Lai ey evar 
t PY a . i 
od 
E. B. Hunt on Scientific Publication. 25 
Arr. IIl— Views and Suggestions on the Practice and Theory 9, 
enti, cation ; by Lieut. E. B. Hunt, Corps of ee 
neers, U.S. A. 
Ir is much to be regretted that physical investigators labor 
under so many and serious disqualifications for the successful 
prosecution of their researches. In addition to such hindrances 
the man of science measures success. Not least among these 
adverse circumstances is the almost universal fact that the man 
of science has not the command of those books, and special 
memoirs, in which are recorded the methods and results of ante- 
rior investigations. Except in the rare cases of conjunction be- 
tween science and wealth, there is a perpetual inability to com- 
pare the research in hand, with the great body of related 
researches of the past and present times. It is scarcely B gucsiey 
that one’s theme should be entirely his own property, and except 
in this rare case it is very needful that he should have habitual 
periodicals, &e., while gathering materials for an Index of Ref- 
bhi matter relating to his field:—and also, that without 
_ this full knowledge of labor and thought already expended, he 
> wast - ng ae 
others have completed. In point of fact, most of the active ~ 
happy if from their limited private resources they can secure as ig 
a private possession that carefully chosen minimum of spec 
treatises which will give a starting point somewhere near the front _ 
lime of actual research and discovery. Nearly all such isolated. 
SECOND SERIES, Vor. XXV, No. 75.—MAY, 1858, ‘ 
4 
