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SCIENCE 



N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 762 



was connected, nor of any help to the progress 

 of science. During- all this time they re- 

 mained hidden in that obscurity to which they 

 at first had been consigned, and from which 

 they were rescued only after many of them 

 had been rediscovered and properly published. 



Another case of inadequate publication, and 

 there have been many similar ones, is the first 

 account of a method for detecting optically 

 the presence of objects beyond the highest 

 power of the microscope, as ordinarily used. 

 This appeared in a weekly engineering journal 

 which biologists, and others interested in high- 

 power microscopy, probably rarely saw and 

 never read. Mr. Dubern had as well never 

 made his important discovery. For more than 

 twenty years the world knew nothing of it, 

 and even then not until, and because, some one 

 else had rediscovered and really published the 

 same method. 



There is a piece of biblical wisdom that 

 ■warns against casting pearls where they will 

 receive but scant attention, and the same 

 thing applies to the printing of papers where 

 they don't belong. A paper out of place is a 

 paper unpublished, no matter how many may 

 see it. But unwise as it may be to send an 

 article to an inappropriate journal, it is just 

 as useless to give it to one that is without 

 circulation. No scholar, however able, can 

 reasonably expect to do much good who con- 

 fines the accounts of his discoveries to the 

 " Transactions of the Village Academy," or 

 io the "Publications of the Humdrum Labo- 

 ratory " — publications, both of them, for which 

 there is neither room nor proper reason. No 

 room, because not even libraries, much less 

 individuals, can handle that unnecessary and 

 unworthy mass of pamphlets of which these 

 are ideally typical; nor proper reason, since 

 commonly the existing journals are capable 

 of publishing all that is worth printing. 



It is true that once in a while there is a 

 real necessity for a new journal, but it should 

 not be started till the need for it is urgent, 

 for the cost of taking and the burden of 

 handling them is already beyond the means 

 and the ability of the private scholar, and fast 

 becoming a serious tax on even, large libraries. 



A new journal unnecessarily added is nothing 

 short of an unwarranted imposition, and it 

 deserves to be treated as such. But for all 

 that, there are many of just this kind. They 

 exist because of that foolish pride that puffs 

 itself up in a vain effort to imitate the ox; or 

 else, and often, because of the abominable 

 necessity for political buncombe. In either 

 case one article is quite as good as another, 

 and about as likely to be printed, provided 

 only that it is lengthy, learnedly muddled and 

 handsomely illustrated. These, of all others, 

 are to be avoided in every way possible. To 

 print in them is not to publish, for they are 

 neither shelved by libraries nor read of 

 scholars. 



When an investigation has but a single 

 interest, astronomical for instance, it is suffi- 

 cient and proper for it to appear in but one 

 journal, some astronomical one in this case, 

 of wide circulation. When, however, its in- 

 terests are distinctly twofold then the purpose 

 of the investigation — the spread of helpful 

 knowledge — is best met by publishing it in an 

 appropriate journal of each of the sciences 

 which it concerns. To do less than this is for 

 the investigator to neglect his duty, to hide 

 his light under a bushel, which is just as rep- 

 rehensible in the scientific as it is in the moral 

 world. To him that discovers let honor be 

 given, for he is a genius; but to him that 

 discovers and publishes let there be given 

 double honor, for he is a genius that has done 

 unto others as he would have others do unto 

 him. 



The necessity of treating a scientific ques- 

 tion one way for one purpose, and another for 

 a different purpose, has led to several legiti- 

 mate classes of journals and publications. 

 Those of a semipopular type, of which Science 

 and Nature are good examples, are especially 

 adapted to addresses before scientific societies, 

 book reviews, notes and brief articles of gen- 

 eral interest. In a sense these are what might 

 be called the scientist's newspapers, delightful 

 and valuable to every scholar, no matter what 

 his specialty. 



Distinctly different from these, though like 

 them in the sense that their pages are open to 



