16 Anmversary Address by Sir William Huggins. [Nov. 30, 
It is not too much to say that men of Science of all countries are under 
no small obligation to the Royal Society for their Catalogue of Scientific 
Papers which have appeared in all parts of the world since the beginning of 
the last century. This great work, to which immense labour has been given 
gratuitously and without stint by Fellows during the past forty years, will 
be carried down to the close of the century, and will consist of two parts: 
an Authors’ Catalogue, and a Catalogue of Subjects. Encouraged by a 
donation from Mr. Andrew Carnegie, and the noble liberality of Dr. Ludwig 
Mond and other Fellows, the Council decided to proceed with the completion 
of the Catalogue, in the hope of further donations from Fellows and others 
as the work advances. | 
It was obvious that to continue permanently to prepare and publish 
catalogues of the rapidly increasing output of scientific literature would be 
wholly beyond the means of any one Society, and was an undertaking so 
vast as to require organized international co-operation for success. In 1893, 
a letter, signed by seventeen Fellows, was addressed to the President, asking 
that steps might be taken to provide for the continuation of the Society’s 
Catalogue from the beginning of the century by adequate international 
co-operation. A Committee was appointed, which reported in favour of an 
international conference on the subject. Three conferences were held 
successively in 1896, 1898, and 1900. It is scarcely possible to convey an 
adequate conception of the arduous and prolonged labours of these con- 
ferences, and of the numerous meetings of committees held in connection 
with them. The Society may well feel great satisfaction that a work of such 
magnitude, and of so great moment to all scientific workers, which was 
initiated by itself, was taken up with such remarkable accord by the scientific 
world. The organization consists mainly of a Central Bureau in London 
under the Royal. Society, in connection with Regional Bureaus, established 
in thirty countries for, collecting material in the form of catalogue slips, and 
transmitting them to the Central Bureau. The Royal Society has taken 
upon itself practically the financial responsibility of the undertaking, making 
contracts in its own name with a printer and a publisher, the latter 
undertaking the technical duties as agent for the Society, which is its own 
publisher. The first year’s issue of the catalogue has appeared, dealing in | 
twenty-one volumes with the seventeen sciences decided upon by the 
conference. 
The International Association of Academies, the realization for the first 
time of the great scientific idea of a Universal Academy, open without 
restriction of language or of country to every nation under heaven, owes its 
