26  E. B. Hunt on Scientific Publication. 
effort is expended too much at a venture to bear the fruit of dis- 
covery to which it ought and is entitled to aspire. Not one in 
twenty of the members of this Association has the command of 
all those special records of research, which are needful to the 
symmetry and completeness of his own labors. There may be 
P. M., he is fortunate if he can use them on these conditions. 
The result is that only a few amongst us are able to 
should, had we a complete library within easy reach. Such is 
nearly ‘the universal truth concerning those who are by nature 
endowed with the faculties requisite for successful research. It 
cannot therefore be entirely profitless to consider what possible 
alg yianons of this condition are practicable. 
Ai rst then, it is a fixed tendency of scientific research, to sub- 
Geide during its progrees into numerous and well defined spe- 
2 Shee Each new bran ah of investigation soon su es in 
other and more limited branches, and though all are ultimately 
a from one grand trunk, so vast that not even the giants of 
inc can span its circumference, still the special branches have a 
owness of diffusion which brings t them quite within the com- 
_ pass of a single scientific mind. It thus happens that though 
Many thousands of separate memoirs or investigations are pre- 
served in the a te records of science, the pure specialist 
will find but few which are related to his own chosen field; so_ 
nee to su 
ng only the date and the 
e the specialist, when outside 
e rely gin-9 
obvious that such a lame condition of things is 
necessit nt nag grown out of the histo of 
o back to the times y | 
