304 BULLETIN OP THE 



etc. . . " The catalogue should begin from the year 1800. 

 There should be a catalogue according to the names of authors, 

 and also a catalogue according to subjects."* The Committee 

 comprising Fellows of the Rojal Society of London finally suc- 

 ceeded in interesting that grave body in the undertaking : and 

 the result was that greatly to Henry's satisfaction, the entire 

 work was ultimately assumed by the Royal Society itself. 



In the course of ten years that liberal Society aided by a large 

 grant from the British Grovernment gave to the world its half 

 instalment of the great work, in its admirable "Catalogue of 

 Scientific Papers" alphabetically classified by authors, in seven 

 or eight large quarto volumes. In the Preface to this splendid 

 monument of industry and liberality, stands the following history 

 of its inception. " The present undertaking may be said to have 

 originated in a communication from Dr. Joseph Henry, Secretary 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, to the Meeting of the British 

 Association at Glasgow in 1855, suggesting the formation of a 

 catalogue of Philosophical memoii's : this suggestion was favor- 

 ably reported on by a Committee of the Association in the fol- 

 lowing year. ... In March, 1857, General Sabine, the 

 Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society, brought the 

 matter before the President and Council of that body, and re- 

 quested on the part of the British Association, the co-operation 

 of the Royal Society in the project : whereupon a committee was 

 appointed to take into further consideration the formation of 

 such a Catalogue. . . . No further step was taken by the 

 British Association or by the Royal Society in co-operation with 

 that body: but the President and Council of the Royal Society 

 acting on the recommendations contained in a Report of the 

 Library Committee dated Tth January, 1858, resolved that the 

 preparation of a Catalogue of scientific memoirs should be under- 

 taken by the Royal Society independently, and at the Society's 

 own charge, "t 



System of Exchanges.— Vox the diffusion of knowledge among 

 men, one of the methods adopted by Henry from the very com- 

 mencement of his administration was the organization of a sys- 

 tem by which the scientific memoirs of Societies or of individuals 

 from any portion of the United States, might be transmitted to 

 foreign countries without expense to the senders : and by which 



* Report Brit. Assoc. Cheltenham, Aws. 1856, pp. 463, 464. 



t Preface to Catalogue of Scientific Papers, (1800-1863) vol. i. 1867, pp. 

 iii., iv. The second and most important division of this great and invalu ■ 

 able work, — the classified Index to Subjects, — still remains to be accom- 

 plished. Had the plan adopted been made to include the scientific 

 memoirs of the two preceding centuries, the value of the compilation 

 would have been enhanced in a far greater proportion than the additional 

 expenditure or the increase of bulk. 



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