Chemical Science. — Prescott. 291 
the single feature of an index of autliors, it is nevertheless of 
great help in literary search. Before any list of papers, how- 
ever, we must place a list of the serials that contain them, as 
registered by an active member of this Association, an instance 
of industry and critical judgment. I refer to the well-known 
catalogue of scientific and technical periodicals, of about five 
thousand numbers, in publication from 1665 to 1882, together 
with the catalogue of chemical periodicals by the same author.* 
Allied to the much needed service in bibliography, is the service 
in compilation of the Constants of Nature. In the preface of 
his dictionary of solubilities, in 1856, Professor Storer said "that 
chemical science itself might gain man}' advantages if all known 
facts regarding solubility were gathered from their widely scat- 
tered original sources into one special comprehensive work." 
That the time of the philosophical study of solution was near at 
hand has been verified by recent extended monographs on this 
subject. In like manner Thomas Carnelley in England, and early 
and repeatedly our own Professor Clarke in the United States, t 
bringing multitudes of scattered results into coordination, have 
augmented the powers of chemical service. 
What bibliography does for research, the Handwijrterbuch does 
for education, and for technology. It makes science wieldy to 
the student, the teacher and the artisan. The chief dictionaries 
of science, those of encyclopedic scope, ought to be provided 
generally in public libraries, as well as in the librai'ies of all high 
schools. X The science classes in preparatory' schools should make 
an acquaintance with scientific literature in this form. If schol- 
ars be assigned exercises which compel reference reading, they 
* Bolton's Catalogue of Scientitic and Technical Periodicals (1885: 
ISmithsoniaa) omits the serials of the societies, as these are the subject 
of Scudder's Catalogue of Scientific Serials (1879: Harvard Uuiv.) On 
the contrary Bolton's Catalogue of Chemical Periodicals (1885: N. Y. 
Acad. Sci ) includes the publications of societies as well as other serials. 
Chemical technology is also represented in the last named work. 
tThe service of compilation of this character is again indicated hy 
this extract from Clarke's introduction to the first edition of his " Con- 
stants" (1873): "While engaged upon the study of some interesting 
points in theoretical chemistry, the compiler of the following tables bad 
occasion to make frequent reference to the then existing lists of specific 
gravities. None of these, however, were complete enough. . . ." 
J The statistics of school libraries in the United States are very mea- 
gre, the expenditures for them being included with that for apparatus. 
For libraries and apparatus of all common schools, both primary and 
secondary, the annual expenditures is set at 8987,048, whicli is about 
seven-tenths of one per cent, of the total expenditure for these schools. 
