June 4, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



815 



said to be a twenty-four-hour day, and lie is 

 always working when there is anji;hing to do. 

 Weeks and months and sometimes years of 

 tedious experimenting, dauntless patience and 

 unflagging industry, have marked his onward 

 march to victory from the beginning until 

 now. His is a splendid example of scientific 

 pertinacity rarely if ever surpassed in the his- 

 tory of human achievement. He has won and 

 held the admiration of the world; and his in- 

 fluence must remain as a permanent source of 

 inspiration both within the schools and without. 



ElCHAED C. MaCLAURIN 



Massachusetts Institute op Technology 



IHE PBOCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL 

 ACADEMY AS A MEDIUM OF 

 PUBLICATION 

 The establishment of monthly Proceedings 

 by the National Academy of Sciences, in which 

 the first announcements of new advances are 

 made, has met with instant recognition by a 

 wide circle of investigators. Eighty-three 

 original papers have appeared in the first fire 

 numbers, and the inflow of manuscripts is con- 

 tinually increasing. Many university depart- 

 ments and several research laboratories, 

 namely, the Rockefeller Medical Institute, the 

 Lick and Terkes Observatories, the Nutrition, 

 Experimental Evolution, and Marine Biolog- 

 ical Laboratories and the Mount Wilson Ob- 

 servatory of the Carnegie Institution, and the 

 Research Laboratories of Harvard University 

 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

 have already indicated their intention of adopt- 

 ing the Proceedings as their regular medium 

 for announcing new and important results. 

 The success of the Proceedings is therefore 

 amply assured. 



The need of a national journal representing 

 the joint interests of science as a whole and 

 providing for the prompt publication and wide 

 distribution of the chief results of American 

 research has been felt in every department of 

 science. The vigorous developments of sci- 

 ence in recent years have carried us past the 

 time when all of the special journals could 

 assure early publication ; and their very multi- 

 plicity has stood in the way of wide foreign 



circulation. Eour leading American journals 

 of biology have an average paid foreign cir- 

 culation of 93 copies (maximura 109, minimum 

 Y7). This is not due to any inferiority in 

 quality, as all of these journals are of the first 

 rank. Nor does it indicate that they are un- 

 desirable places to publish. On the contrary, 

 they have come into existence to meet a nat- 

 ural demand, and they certainly afford the 

 most satisfactory means of publishing extended 

 technical papers, intended for investigators in 

 the fields which they represent. The Proceed- 

 ings are expected to supplement them and 

 should aid materially in increasing their cir- 

 culation; for authors are requested to adopt 

 the uniform practise of referring in each 

 article to the journal in which the details of 

 their investigations will subsequently appear. 

 Such frequent references, seen by a wide circle 

 of readers, will soon have their effect. 



It is in the character and scope of their 

 circulation that the Proceedings wiU perform 

 their best service. Truly national in char- 

 acter, with a membership elected on equal 

 terms from all sections of the country, and 

 serving as the representative of the United 

 States in the International Association of 

 Academies, the National Academy of Sciences 

 is peculiarly fitted to bring its publications to 

 the attention of foreign readers. In Europe 

 the academy is regarded as the natural repre- 

 sentative of American research, and this fact 

 gives at once to the Proceedings an authorita- 

 tive standing among foreign investigators. 



As foreign secretary of the academy, I have 

 been called upon to prepare, with the coopera- 

 tion of the editors representing aU departments 

 of science, a comprehensive list of foreign 

 exchanges. Every effort has been made to 

 secure a weU-balanced distribution. From the 

 extensive data in Minerva relating to acad- 

 emies, societies, universities, seminars, general 

 and special libraries, laboratories, observatories, 

 museums, botanical and zoological gardens, 

 biological stations, geological surveys, and 

 other centers of study and research, a repre- 

 sentative group of about 900 foreign institu- 

 tions has been compiled. In preparing this 

 mailing list use has also been made of the ex- 



