NOYEMBEB 8, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



627 



to me, I fear that he will suggest that I 

 split it myself or pay somebody else to do 

 so; he, for his part, preferring to spend 

 his well-earned hour of liberty in his own 

 way without reference to my desires or 

 convenience. Frankly, technical men must 

 follow the practise of the best firms and 

 bear the cost of their own research. 



As my editorial work is at an end, I shall 

 conclude this address with a few remarks 

 concerning the difficulties which are en- 

 countered in such a position. Some little 

 time ago a friend who edits and partly 

 owns a scientific (non-chemical) journal, 

 urged upon me the view that, essentially, 

 an editor's duties should be confined to 

 proof reading. That manuscripts should 

 be printed exactly as sent in and that an 

 author should be allowed the utmost liberty 

 to make any exhibition of himself that he 

 might choose. The prospect to an over- 

 worked assistant editor was very tempting, 

 but, of course, the answer is that most 

 journals profess to be published for the 

 readers rather than for the authors. It is 

 strange that a man will spend months or 

 years working hard at a problem and will 

 then neglect the few minutes required to 

 verify the spelling of proper names (and 

 occasionally of others), to place punctua- 

 tion marks, or give his references in accord 

 with the system adopted by the journal to 

 which he is contributing. Some authors 

 appear to be incapable of checking up their 

 empirical formula or their analytical re- 

 sults, others show a preference for quin- 

 quivalent carbon atoms, whereas some ap- 

 pear to bend their energies to the repro- 

 duction of the graphic formulae of such 

 complicated compounds as methane or 

 carbon dioxide, which latter they may 

 write as one word. All this, like blots 

 and smudges, which of course the printer 

 will try to set up, is due to carelessness. 

 On the whole, the standard of English is 

 fairly good, of necessity one meets with 



"shall" and "will" misplaced, with 

 "gotten" and "proven," with "glas" and 

 "gass," while some of those who have spent 

 a few months in Germany naturally forget 

 their native language for the remainder of 

 their lives and spell hydriodic acid and 

 quinone according to the Teutonic fashion. 

 The facts that, in English, the names of 

 alcohols end in ol, those of amines in ine 

 and that amino acids and amides are not 

 identical appear to be beyond the limits of 

 knowledge of some contributors. In gen- 

 eral the meaning of an author is fairly 

 clear, but occasionally some very startling 

 statements are made, as, for example, one 

 by a chemist of considerable prominence, 

 who said, of a liquid, that it "heaped up 

 about 150°." Another man, almost 

 equally well known, describes a number 

 of solids, all of which "melt under decom- 

 position," whatever that may mean. 

 These remarkable materials should cer- 

 tainly find place in the National Museum ! 



The really important point about such 

 errors is this : Scientific workers in 

 general aiid, I am sorry to say, Ameri- 

 can scientific workers in particular, have 

 a bad reputation for the form in which 

 their results are presented. In the vast 

 majority of cases this reputation is not de- 

 served, nevertheless the many suifer for 

 the sins of the few. Authors should re- 

 member that the simple act of publication 

 constitutes, in itself, an invitation to the 

 world to give due credit and honor for the 

 work which is described in their papers. A 

 chemist is, presumably, not likely to under- 

 rate the value of his own work; if he does 

 not consider it worthy of clear and accurate 

 description, he has no right to expect that 

 busy people will take the time and trouble 

 to acquaint themselves with his results, no 

 matter how important they may be. 



J. Bishop Tingle 



McMasteb Univeksitt, 

 Toronto Canada 



