6ox 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 



price is so low that the percentage in- 

 crease does not matter practically. The 

 German case is not so good, however. 

 Their biological books were absolutely 

 the highest priced in 19x8, and also are 

 increasing in price at the most rapid rate, 

 so far as may be judged from our sample 

 during the years 192.6 to 1918 inclusive. 

 While it is easy to understand and appre- 

 ciate the economic considerations which 

 lead to increasing costs of commercially 

 published books in France and Germany, 

 it is a question whether in the latter 

 country the publishers are not dangerously 



earlier years it works out that the average 

 price per page in 19x6 was 1.097 cents, 1.030 

 cents in 19x7, and 1.095 cents in 1918, 

 omitting the two very expensive books 

 noted above. This indicates an increase in 

 average price of 6.3 per cent in 19x8 as 

 compared with 1917, but a decrease of o.z 

 per cent as compared with 1916. On the 

 whole it is obvious that, in the period 

 reviewed, no violent price changes have 

 occurred in either direction, if one envis- 

 ages a generally balanced library of 

 current biological books. 

 In each of these reports on the cost of 



TABLE 1 

 Comparison of the prices of biological books in igz6, igzj, and igiS 



English- American . . . 



Other countries 



England 



United States 



Germany 



British Government. 



France 



U. S. Government... 



AVERAGE 



AVERAGE 



AVERAGE 



CHANGE + 



OR — FROM 



CHANGE + 



OR — FROM 



PRICE 



PRICE 



PRICE 



1926 to 1928 



1927 to 1928 



PER PAGE 



PER PAGE 

 1927 



PER PAGE 

 1928 











1926 



Absolute 



Relative 



Absolute 



Relative 



cnts 



cents 



ants 



centt 



f tr cint 



ants 



ptr cmt 



*'$5 



i-39 



I.46 



— O.09 



-5.8 



+O.07 



+ 5.0 



1. 51 



0.78 



1. 13* 



— O.38 



-2 5 .X 



+O.35 



+44 



9 



1.2.8 



1. 14 



I.09 



—O.19 



— 14.8 



— O.05 



-4 



4 



1. 12. 



1.09 



1. 14 



+0.02 



+ 1.8 



+O.05 



+4 



5 



1.09 



1.2.0 



I.48 



+O.39 



+35-8 



+O.2.8 



+13 



3 



- 



0.96 



I.26 



- 



- 



+O.30 



+3i 



3 



0.35 



0.36 



O.45 



+O.IO 



+28.6 



+O.09 



+15 







0.31 



0.24 



O.ZI 



~ O.IO 



—32-3 



—O.03 



— 12 



5 



' With two special treatises omitted as explained in the text. 



close to the point in their pricing of 

 scientific books where they will bring into 

 operation that other sad economic law of 

 which the effect is that absolute returns 

 diminish. There can be no great profit 

 in publishing books at such high prices 

 that nobody buys them. Biological 

 books commercially published in the 

 United States were higher in 19x8 than 

 in either 19x6 or 192.7, but by small 

 amounts. 



If all the books noticed in The Quar- 

 terly Review of Biology in 19x8, 

 regardless of origin, are lumped together 

 and compared with all the books noticed in 



books attention has been called to the 

 high price of books in our English- 

 American group, and it has been pointed 

 out that, so far as concerns such books, our 

 benevolent government, in its wisdom, 

 puts a heavy tax upon American scholar- 

 ship. Regarding this subject Mr. George 

 P. Brett, of the Macmillan Company in 

 New York, has published recently an 

 important pamphlet. In this pamphlet 

 Mr. Brett says: 



In the year 1913 a new Tariff Bill was enacted in 

 which Congress, evidently with the laudable inten- 

 tion in mind of reducing the cost of such books to 

 students and others, lowered the duty on them from 



