372 
lication ” on May 7 last. The discussion was 
opened by Sir Robert Hadfield, President of 
the Society and a member of the Subcom- 
mittee appointed by the Conjoint Board of 
Scientific Societies to deal with the “ Over- 
lapping between Scientific Societies.” Among 
others who spoke were Professor Schuster, Dr. 
R. Mond, Mr. Longridge (president of the 
Institute of Mechanical Engineers) and Mr. 
Wordingham (president of the Institute of 
Electrical Engineers). Sir Robert Hadfield’s 
chief suggestion was that there should be a 
Central Board (such as the Conjoint Board) 
appointed to receive all scientific papers and 
to allot them for reading and discussion to the 
society to which they would-be of most in- 
terest. In addition the board should circu- 
larize other societies likely to be interested 
in order that their members might be aware 
of what had been done and enabled to attend 
and take part in the discussion if they so de- 
sired. This plan would, of course, involve 
some degree of federation between all the 
larger societies; a federation which was evi- 
dently regarded very favorably by those pres- 
ent at the meeting. It has indeed already 
taken place in Germany, where a Union of 
Technical and Scientific Societies, with a roll 
of some 60,000 members, has been formed 
more especially to cope to the best advantage 
with the problems which must arise at the end 
of the war. In New York also the United 
Engineering Societies have a central building 
and library, provided by the generosity of 
Andrew Carnegie, where the several societies 
meet for discussions, and where they are 
brought into closer contact than is possible 
with the decentralization which obtains here. 
Nor should the federation be limited to the 
United Kingdom alone. The great societies 
should have Colonial representatives, particu- 
larly those dealing with problems of an in- 
dustrial character. In pre-war days the Iron 
and Steel Institute had a representative of the 
German Empire, which was thus kept in touch 
with English research, but no representative 
from our own Dominions. With a federation 
of this kind it might be possible to maintain 
a common building (e. g., an enlarged Bur- 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Von. XLVIII. No, 1241 
lington House) for meetings and to house a 
joint library which should contain, in par- 
ticular, all the publications referred to in the 
International Catalogue. Several speakers di- 
lated on this idea, Dr. Mond suggesting that 
it should have a staff of translators competent 
to provide complete translations of papers 
written in the more difficult languages (e. g., 
Russian or Japanese) when they were re- 
quired; while Mr. Longridge went further in 
desiring a Oollege of Librarians; men able to 
discuss research with inquirers and not merely 
to put them on the track of past work, but 
also to inform them of the work then in 
actual progress! Less utopian was the de- 
mand for uniformity in publication. It is 
most desirable that all Proceedings, Trans- 
actions, etc., should be printed on the same 
sized paper and in the same type so that col- 
lected papers on any one subject may be bound 
together. The scheme for the pooling of 
papers was opposed by the institutions on the 
ground that they awarded prizes for the best 
papers submitted to them and that, under the 
scheme, this incentive to research might dis- 
appear. Obviously, however, this difficulty 
might easily be overcome if each society re- 
tained the right to print any papers sent to 
them irrespective of their ultimate fate at 
the hands of the board. A more serious ob- 
jection is that a paper is usually written for 
a particular ‘class of reader. A treatment 
suitable for the Physical Society would prob- 
ably not be best for the Iron and Steel In- 
stitute. Having regard to this fact it seems 
probable that a central board would find its 
most important function in issuing a weekly 
or monthly list of forthcoming papers with 
intelligible abstracts, as suggested by Pro- 
fessor Schuster.—Science Progress. 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
Dynamic Psychology. By Roprert SEssions 
Woopwortu. New York, Columbia Uni- 
versity Press. 1918. Pp. 210. 
A critic in the Nation once remarked, 
“When a statement is obviously false we call 
it stimulating; when it has no meaning what- 
