutes. The speaker knew that instead of rejecting 
pamphlets and reports and transactions every possible trouble was taken 
at Kensington to collect them. They are there all brought together 
in a small compass ; but if they go to Bloomsbury the messenger may 
have to travel miles before he alights upon what is wanted. There 
was one point he thought Mr. Hopkinson intended to insist upon, and 
that was the form of reports and transactions. It is extremely incon- 
venient to have different sizes. You do not know how to bind them up. 
He believed that the Royal Society itself was going to change the form 
of its proceedings, and he thought if our Societies were to apply in a 
modest way to the large London Societies for advice as to the form it is 
best to adopt, a uniform size might be adopted which would be a very 
considerable advantage for our book-shelves. 
Dr. G. Abbott inquired to what extent the Library of the British 
Association was used. He was suspicious that really the volumes sent 
there would be very much more appreciated if they were sent to South 
Kensington. Perhaps, however, both could be supplied. 
Mr, J. F. Tocher (Buchan Field Club) remarked that he had listened 
with great pleasure to Mr. Hopkinson’s paper, and thought that an en- 
deavour should be made to carry out some of his suggestions. As editor 
of the transactions of a Corresponding Society, he had felt guilty as to 
one or two points with regard to the publication. In his Society they did 
not put the number of the volume upon reprints. Otherwise he thought 
the Buchan Field Club attended to most of the points that were brought 
out. So far as the form of the transactions was concerned, he thought 
they would experience some difficulty with the Corresponding Societies. 
In the North of Scotland they had at least half a dozen Societies and half 
