JUISTK 23, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



871 



of synonyms for a given substance is large ; 

 alum has twenty-six ; aqua fortis, twenty- 

 two ; mercury, thirty-eight ; a pound 

 weight, eight, and cream of tartar is cred- 

 ited with thirty-two ; the symbols have an 

 uncouth appearance, but are hardly more 

 fanciful than those proposed by the Com- 

 mittee on the International Catalogue. 

 Should their schedule of classification pre- 

 vail, a new edition of the * Alchemical 

 Oracle ' would soon become a necessity. 

 H. Careington Bolton, 

 William P. Cutter. 



METEOROLOGY. 



The schedules of classification in meteor- 

 ology proposed by the International Cata- 

 logue Committee of the Royal Society 

 seem to be fairly well adapted to secure 

 the objects sought by the International 

 Conference on the bibliography of science. 

 I do not understand that the Conference or 

 the Committee has in mind any attempt at 

 a philosophical classification of human 

 knowledge as embodied in the publications 

 of scientific societies. On the contrary, 

 their object is merely to collect together in 

 London all possible titles of scientific works, 

 and to so arrange these that the clerks of 

 the Royal Society may easily copy out all 

 the titles on any given subject that may be 

 called for by any student or investigator. 

 For instance, under the head of ' Earth 

 Temperature,' No. 2,100, there may be 

 10,000 titles and cards ; these will be sub- 

 divided into a number of divisions, prob- 

 ably according to special aspects and 

 according to the countries or stations. 

 Each of these sub-divisions may have a 

 number between 2,100 and 2,199, or, if more 

 sub-divisions are needed, they will be 

 between 21,000 and 21,999. Of course, the 

 ease with which a clerk picks out the cards 

 that belong to a given subject desired by 

 the student depends, first, upon the minute- 

 ness of this sub-classification, and, sec- 



ondly, upon the accuracy with which the 

 content of a memoir is expressed by its own 

 title. This latter is the Mte noir of all 

 classification by titles, and there is no rem- 

 edy for it except that the bibliographer ex- 

 amine the original memoir itself, page by 

 page. In this respect the Royal Society 

 must depend upon the thoroughness of 

 those who send titles to it. The Society is 

 simply the central ofiSce, or agent, for all 

 the other societies and men in the scientific 

 world. Every card that is sent to it should 

 have inscribed on it the one or more sub- 

 divisions into which it falls. If these sub- 

 divisions do not appear on the preliminary 

 schedules of classification that have been 

 sent out for criticism and suggestion, then 

 they will be inserted as fast as needed. 



It seems to me that the method adopted 

 by the Conference and the Royal Society 

 will work just as well as any other that 

 could be suggested, and will be a great 

 boon to science if kept up during the next 

 century. Of course, it will require at 

 least ten years of experience for us to begin 

 to appreciate either its defects or ad- 

 vantages. Fortunately, so far as regards 

 meteorology, the Weather Bureau has the 

 great international bibliography, started in 

 1881 under my personal supervision and 

 already partially published. The classifi- 

 cation adopted therein by Mr. C. J. Sawyer, 

 after consultation with all the recognized 

 experts of Europe and America, embraces 

 many details not specifically mentioned in 

 the schedule of the Royal Society, and is 

 found very convenient when once the stu- 

 dent has become slightly familiar with it. 

 It endeavored to attain greater elasticity 

 by adopting a mixture of capital and small 

 letters, Roman and Arabic numerals, in or- 

 der to designate the various divisions and 

 sub-divisions. Thus we have IBlb to 

 designate the Aristotelian works on meteor- 

 ology in general, whereas the Royal Society 

 classification would, undoubtedly, designate 



