580 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 693 



complimentary copies and copies for review 

 are finding their way unduly early to the 

 shops of second-hand dealers. 



There appears to be but one way, alike 

 equitable and effective, to check the in- 

 creasing importunities of individuals and 

 institutions for the free receipt of sets of 

 our publications and to avoid the abuses 

 which have arisen from an attempt to deal 

 generously with authors in the distribution 

 of complimentary copies. This way is to 

 limit the omnia list to its present dimen- 

 sions and to cut down the authors' list to a 

 minimum which will prevent those abuses. 

 The executive committee at its meeting of 

 October 23, 1907, authorized such a restric- 

 tion of the omnia list and the president 

 desires to recommend in the near future a 

 similar restriction of the presentation lists. 



STORAGE AND SALE OF PUBLICATIONS 



As shown in the earlier parts of this 

 report, the publications of the institution 

 have accumulated at a rapid rate. Assum- 

 ing that something like a stable state of 

 affairs is now attained, it would appear 

 that with an appropriation of one tenth of 

 the annual income for publications an 

 average of 25 volumes per year may be 

 advantageously published. If these are 

 issued in editions of 1,000 copies each, 

 books must be expected to accumulate at 

 the rate of 10,000 to 15,000 volumes per 

 year for some years, unless sales increase 

 more rapidly than during the past three 

 years. 



Provision must be made, therefore, for 

 more adequate storage room in the near 

 future. Such room is provided for by the 

 plans for the proposed Administration 

 Building, which it is hoped may be erected 

 within two years. In the meantime use is 

 being made of the available storage room 

 in the attic of the Geophysical Laboratory, 

 where the risk of loss from fire is much less 



than in the present office quarters of the 

 institution. 



As to the possibilities of sales of publica- 

 tions, it appears plain from a study of 

 existing trade conditions, as well as from 

 the accumulating experience of the institu- 

 tion itself, that 500 to 700 copies of each 

 volume of our published works will be 

 needed to meet a normal commercial de- 

 mand ; so that to supply the omnia list and 

 the trade our standard edition of 1,000 

 copies is essential. But to secure this 

 normal commercial demand the institution 

 must strictly limit the gratuitous distribu- 

 tion of its books and let them pass on their 

 merits through the legitimate channels of 

 trade. Believing this method of distribu- 

 tion to be the best one in the interests of 

 society as well as in the interests of the 

 institution, it is hereby recommended for 

 early adoption. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The World Machine. By Carl Snyder. New 



York, Longmans, Green & Co. 1907. Pp. 



xvi + 488. 



The perusal of this volume calls to mind 

 the clean-cut dilemma in which a recent 

 writer' shows we are placed when we examine 

 the question of man's relation to his environ- 

 ment in a way sufficiently comprehensive to 

 include the problem of his consciousness and 

 his knowing as well as that of the physical 

 objects of which he has knowledge. Either 

 knowledge itself and all mind and conscious- 

 ness are in some sense a product of inorganic 

 and organic evolution, or, conversely, this 

 physical evolutionary process is in some way 

 conditioned by that very act of knowing or 

 existence of mind. Either " matter " or con- 

 sciousness must be chosen as the " end-term." 

 The former position seems to appeal most to 

 the "scientists," although it is found by the 

 far-thinking among these to meet with cer- 

 tain serious difficulties in its completion. On 



' Professor F. J. E. Woodbridge in Studies in 

 Philosophy and Psychology, " The Problem of 

 Consciousness," Houghton, MifSin & Co., 1906. 



