September 18, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



379 



genus to family, liis observations were pre- 

 served in memoranda that facilitated the 

 resumption of interrupted work at any time 

 and after any lapse of time. In no other 

 way could the odd moments between the 

 daily calls and occupations of a busy physi- 

 cian have contributed so much to botanical 

 knowledge. In no other way could his 

 seemingly small opportunity for investi- 

 gation have been converted into a great 

 one. 



Almost as important as the early selection 

 of a worthy subject for study and the adop- 

 tion of a method insuring the preservation 

 and use of even the most trivial information 

 bearing on it, is the adoption of suitable 

 library methods. The student whose spe- 

 cialty is small and little explored has 

 mainly the task of observing and reasoning 

 from the facts before him ; but in the de- 

 partments that have long been the subject 

 of study, while a part of the work is already 

 done to his hand, and the prospect is that 

 he can go much further than on entirely 

 new ground, the task of ascertaining and 

 profiting by what his predecessors have 

 done is often a difficult one. l*^ot infre- 

 quently the literature of a subject is so scat- 

 tered as to make it next to impossible to 

 pass it all in review, and at best the task of 

 finding the fragments is one calling for a 

 special faculty. One or more attempts have 

 been made to form general bureaus of scien- 

 tific information, to which one need only 

 turn if he would be possessed of references 

 to the principal literature of any subject in 

 which he chanced to be interested. Per- 

 haps, as library facilities accumulate at the 

 great centers of research, some method may 

 be found of supplementing them with the 

 skill of expert librarians who shall be able 

 and willing to carry the contents of the 

 library, at least in skeleton form, to those 

 who cannot come to it ; but the time has 

 hardly yet come when any American library 

 is complete enough in all branches to offer 



this aid with a reasonable chance of doing 

 what it promises, or so manned as to make 

 such assistance possible except at the sacri- 

 fice of more valuable direct research. 



For the present, then, the investigator 

 must be content to do his own delving into 

 the literature of his predecessors. Fortu- 

 nately, much of the earlier literature has 

 been sought out by some of the writers on 

 any branch that has been the subject of 

 earlier study, so that, starting with a memoir 

 of recent date, one is guided to others, each 

 of which may bring further references, until, 

 if he have access to the works, almost the 

 entire earlier literature is unearthed. On 

 the other hand, the most recent literature 

 of a subject is always the most difficult to 

 find and use. After a study has been gotten 

 well under way, so that the student is 

 keenly alert to every observation or pub- 

 lished item in any way bearing on it, if he 

 have access to a library receiving the prin- 

 cipal current journals, he is not likely to 

 overlook any important publication on his 

 specialty which then appears. As a rule, 

 all of the larger papers, at least, are noticed 

 in JusVs Jahresbericht, generally not more 

 than a year later than that for which the 

 volume purports to be compiled ; but as the 

 Jahresbericht is always some three years in 

 arrears, it is difficult to prevent notes ex- 

 tending over a period of this duration from 

 being defective, at least for the earlier 

 part of the time, and there is, at present, 

 no means of removing this difficulty, though 

 the plan proposed to zoologists a year ago, 

 and, I presume, tested during the present 

 season, if successful, would be equally ap- 

 plicable to botany. 



So far as the final result is concerned, 

 perhaps the manner in which one's work is 

 published is almost as important as the 

 subject selected or the method adopted for 

 its investigation. Alphonse De Candolle, 

 in one of the most helpful treatises ever 

 published in the hope of rendering botani- 



