would be able to keep up a pretty fair subject-index to scientific papers for the future. I must, in conclusion, say a few words on a subject-index to the transactions of literary societies. The prospect is here much more remote, from the want of the almost indispensable groundwork of a general alphabetical index. We have seen what an infinity of trouble in collecting, in cataloguing, and in transcribing will be saved by the Royal Society's list in the case of scientific papers, and are in a position to appreciate the impediments which must arise from the want of one in this instance. The work could be done by the British Museum if it had a proportionate addition to its staff, or by a continuance of the disinterested efforts which are now devoted to the continuance of Mr. Poole's index to periodicals. Failing these, the most practical suggestion appears to me Mr. Bailey's, that the undertaking might be to a considerable extent promoted by the respective societies themselves. If the secretaries of the more important of these bodies would cause the titles of the papers occurring in their transactions to be transcribed upon cards and deposited with this Association, we should accumulate a mass of material worth working upon, and which could be arranged while awaiting a favourable opportunity for publication. In some instances even more might be done. The library of the Royal Asiatic Society, for example, contains not merely its own transactions, but those of every important society devoted to Oriental studies, as well as all similar periodicals. Our friend, Mr. Vaux, could probably,
in process of time, not only procure transcripts of the papers contained in these collections, but could induce competent Orientalists to prepare a scheme of classification, and such a classified list, complete in itself and of no unwieldy magnitude, could be published as a sample and forerunner of the rest. The initiative in such proposals, as well as those referring to scientific papers, should be taken by our Association, which can negotiate with eminent men and learned bodies upon equal terms, and speak with effect where the voice of an individual would be lost. The desideratum of a classed index, in a word, affords our Society a great opportunity of distinguishing itself. It is this aspect of the matter, no less than the importance of the matter itself, that has encouraged me to bring it under your notice.
Note.—This paper, the first on the subject, so far as known to the author, attracted the attention of a gentleman of great ability, Mr. Collins of Edgbaston, known as the indexer and tabulator of Mr. Herbert Spencer's writings. He pressed the necessity of a classed index of scientific papers upon the attention of the Royal Society, which at one period seemed about to take the matter up; but the plan, so far as concerned Mr. Collins, was ultimately laid aside. Ere long, however, it was revived, and the task of classification is now being actively carried out, upon what precise system the writer is not aware, but doubtless upon one which has received mature consideration.
FOOTNOTES:
[225:1] Read at the March Monthly Meeting of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, and published in Nature, October 9, 1897.
[231:1] Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche. Pubbl. da B. Boncompagni (Rome, 1868), &c.