270 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 452. 



United States oiScially take its place with 

 the other great nations in this work, but 

 though the Department of State has on 

 four occasions strongly recommended to 

 Congress the advisability of making a suit- 

 able appropriation for the work, to be ex- 

 pended under the direction of the secre- 

 tary of the Smithsonian Institution, no 

 appropriation has as yet been made and it 

 is feared that, owing to the growing dis- 

 position on the part of some members to 

 oppose all grants for purely scientific work, 

 the hope of future aid from this source is 

 not encouraging. 



On account of the necessary delays at- 

 tending the beginning of a work of this 

 kind, only the index of part of the first 

 year's literature has so far been published. 

 To be more exact, nine complete and three 

 part volumes of 1901 are now published, 

 besides a list of journals. 



It was at first hoped that valuable aid 

 could be obtained from existing card in- 

 dexes in the different scientific branches of 

 the government, but experience has shown 

 that, owing to the dissimilar methods used, 

 it is practically as difficult to transpose, 

 verify and properly classify the references 

 obtained in this manner as it is to obtain 

 the data at first hand. The Geological 

 Survey, however, has aided greatly in the 

 preparation of the volumes on mineralogy, 

 geology and paleontology, and much valu- 

 able aid has been had from the Library of 

 Congress and the Hydrographic Office, be- 

 sides the bureaus immediately under the 

 Smithsonian Institution. Especial recog- 

 nition is due to Dr. Theodore Gill, whose 

 ever-ready advice in all mooted questions re- 

 lating to zoological taxonomy has rendered 

 aid such as could only be had from an au- 

 thority whose decisions are beyond ques- 

 tion. 



To give some idea of the extent of the 

 work in this country I may say that ap- 

 proximately twenty thousand classified ref- 



erence cards have been forwarded by the 

 Smithsonian Institution to the London 

 Central Bureau. Of these over thirteen 

 thousand dealt with the literature of 1901. 



The method here employed is briefly 

 this: A numbered card record file is kept 

 of the titles of the periodicals published in 

 the United States which are likely to con- 

 tain matter on scientific subjects; this rec- 

 ord is systematically gone over at regular 

 intervals and the periodicals called for 

 from the Smithsonian Library which aims 

 to receive all such publications. The con- 

 tents of the publications themselves are in- 

 dexed separately on cards, and each card 

 duplicated as many times as necessary in 

 order to send to the Central Bureau (be- 

 sides the regular reference by authors' 

 names) one card for each of the subjects 

 into which the paper is classified. Dupli- 

 cate' author reference cards on which are 

 noted the assigned classification are kept 

 for file, and a recoi'd kept of the entire 

 publication on the periodical cards already 

 referred to. By this method it is pos- 

 sible not only to duplicate the work at any 

 time but to check and make good any 

 omissions. 



Separate publications and books are 

 treated in like manner in regard to classifi- 

 cation, although the methods of obtaining 

 notice of their appearance is necessarily 

 different. 



To classify properly into minute sub- 

 divisions, such as are employed in this 

 work, the vast amount of scientific matter 

 appearing in this country is a difficult task, 

 but every effort is used to make the refer- 

 ences exact, and where there is any inti'i- 

 cate question involved the advice of a 

 specialist is asked. I desire to acknowledge 

 the valuable services of Mr. L. C. Gunnel! 

 and Miss Rose A. Palmer, who have brought 

 intelligence, enthusiasm and industry to 

 the work of indexing and classification. 

 At the central bureau a corps of referees 



