June 21, 1918J 



SCIENCE 



605 



promoting united work on problems of com- 

 mon interest. Borderland subjects merit spe- 

 cial consideration from this point of view. 



The publication of the proceedings of such 

 meetings in the transactions of the several so- 

 cieties concerned would be much facilitated by 

 the adoption of a uniform size and type for the 

 publications of societies dealing with allied 

 subjects, so that each could include such papers 

 in its journal or distribute them as self-con- 

 tained reprints of a standard size. Similar 

 uniformity is perhaps not practicable for all 

 scientific and technical publications, but in so 

 far as it can be adopted it would add much to 

 the accessibility and the utility of the recorded 

 work. 



Organized collaboration is also desirable by 

 means of which the members of scientific and 

 technical societies should have opportunity of 

 knowing what papers are being contributed to 

 societies other than their own, apart from their 

 later publication either in the journal of the 

 society concerned or in the form of abstracts. 

 The proposal, which, it is understood, is being 

 considered by the Board of Scientific Societies, 

 to publish a weekly journal of announcements 

 would meet this want, and it is to be hoped 

 that the board will decide to issue such a pub- 

 lication as soon as possible. Meanwhile, indi- 

 vidual societies could aid in this direction by 

 publishing in their journals both the announce- 

 ments of cognate societies and short summa- 

 ries of papers read previous to publication, so 

 that the subject-matter is brought to the no- 

 tice of those interested at as early a date as 

 jKjssible. A method of mutual exchange to fa- 

 cilitate such cooperation could be easily ar- 

 ranged, and would in no way detract from, 

 but rather add to, the interest in the later full 

 publication of papers. 



Apart from original contributions, the pub- 

 lications of most societies include abstracts of 

 scientific and technical literature published 

 both in our own and in foreign journals. In 

 so far as such abstracts include subjects of 

 common interest to members of kindred so- 

 cieties, there is at present a great deal of over- 

 lapping which could be advantageously elimi- 

 nated by organized collaboration. We have, 

 in the past, been far too reliant in many sub- 



jects on the foreign, and especially on the Ger- 

 man, journals for our supply of the world's sci- 

 entific and technical literature, and it is high 

 time that we became independent and self- 

 supporting in this respect. Effective coopera- 

 tion should achieve this desirable end for each 

 group of cognate subjects; and whilst the 

 method of collaboration would depend to a 

 considerable extent on the character of the sub- 

 ject, a common journal of abstracts for each 

 group of societies would, in the majority of 

 cases, prove the most advantageous plan. Al- 

 though a scheme of this character would neces- 

 sarily decrease the bulk of the publications of 

 each society, the original contributions which 

 mark their individuality would be given 

 greater prominence, time wasted by the re- 

 reading of the same abstract in several jour- 

 nals would be saved, and considerable econo- 

 mies in publication would be effected. 



Much attention is being directed at present 

 towards the unification and coordination of 

 scientific effort. The coordination of scientific 

 publication, which has made some progress in 

 the directions indicated during recent years, 

 should certainly continue to occupy a promi- 

 nent place amongst these problems of recon- 

 struction. 



VITAL STATISTICS OF ENGLAND AND WALES 



The Registrar-General has made public the 

 following statement showing the birth-rates 

 and death-rates and the rate of infantile mor- 

 tality in England and Wales and in certain 

 parts of the comitry during 1917. 



ENGLAND AND WALES 



Birth-rate, Death-rate and Infant Mortality during 

 the Tear 1917 {Provisional Figures) 



