Mat 12, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



715 



Armstrong is the Nestor of the enterprise 

 and from the beginning of the work has 

 been one of the members of the Interna- 

 tional Council and chairman of the execu- 

 tive committee. Secretaries for the oiScial 

 languages of the catalogue — French, Ger- 

 man, Italian and English — were then ap- 

 pointed. After an address of welcome by 

 Sir Archibald Geikie and the announce- 

 ment of a number of hospitable invitations 

 to the delegates, the report of the executive 

 committee was laid before the convention. 

 This report formed the basis of most of the 

 discussions that followed and to save repeti- 

 tion its contents will be referred to or 

 quoted in full while reporting the proceed- 

 ings of the convention. 



The report stated that the seven annual 

 issues already published had cost the cen- 

 tral bureau $257,980, for which $246,410 

 had been received. The size of the first 

 four annual issues had averaged 8,441 

 pages each, the fifth and sixth issues aver- 

 aged 10,417 each, the seventh issue con- 

 tained 9,219 pages. The enlargement of 

 the fifth and sixth issues was due to the 

 fact that the various bureaus owing to im- 

 proved methods had begun indexing jour- 

 nals not previously included in the work. 

 When the International Council met in 

 June, 1909, it was decided to use modified 

 titles in the subject index with the result 

 that the seventh issue showed a marked de- 

 crease in size and it was estimated that the 

 eighth issue would show an even greater 

 reduction. In 1900 it was estimated that 

 the gross income would be $27,500 which it 

 was thought would cover the cost of an 

 edition of 500 copies if each issue com- 

 prised not more than 160,000 entries. The 

 annual income has been $35,000 while the 

 cost has been $36,855. The increased cost 

 was due to the increased size of the cata- 

 logue and also to the fact that a thousand 

 copies instead of five hundred had been 



printed. The working capital needed was 

 larger than originally estimated amount- 

 ing to a total of $37,500 advanced by the 

 Royal Society on all of which interest is 

 paid. It was stated that if the steps al- 

 ready taken were continued the deficit 

 could probably be cancelled, and if the first 

 ten issues could thus be published without 

 loss that in consideration of the extent and 

 difficulty of the enterprise the result would 

 be most satisfactory. Foundations having 

 thus been laid for an international or- 

 ganization of great importance and influ- 

 ence it was thought essential that steps be 

 taken to make the existence of the organi- 

 zation better known and its powers of use- 

 fulness more fully appreciated. 



A general discussion of methods looking 

 to reduction of expense then followed tak- 

 ing up among other questions the compara- 

 tive cost of printing in England and other 

 countries. This led to a discussion of the 

 finances of the whole enterprise and the 

 result of the debate may be summed up as 

 follows : 



That it was necessary to reduce the size 

 of the printed volumes without limiting 

 their usefulness which might be accom- 

 plished by revising somewhat the classifica- 

 tion schedules so as to reduce the number 

 of cross references and also by abbreviating 

 the references in the subject catalogue. 

 Emphasis was laid upon the desirability 

 of consolidating the International Cata- 

 logue with other bodies engaged in the 

 preparation of bibliographies of scientific 

 works, thus following a precedent estab- 

 lished in 1905 when the Zoological Society 

 of London agreed to cooperate with the 

 International Catalogue in the prepara- 

 tion and publication of the Zoological 

 Record. Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, secretary 

 of the Zoological Society, on being asked 

 by Sir Archibald Geikie what the saving 

 of expense had been by this fusion of in- 



