1880.] Report on Scientific Societies . 491 
to publish their transactions in such form as to make each 
single paper contained in them purchaseable separate . From 
all such societies should be obtained also a limited number 
of copies of their complete Transactions, the several papers 
published in which shall be collected and bound up in 
volumes corresponding, as far as their matter goes, to the 
various branches of Science. Such volumes might be issued 
annually, one for every department, and bear the title 
“ Contributions to Knowledge,” with indication of the year 
and the name of the science. 
The measure just explained takes into account current 
literature only ; but even greater difficulties attach to the 
accumulated store of works published in the course of 
centuries or ages, if information concerning their contents 
be desired. As you stated last year at Exeter, “ To make 
oneself, without assistance, well acquainted with what has 
been done, it is requisite to have access to an extensive 
library, to be able to read with facility several modern 
languages, and to have leisure to hunt through the tables of 
contents, or at least the indices of a number of serial works.” 
And as you went on to say, “ With a view to meet this diffi- 
culty, the British Association has requested individuals who 
were more specially conversant with particular departments 
of science to draw up reports on the present state of our 
knowledge in, or the recent progress of, special branches.” 
Such, however, is the labour involved in the preparation of 
such reports that all the influence of the Association has 
not been sufficient to induce a number of scientific men 
to regularly undertake it ; and as it is found in practice that 
mostly young persons only have sufficient enthusiasm for 
labour of this kind, so the British Association has shown 
only in the early stages of its existence much activity in 
this direction. A most valuable surrogate for reports of this 
kind will be furnished by the great Catalogue of Memoirs 
published by the Royal Society at the British Association’s 
instigation ; but more than either reports or a mere cata- 
logue is required in order to satisfy our want for some synopsis 
of the work done in the various branches of science. 
I therefore propose as a second measure, and co-ordinate 
with the above, the publication at times of volumes com- 
prising collections of all papers published within a stated 
period, and having reference to some such branch or question 
in science as has prominently sprung into notice or is rapidly 
progressing ; for concerning such, as you observed, it is by 
no means easy now to get acquainted with its aCtual state, 
nor, as I will add, with its history. The papers should be 
