April 9, 1886.] 



SCIENCE, 



327 



rangement as will facilitate as far as possible the 

 ready finding of the data relating to any given 

 substance ; 4. To give the authority and reference 

 to the original memoir in each case (the tables thus 

 form a catalogue of the literature referring to 

 most chemical substances) ; 5. To give, in addition, 

 the reference, if any, to either ' Watt's dictionary 

 of chemistry,' or to the journal of the Chemical 

 society, for the convenience of those who are un- 

 able to refer to the original papers (this is a feature 

 of the work which will doubtless be found par- 

 ticularly useful, more especially to British and 

 American investigators). The tables will be issued 

 iu two volumes, of which the first is now ready. 



— Prof. Mansfield Merriman of Lehigh univer- 

 sity, Pennsylvania, has published a Key to his 

 text-book on the mechanics of materials.'' This 

 key contains the answers to the problems in the 

 text-book, and is published in response to inquiries 

 from those who have used the book. The oppor- 

 tunity has also been taken to give the method of 

 solution of a few of the difficult problems. 



— The first part of the new zoological journal 

 announced by us some time since, to be edited by 

 Dr. J. W. Spengel of Bremen under the title of 

 Zoologische jahrbucher, will be soon published, 

 and will contain the following papers, besides 

 shorter notices : Hartlaub, ' Contributions to the 

 knowledge of the species of Manatus ; ' Reichenow, 

 ' Monograph of the genus Ploceus, Cuv.: ' Bergh, 

 * The Marseniadae ; ' Nehring, ' Contributions to 

 the knowledge of the species of Galictis ; ' Frenzel, 

 ' On glycerine preparations/ The price of the 

 part is nine marks. Four parts make a volume. 

 Beside the regular parts, supplementary ones will 

 be issued from time to time for the publication of 

 separate papers too long to appear in the journal 

 itself. The regular subscribers may or may not 

 take the supplements also, as they prefer. The 

 first of the supplements is to appear shortly, and 

 will contain Dr. K. Jordan's memoir on the but- 

 terfly fauna of north-west Germany. 



— Dr. Patrick of St. Louis has in preparation a 

 work on the mounds of southern Illinois, based 

 upon a large collection of crania and other objects 

 from that region. His report will be issued by 

 the U.S. bureau of ethnology. 



— Prof. E. D. Cope of Philadelphia is about to 

 publish a monograph on the recent batrachians 

 and reptiles of North America, as a bulletin of 

 the national museum. It will contain descriptions 

 of all the species so far known, many of which 

 will be figured, together with an extensive dis- 

 cussion of the osteology of the several groups, and 

 a sketch of the soft anatomy of the leading types. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



International copyright. 



Mr. Appleton Morgan, in his letter upon inter- 

 national copyright in Science for March 5, says, 

 "While always an enthusiastic advocate of an inter- 

 national copyright as a matter of abstract justice to 

 British authors, I have never been able to satisfy 

 myself of the constitutional right of congress to enact 

 a separate bill for the purpose of effecting one." I do 

 not intend to attempt, in this letter, to convince Mr. 

 Morgan that the enactment of such a bill would be 

 constitutional, but I think it may not be without 

 interest to the readers of Science to point out that 

 the passage in the constitution which grants congress 

 the power to "secure to authors and inventors the 

 exclusive right to their respective writings and dis- 

 coveries" has been expounded to mean, of necessity, 

 all authors and inventors, without regard to nation- 

 ality. 



Edward L. Andrews, E-q., as the representative 

 of the Copyright association, argued before the 

 senate committee on the library, in 1872, that, as 

 American authors were not specified in this clause, 

 the word ' authors ' must be taken to mean all au- 

 thors, wherever resident, and therefore the constitu- 

 tion in this respect is mandatory in its character." 

 But Mr. Andrews was not the first person to argue 

 this construction of the constitution. Thirty-five 

 years earlier this construction had so distinguished 

 an advocate as Mr. Henry Clay. During the copy- 

 right agitation of 1836-37 in England, certain British 

 authors sent to the United States an ' address' con- 

 taining a petition to congress to grant to them " the 

 exclusive benefit of their writings within the United 

 States." This petition, which bears tbe signatures 

 of fifty-six authors of England and Ireland, — a re- 

 markable list of names, including Carlyle, Disraeli 

 (father and son), Bulwer, the poets Southey, Thomas 

 Moore, Rogers, Campbell, Chalmers and Cunning- 

 ham, Harriet Martineau and Mary Somerville, be- 

 sides others equally famous, — was presented to the 

 senate by Mr. Clay on Thursday, Feb. 2, 1837. 

 After calling attention to the distinguished names 

 appended to the document, and explaining that it 

 represented that the works of British authors were 

 published in the United States without any compen- 

 sation being made to them for their copyrights, and 

 that they were frequently altered and mutilated so 

 as to affect injuriously their reputations, because of 

 which grievances they petitioned the passage of a 

 protective law, he commended the address to the 

 attentive and friendly consideration of the senate, 

 and closed with these words : " Indeed, I do not see 

 any ground of just objection, either in the constitu- 

 tion or in sound policy, to the passage of a law ten- 

 dering to all foreign nations reciprocal security for 

 literary property." This petition was referred to a 

 select committee, which reported Feb. 16, through 

 Mr. Clay, and asked leave to introduce a bill grant- 

 ing copyright to the authors of Great Britain and 

 France, which was the first international-copyright 

 bill presented to congress. The last paragraph of 

 this report contains Mr. Clay's argument, referred to 

 above, and reads as follows : " With respect to the 

 constitutional power to pass the proposed bill, the 

 committee entertain no doubt, and congress, as be- 



