564 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1033 



found anywhere else. The immense prolifera- 

 tion of scientific literature in seventeen years 

 alone (1884^1900) may be judged by the fact 

 that the present volumes, of 951 double-column 

 pages in small type, covers only letters A-B. 

 This is due to the fact that, in addition to 

 periodicals and serials devoted to pure sci- 

 ence, many publications of lighter vsreight have 

 been indexed, as containing occasional con- 

 tributions of value. The list of new abbrevia- 

 tions covers some 90 pages. In this we find 

 such titles as L'Aieille (entomology), the 

 Analyst (chemistry), Aquila (ornithology), the 

 Electrician, Garden and Forest, the Humming 

 Bird, the Siderea'l Messenger, the Womhat, 

 the Journal of Tropical Medicine, the New 

 York Medical Journal and the Practitioner. 

 Such titles do not, however, connote triviality, 

 but the editors admit that the selection of 

 material in the less exactly defined sciences, 

 such as anthropology or geography, can not 

 be made from a rigid viewpoint. Not pre- 

 suming to go outside the medical sciences, a 

 number of titles might be noted which are 

 nowise reports of original work, but articles 

 d'actualitS, abstracts or resum,es of work done 

 by others, a species of ephemeral literature in 

 which medicine, more than any other group of 

 sciences, abounds. Any one familiar with 

 medical bibliography will realize how un- 

 avoidable such inclusions are ; but in the more 

 rigorous branches of science there is little 

 chance for vulgarization, and " abstracts " 

 are usually described as such. One very valu- 

 able feature of this catalogue consists in the 

 well-selected obituaries and memorial notices 

 of deceased individuals, for instance those of 

 the surgeon Billroth (p. 558) or the physiol- 

 ogist Browu-Sequard (p. 851). The system of 

 Russian transliteration adopted is a new de- 

 parture. In the twelve volumes preceding, 

 the standard used was a table, approved by 

 Lowinson-Lessing, MorfiU and other Russian 

 scholars, and adopted by the British Museum, 

 the Royal Society and other learned bodies in 

 England.^ The present system, which is also 

 employed in the " International Catalogue of 

 Scientific Literature," is based on the phonetic 

 ■i- Nature, 1889-90, XLI., 396-97. 



value of Roman letters in Bohemian. Thus 

 what was formerly written zh becomes z, Teh 

 becomes ch, ch becomes c, sh becomes s, and 

 shell becomes sc, ya or yu becomes ja or ju at 

 the beginning of a syllable and ia or iu after 

 a syllabic consonant. These improvements 

 will iindoubtedly make for less unsightly 

 names or words in print, and, if standardized, 

 may mercifully settle the vexed question of 

 Russian transliteration. In the present cata- 

 log-ue, however, it has been necessary to em- 

 ploy cross references to facilitate identifica- 

 tion with names in earlier volumes trans- 

 literated after the old method. One of the 

 great difficulties in cataloguing Russian 

 names is the fact that German or other non- 

 Russian names in Russian text are often vio- 

 lently wrenched from their true orthography, 

 making strange appearances when rendered 

 by certain transliterators. Thus Wales be- 

 comes TJels, Herzen becomes Gerisen, Zoege- 

 Manteujfel becomes Tsege-Mantaiffel and Poehl 

 is written Pel. The difficulty is further com- 

 plicated by the fact that many Russian writers 

 of Yiddish extraction who bear German names 

 decline to spell such names German fashion, 

 when written in Roman characters, adhering 

 to a servile transliteration of the Russian. 

 This is very commonly seen in the students' dis- 

 sertations of Berne and Ziirich, where Jewish 

 pupils abound. Even before the days of 

 Yuryev and Petrograd, it was necessary for 

 the bibliographer to have a certain flair, an 

 actual science des noms in Russian translitera- 

 tion. In regard to another detail of the sci- 

 ence of personal names, the Royal Society 

 Catalogue has preserved throughout an ad- 

 mirable consistency and uniformity. Thus 

 the prefixes d'. Da, Dal, de, De, Del, Delia, 

 van. Van, von are all lower-cased and not con- 

 sidered as part of the name. Da Costa appear- 

 ing under Costa, and the Belgian Van Beneden 

 along with the Dutch van Beet or the German 

 von Bardeleben. Names preceded by Du, 

 Des, Mac and 0' are, however, found under the 

 letters D, M and 0, and those preceded by 

 La, Le, Les are all found under the letter L. 

 In English and Dutch compound names, the 

 last name is preferred; in French, Spanish 



