June 16, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



831 



under ' Physiology ' — certainly important 

 for zoologists too — are to be contained in 

 the Annual Eeport is not stated. 



But Analytical Reports (Jahresberichte) 

 and Bibliography are, as already empha- 

 sized, two different things, the combination 

 of which is injurious to both. Forty or 

 fifty years ago a single person might pos- 

 siblj' have been able to meet the require- 

 ments of both successfully and accurately, 

 but that is no longer possible. In the An- 

 alytical Eeport many things must be men- 

 tioned of which the Bibliography cannot 

 make note. 



The explanations of the other main di- 

 visions (in the Eeport of the Committee) 

 nowhere state whether Analytical Eeports 

 are to be issued for them, or whether Zool- 

 ogy alone is thus to be provided for. It 

 looks as though there was a desire to make 

 use of the existing machinery of the Zoolog- 

 ical Eecord, but not to the advantage of all 

 parts of the undertaking. Moreover, for an 

 Analytical Eeport a special system of regis- 

 tration would be more or less superfluous, es- 

 pecially in the form here selected, inasmuch 

 as the systematic arrangement, together 

 with the alphabetical, would furnish an ade- 

 quate means of orientation. But, neverthe- 

 less, there is introduced a scheme of arrange- 

 ment going into the minutest details and 

 even impossibilities. What sense or purpose 

 is there in creating a separate rubric for 

 ' Lower Palceozoio and Upper Palceozoic Mam- 

 mals and Bh-dsV\ But how, for example, a 

 work ' On the History of Entomology in 

 England ' would be designated and assigned 

 a place is not discoverable. Likewise, diffi- 

 culties are encountered in attempting to in- 

 dex such a paper as ' On Fossil Molluscs of 

 Sicily.' For the letters which are, unfor- 

 tunately, introduced for geographical groups 

 give a designation, 'dh,' only for 'Italy, with 

 Sicily and Sardinia ' (Corsica is left with 

 France), and concerning its possible further 

 sub-division nothing is stated. There is no 



explanation whatever about the significance 

 of the j)osltion of the separate characters in 

 the series constituting an index ; ' 35,' it is 

 true, indicates everywhere the General ; 

 and yet this is influenced bj' the the regis- 

 tration letters and by its position. ' Fossil 

 Molluscs of England ' are ' K 35, 42 de.' 

 ' K 35, 02 ' is Paleozoology in general. ' L 

 0235 (just the reverse order) is general 

 Zoology, while ' L 0035 ' is used for the 

 names of new genera and new groups. That 

 a system of notation should allow the possi- 

 bility of its being afterwards extended to 

 other branches of knowledge has been dis- 

 regarded. As it now stands, this is ex- 

 cluded ; for, since the natural sciences 

 already use up as registration symbols the 

 letters A to Q, the incorporation of other de- 

 partments of knowledge appears to be 

 practically impossible. 



Thus it becomes evident how perilous it 

 was for the Committee of the Eoyal Society 

 to endeavor to discover a new system anal- 

 ogous to, and in imitation of, the Dewey 

 decimal system, instead of simply adopting 

 that. Certain modifications which, indeed, 

 Dewey himself holds to be possible or per- 

 missible could have been adopted, if only 

 the chief numbers and the main features of 

 their employment had been retained. It 

 can scarcely be maintained that combina- 

 tions of letters are more easily remembered 

 than groups of figures. It is a matter of 

 habit, and certainly Dewey taxes the mem- 

 ory less, since his numbers have mutual 

 relations, and especially since certain im- 

 portant groups of ideas retain throughout 

 the whole system the same designation, and 

 because, moreover, the figures follow a fixed 

 sequence. It has been objected to the deci- 

 mal system that it is too detailed, since 

 already twelve-place numbers have been 

 reached. This objection is in part well 

 founded, in so far as the expanders of the 

 sj^stem, almost from the beginning of their 

 employment of it, have given an index to 



