XnnS^EAK SOCIETY OF LONDON. Ixxix 



serves the unity of the leading scientific Body of each one of the 

 European states, to which Body, if its number be limi^jed, every 

 one vs^ho devotes himself to science in any branch hopes one^ day 

 to be admitted. In every State this Body has included, and does 

 include, in its deliberations and transactions, all sciences ; in many 

 of them divisions or other arrangements have been adopted for 

 the separate issue of divisions of science, or of isolated memoirs to 

 supply the separate wants of individual members ; but then a 

 difficulty has occurred with regard to the reports of what takes 

 place at each meeting which every member desires to receive. 

 This has given rise to the publication of Minutes of Meetings, 

 entitled Reports, Bulletins, Comptes Bendus, Eendiconti, Monats- 

 or Jahresberichte, Oversigt, Ofversigt, &c. of Proceedings, or, as 

 we say for shortness. Proceedings. In the early stages of each 

 Association these Proceedings are generally prefixed to the Me- 

 moirs. The latter are, however, in quarto ; the preparation of the 

 illustrations takes time, and the parts are published often one or 

 two years after the papers were read, when the minutes of the 

 meetings have lost their ephemeral interest. A separate publi- 

 cation of Proceedings, in a more convenient form, at shorter in- 

 tervals, has therefore of late years been generally adopted. As these 

 Proceedings arc sufficient to fix dates and establish priority of 

 observations and names, it has been found satisfactory to contri- 

 butors to include abstracts of their papers. To these have been 

 gradually added short papers in extenso ; and, no absolute defini- 

 tion of shortness being adopted, and the octavo being found 

 the most convenient form for many memoirs, especially synoptical 

 monographs, faunas and floras, many of these Proceedings have 

 grown into Transactions, dififering from the quarto ones only in 

 form and frequency of issue, the original object of a distinct pub- 

 lication of ephemeral minutes of meetings not required for per- 

 manent reference being lost sight of: consequently a farther 

 modification has in some cases been adopted, a threefold publi- 

 cation, first, of quarto Transactions for important papers requi- 

 ring costly illustrations, or which their authors prefer to see in 

 that form ; secondly, of an octavo Journal for papers equally 

 permanent, but for reference to which the smaller form is more 

 convenient ; and thirdly, of separate or separable Minutes or 

 Beports of Proceedings. Most bodies, however, limit themselves 

 to the double publication of quarto Transactions, and Proceed- 

 ings either in octavo or, in the case of the Bussian and some 

 Italian and G-erman Academies, in quarto like the Transactions. 



