March 15, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



299 



index are to flow directly into the lap of 

 the individual scholar, seated at his own 

 desk in his private sanctum, enabling 

 him to disc<vrd (not inappropriate word) to 

 the limbo of the great libraries everything 

 that does not directly concern him, while 

 filing within reach of his finger-tips abso- 

 lutely everj'thing (pardon the optimism of 

 an enthusiast) that he maj' intimately de- 

 sire. 



How can so Utopian a consummation be 

 most speedily attained V 



Let universities and colleges, and all 

 manner of learned institutions and societies, 

 at once appoint committees similar to the 

 Harvard committee (though of course not 

 limited to the natural and physical sciences, 

 since the project of the Royal Society will 

 form only a portion of the great undertak- 

 ing), to accomplish three preliminarj- ob- 

 jects : 



1. To arouse an intelligent and earnest 

 interest in the subject. 



2. To induce the Smithsonian Institution 

 to assume the American leadership of the 

 movement. 



3. To convince publishers — primarilj' the 

 publishers to the respective institutions con- 

 cerned — of the importance of printing, on 

 sUps of the standard size, No. 33, of the 

 American Librarj^ Bureau (7ixl2^ cm., 

 3x.5 in. approximately), summaries of their 

 current j)ublications for distribution as 

 publishers' announcements. Tliis size of 

 slip is already widely in use, both publicly 

 and privatelj', and may well prove to be of 

 the dimensions ultimatelj^ adopted by the 

 authorities of the projected international 

 index. A beginning of these publishers' 

 announcements has already been made by 

 Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co., at the personal 

 request of the present writer, and has been 

 favorably submitted to the attention of the 

 Si'cretaries of the Royal Society by Profes- 

 sor Bowditch, chairman of the Harvard 

 committee. Other leading American pub- 



lishers have heartily favored the idea of 

 these card announcements and have prom- 

 ised to introduce them into use. 



Columbia College has within a few days 

 appointed, through its University Council, 

 a committee to further the interests of the 

 proposed International Cooperative Cata- 

 logue of Scientific Literature. 



Yours very truly, 



Hexry Alfred Todd. 



Columbia Colleoe, March 2, 1895. 



PITHECAXTHROPUS ERECTUS. 



Editor of Science — Sir : 



In my letter of February 14th occur two 

 expressions which need amendment. For 

 the phrase ' divergent roots,' p. 240, 1st 

 col., first line, read ' divergent root stems ;' 

 and for the phrase ' is wider than long,' p. 

 240, 2d col., fifth line, read ' is much wider 

 than long.' Yours truly, 



Harrison Allen. 



Philadelphia, March 4th, 1895. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

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 The object of this work is to cover gen- 

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 A general discussion of the most important 

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