April 6, 1883. 



SCIENCE. 



239 



FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1883. 



DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



The report regarding the publication and 

 distribution of public documents, prepared b_y 

 a special committee of experts, Messrs. Ames, 

 S.pofford, and Baird, and recentlj' issued from 

 the Government printing-office, is the fruit of 

 one of those spasms of virtue that is apt to 

 overtake spendthrifts, individual or corporate, 

 at the end of a period of peculiarlj' unreasona- 

 ble waste and folly. In any well-managed 

 government, the conditions which this report 

 shows to exist would be a matter for chagrin 

 and for immediate remedy ; but, as the reme- 

 diable waste probably does not exceed a mil- 

 lion of dollars at sthe most, it will be perhaps 

 too trifling an evil for attention. 



The committee report that the}' ' ' are ver}' 

 deeplj' impressed with the number of documents 

 printed hy authority of Congress, aggregating, 

 for the forty-sixth Congress, 2,324,254, and, 

 for the first session of the fortj'-seventh Con- 

 gress, 1,354,947. . . . Thej' are no less deeply' 

 impressed with the lack of system and economj' 

 in the distribution of these documents. . . . 

 Under the practice now prevailing, nearlj^ all 

 documents, whatever xaa.y be their cost and 

 value, are distributed by from two to four agen- 

 cies, each in ignorance of what the others are 

 doing." 



They recommend a single agency for all the 

 distribution, that the public libraries have the 

 first care, and that discretion be shown in 

 the choice of libraries which are to receive the 

 full sets of congressional documents. Thej' 

 print twenty-four pages of tables, giving, in 

 fine tj'pe, a list of the ' documents ' printed hy 

 the forty-sixth Congress, — a wonderful list, 

 in which the transit of Venus comes against 

 the Fitz John Porter case, and the eulogies on 

 Z. Chandler succeed the nautical almanac. 

 Congress assumed that twelve thousand per- 

 sons needed to hear what Congress said on the 

 death of the above-named statesman, while only 

 half that number needed information on the 

 chinch-bug ; three thousand required informa- 

 tion on the flags of maritime nations, while onl}' 



No. 9. — 1883. 



twelve hundred wanted the third volume of the 

 geological survej'. 



The number of scientific books is surprising. 

 There are about fifty volumes upon such topics, 

 not including reports that are partly scientific, 

 nor the census publications, man}' of which 

 should be placed in this category. 



One of the results of this deluge of free 

 scientific books is, that any private publication 

 of works of this nature is well nigh impossible in 

 this conntr}'. Our people have been brought 

 to the state of mind where they assume that any 

 large, well-printed, elaborately illustrated work 

 was, of course, made to be given away. 



There are good reasons for the publication 

 of most of the public scientific works. Many 

 of them are an honor to the government, and of 

 great value to science ; but the system of dis- 

 tribution has been to the last degree absurd, 

 and not a little damaging to the best interests 

 of scientific men. The publication of this docu- 

 ment, and the recent action of Congress, are 

 steps towards the reform of the evil. If the 

 government will heed the sagacious recommen- 

 dations of their committee, the worst of these 

 evils will be cured. 



THE VARIATION OF TEMPERATURE 

 UNDER CONDITIONS PRESUMABLY 

 THE SAME. 



In all comparisons of standards of length, 

 the accurate ascertainment of the temperature 

 is a matter of the utmost importance. A neg- 

 lect of proper precautious in regard to this 

 point will frequently, if not generall}', intro- 

 duce greater uncertaint}' into the results than 

 all other sources of error combined. The im- 

 portance of knowing the temperature will 

 be readily admitted by all, but the difficulty 

 of ascertaining it is bj' no means fLilly appre- 

 ciated. The writer has himself seen costly 

 and elaborate comparators which were used 

 in the open air of a room without anj' provis- 

 ion for protecting the bars under comparison 

 from the influence of heat radiated from the 

 observer's body. He has also read letters of 

 persons whose ideas of accuracy were far be- 

 yond their abilitj' to achieve, and who wished 

 for the standards the}' would send for compari- 

 son a refinement of determination that would 

 be instantly lost in the uncertainty of the tem- 

 perature under the conditions to which they 



