230 
MCGEE. 
profited by the experience of the older, and to have adopted 
only those forms of publication which time has shown to 
best survive the exigencies and obstacles besetting serial life. 
True, the National Academy of Sciences and its serials do not 
exhibit this tendency, but for reasons elsewhere stated this 
Society is a law unto itself, and inferences concerning it are 
valueless for other institutions. In short, it would appear 
that specialized serials do not thrive, and that the most 
vigorous and long-lived serials (the Proceedings of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the 
Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington, the 
Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, 
the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London? 
and the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences 
of Philadelphia and of the Boston Society of Natural History, 
etc.) comprise records of research and administration com¬ 
bined. 
A second tendency is in the direction of prompt publica¬ 
tion : An avowed object in the issue of preliminary papers by 
the American Institute of Mining Engineers is to get the mat¬ 
ter into the hands of the public at the earliest possible mo¬ 
ment ; the present plan of publication of the American Asso¬ 
ciation for the Advancement of Science was expressly adopted 
to secure prompt issue of the annual volumes; the recent 
change in plan of publication of the Bulletin of the Philo¬ 
sophical Society of Washington was made for the same pur¬ 
pose ; the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia was established expressly to permit of prompt 
publication of results; the Proceedings of the Boston Society of 
Natural History is issued in signatures for the same reason; 
the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 
was devised to secure more prompt publication than was 
possible in the Transactions, and the Abstracts are printed to 
secure still earlier publication. No one can examine the 
publications of the various scientific societies without find¬ 
ing decided evidences of a prevailing desire to publish 
promptly, even at considerable sacrifice in other directions. 
