REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 81 



II. MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS. 



Of the Miscellaneous Collections five new works have been published since the 

 editor's last report, and the Smithsonian Meteorological, Geographical, and Physical 

 Tables have been reprinted. 



At the close of the year much progress had been made in printing a Supplement to 

 Bolton's Bibliography of Chemistry, which will include about 4,000 additional titles 

 of chemical publications. 



Volumes XXXVII, XXXVIII and XL of the Collections were also completed and the 

 covers, titles, and other preliminary pages distributed. Parts of Volume XXXIX 

 have been issued and the whole volume will soon be completed. 



The new works are as follows : Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals ; 

 Catalogue of Pacific Coast Earthquakes; Review and Bibliography of Metallic 

 Carbides; Bibliography of Metals of the Platinum Group; and a report on the 

 effects of impure air on the vital resistance of animals to disease. 



No. 1076. A Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals, 1665-1895. By 

 Henry Carrington Boltou. Second edition. City of Washington. Published by 

 the Smithsonian Institution, 1897. 8°. VII -4- 1247 pp. (From Smithsonian Miscel- 

 laneous Collections, Vol. XL.) 



In the preface the author says : 



"As was stated in the first edition of this catalogue, issued in 1885, it is intended 

 to contain the principal independent periodicals of every branch of pure and applied 

 science published in all countries from the rise of this literature to the present time. 

 The compiler has endeavored to give full titles, names of editors, sequence of series, 

 and other bibliographical details, and to arrange the whole on a simple plan con- 

 venient for reference. The range of topics is shown in the Index of Subjects ; while 

 medicine has been excluded, anatomy, physiology, and veterinary science, being 

 related to zoology, have been admitted. With a few exceptions serials constituting 

 transactions of learned societies have been omitted; those admitted either form part 

 of a series begun or ending in an independent periodical, or are presumably not 

 exclusively devoted to the proceedings of the societies by which they are edited. 



"Some of the journals included in this catalogue are of doubtful scientific value, 

 and the right of some to be classed as periodicals is questionable. In these and other 

 debatable cases many titles have been admitted on the ground that 'in a biblio- 

 graphy it is much better that a book should be found which is not sought, than 

 that one should be sought for and not found.' (Zuchold.) 



"The plan of the catalogue is as follows: The titles are arranged alphabetically 

 by the first word, the articles and the adjective 'new' (with its equivalents in dif- 

 ferent languages) alone excepted. The various titles borne by a periodical at differ- 

 ent times are arranged in chronological order under the first or earliest titles of the 

 series. Cross-references have been freely introduced, and are of four kinds : (1) from 

 the later to the first title of a periodical which has suffered changes in title ; (2) 

 from short titles in common use to the correct designations; (3) from the names of 

 the principal editors to the journals conducted by them; (4) in the case of astro- 

 nomical publications, from the places in which the observatories are situated to the 

 titles of the periodicals issued therefrom. 



"Part I of the alphabetical catalogue is a reprint from the plates of the first edi- 

 tion after having made the changes necessary to bring the titles down to date. 

 Part II contains additions to the titles of Part I that could not be inserted in the 

 plates, together with about 3,600 new titles. The letter 's' following a title in 

 Part I refers to additional information in Part II. Numbers inclosed in brackets in 

 Part II denote that earlier data will be found in Part I. 



"The chronological tables are designed to give the date of the publication of each 

 volume of the periodicals entered, asexplainedonpagesl018 andl019. Bythesetables 

 the date of a given volume in a given series of a given work may be found, or the 

 number of a volume may be ascertained when the date only is known. Librarians 

 will find the tables of service in determining bibliographical data of series not in 

 their collections. The alphabetical list of periodicals should always be consulted 

 in connection with the chronological tables. An index to the periodicals contained 

 in the tables will be found at their close. 



"The library check list, showing in what American libraries the periodicals may 

 be found, is an attempt to carry out on a continental scale that which has been done 

 by librarians in several localities. The data were gathered by means of circulars 

 and forms distributed by the Smithsonian Institution to about 200 libraries. The 

 returns from 133 libraries were codified by the institution. It is believed that the 

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