International Catalogue of Scientific Literature. 139 



International Catalogue of Scientific 

 Literature. 



First Annual Issue, M. Botany, Part I, Vol. I, 1902 

 (May), Harrison and Sons, London, pp. XIV. +378. 



The great and increasing rapidity with which scientific 

 literature accumulates, and the consequent difficulty 

 which investigators everywhere experience in maintain- 

 ing familiarity with the literature of their specialities, has 

 given rise to various efforts for the systematic and com- 

 plete arrangement of titles in such a way as to render 

 them directly available. Perhaps the most recent of 

 these efforts is that represented by the newly reorganized 

 Botanisches Centralblatt, which represents a complete sum- 

 mary of current botanical literature, together with short 

 reviews indicative of the nature of the contents of each 

 article. A somewhat earlier and more comprehensive 

 effort is that represented by the present volume which 

 expresses the final development of an idea, the origin of 

 which carries us back very nearly half a century. 



In 1855, Prof. Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution at Washington, U.S.A., suggested to the 

 Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, the desirability of publishing a 

 catalogue of scientific papers. This suggestion bore fruit 

 in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers issued by the Eoyal 

 Society, the first of which appeared in 1867. This 

 exceedingly useful publication now comprises twelve 

 large quarto volumes, covering the period from 1800-1883, 

 while the period embraced in the years 1884-1900 will 

 be covered by volumes now in course of preparation. It 

 soon came to be felt, however, that the scope of the work 

 was much too restricted, and it was recognized that (1) 

 an author's catalogue could not supply the requisite 

 information, (2) that it was essential that scientific 

 workers should be kept fully and quickly informed of all 

 new discoveries by means of subject indexes, and (3) that 



