March SS, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



325 



sonian Institution. In Canada and in each 

 of the other British colonies which possesses 

 a Royal Society, this Society will naturally 

 assume the office. In every other country 

 some institution of similar position and char- 

 acter will readily be found. 



As to the place of the Central Bureau, 

 and the directing authority under which it 

 should be inaugurated, one would suppose 

 that there can hardly be two opinions. 

 That this place should be Loudon, and this 

 authority the Royal Society of England, 

 would seem to be necessary conclusions 

 from the existing circumstances, at least at 

 the outset. Both place and directory might, 

 of course, be changed hereafter, if this 

 should be found desirable. 



It would seem specially ad\'isable, for the 

 purpose of arousing and maintamiug an in- 

 terest in the object in \iew, and of ensuring 

 the cordial cooperation of all concerned in 

 the work, that general meetings should be 

 held — either annually, or biennially, or tri- 

 ennially, as might be found most convenient 

 — of representatives of all the contiibuting 

 bodies, or at least of all that contribute a 

 certain defined amount to the ftind. Such 

 meetings might be held either at the place 

 of the central office or at other places, as 

 might be decided, from time to time, by the 

 assembled representatives. Such an assem- 

 blage would constitute an International 

 Congi-ess of Science, possessing much of the 

 character of those congresses of geologists, 

 of anthropologists, of Orientalists, of Ameri- 

 canists and the like, which have of late 

 years been found so popular and useful, 

 but differing from them in possessing to 

 some extent a representative character, and 

 with it a defined purpose and authority. 

 Its purpose would be that of maintaining a 

 connection among the students of all the 

 sciences throughout the globe, not onlj' by 

 personal acquaintance or correspondence, 

 but also and especially through the medium 

 of the Central Bureau and the Catalogue, 



which would be directly under the author- 

 ity of the Congress. In general it may Ije said 

 that this Congress would .speedily become 

 for the whole civilized world what the mod- 

 ern Association for the Advancement of 

 Science is for its own country ; with the 

 important diiference, however, that the 

 Congress, besides the personal iniluence of 

 its meetings and the interest that would at- 

 tach to the volume recording the proceed- 

 ings of each meeting, would have the much 

 greater influence and usefulness resulting 

 from the permanent acti\'itj^ of its Central 

 Office and the frequent issue of its catalogue 

 of scientific publications. 



As regards the ' character of the work to 

 be carried on in the central office,' there 

 seems little to be added to the suggestions 

 of the cii'cular. The final paragraph, in 

 which it is suggested that " arrangements 

 might be made by which, in addition to 

 preparing the catalogue, scientific data 

 might be tabulated as they come to hand in 

 the paj)ers supplied," could perhaps be en- 

 larged, with much advantage, into the 

 creation of a special ' Bureau of Scientific 

 Correspondence,' to which any member of 

 a contributing body might apply for in- 

 formation on questions of fact. As is well 

 known, it constantly happens that through 

 the unavoidable ignorance in which, to a 

 large extent, students of science have here- 

 tofore remained of one another's actions, 

 supposed new discoveries are announced 

 and resulting theories suggested, which 

 have been already made known elsewhere. 

 Every such student will appreciate the 

 advantage of being able to refer to a bureau 

 of specialists for information on doubtful 

 points of this description. 



On the question of ' the language or lan- 

 guages in which the catalogue should be 

 published,' there would seem to be little 

 difficulty in deciding. If English and 

 French should be jointly selected for this 

 purpose, there would probably be no ob- 



