| From the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement 
OF SCIENCE, Vol. XXXIV", Ann Arbor Meeting, August, 1885.] 
Report of the committee on indexing chemical literature. 
Dr. H. Carrington Bolton, reporter. 
The Committee on Indexing Chemical Literature respectfulty 
present to the Chemical Section their third annual report. 
Five hundred copies of our report for 1884 have been sent to 
chemists throughout the United States, the distribution having 
been made through the Smithsonian Institution without expense 
to the committee ; the report was also published in the chemical 
News (London), and favorably noticed in the American Library 
Journal (New York). This wide circulation led to many applica- 
tions for single indexes and for sets, which were filled as far as 
possible either by the chairman or by Professor D. S. Martin, edi- 
tor of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, in which 
serial most of the indexes were published. 
But one offer of assistance in the scheme of cooperative indexing 
has been received during the year. 
Dr. F. E. Engelhardt offers to undertake an Index to the Litera- 
ture of Common Salt. 
Reports of progress have been received from several gentlemen : 
Professor Wm. Ripley Nichols, on Carbon Monoxide; Professor 
L. P. Kennicutt, on Meteorites; Professor C. E. Monroe, on Ex- 
plosives. 
During the 3Tear Dr. H. Carrington Bolton has published in the 
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences a Catalogue of 
Chemical Periodicals (58 pp., 8vo, New York, 1885). This em- 
braces 182 titles in several languages, and is intended to form an 
authoritative list of all the completed and existing periodicals de- 
voted to chemistry, with a view to facilitating the researches of 
those undertaking the compilation of indexes. 
Dr. Bolton has also completed the second Index to the Literature 
of Uranium mentioned in our preceding report; this index has 
been examined by the committee, accepted and transmitted to the 
Smithsonian Institution for publication, in accordance with the 
agreement entered into by the secretary Professor S. F. Baird. 
Its early publication may be expected. 
The committee deem it part of their duty to chronicle the pub- 
lication of chemical indexes and bibliographies which may be is- 
T 2 
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sued independently, and which fall under their notice. They 
therefore call attention to the following: 
List of Tests (Reagents), by Hans Wilder. New York and Lon- 
don. 88 pp. 12mo, 1885. 
This is a useful little brochure containing a list of nearly 900 
chemical tests known by the names of their authors, arranged al- 
phabetically by authors, and provided with a full index of subjects. 
It can be obtained of Professor P. W. Bedford, 5 Beekman St., 
New York. 
In conclusion, the committee appeal for support to the chemists 
in whose hands this report may fall; they call for volunteers to 
undertake indexes to special topics in chemical literature, and es- 
pecially to the elementary substances. The indexes and bibliog- 
raphies now on their list number fifteen ; cannot this number be 
soon doubled? The committee does not dictate to independent 
workers a fixed plan, but leaves method and subject to the authors ; 
the committee does not seek to control the productions further than 
to insure work of high merit and to guard the interests of the 
Smithsonian Institution which has agreed to publish manuscripts 
endorsed by the committee. Chemists willing to undertake the 
compilation of indexes are requested to send their names and ad- 
dresses with a memorandum of the subject chosen, to the chairman 
of the committee (care of the Smithsonian Institution) who will 
furnish sample copies of indexes already in print and other de- 
sired information. 
Respectfully submitted, 
H. Carrington Bolton, Chairman. 
Ira Remsen, 
F. W. Clarke, 
Albert R. Leeds, 
Alexis A. Julien, 
Committee. 
August 19, 1885. reports of committees. 
3 
Appendix to report of committee on indexing chemical literature. 
Washington, D. C., October 24, 1884. 
Prof. H. Carrington Bolton, Ph.D., 
Chairman of the Committee on Indexing Chemical Elements, A.A.A.S , 
Sir:— 
In response to your request for a statement of my method of in- 
dexing scientific literature, I have the honor herewith to transmit an ac- 
count of my plan, and its leading features as I have discovered them by 
use. 
Very respectfully, 
Wm. Freaii. 
A Method of Indexing Scientific Literature. By Professor Wm. 
Fkear. 
For several years it has been my custom to index the most important 
papers bearing on problems in which I have, from time to time, been in- 
terested. After some experience with different methods of indexing, I 
have finally devised a plan which meets the demands of my own work more 
fully than any other method I have tried. 
In the formation of this plan, the following data have had weight: 
1. Information concerning subject-matter, or authorship, is much more 
frequently sought, than concerning points of chronology, and when his- 
torical data are the objects of search, there is much more probability that 
they relate to minor details of a subject, than to the general class of mat- 
ter indexed under a bibliographic title. 
2. When a given paper is being sought, the clew to its position is prob- 
ably the name of the author, or the nature of the subject matter, and 
rarely the date of its reading or publication. 
3. To relieve any who may in the future attempt to collate the bibliog- 
raphies compiled by different individuals, from the necessity of a compar- 
ison of every item with the original paper indicated, an index should 
contain in compact form all distinctive data necessary to a complete 
knowledge of the subject-nature, and the biographical and historical rela- 
tions of each paper indexed. 
4. Utility, while demanding completeness, will neither allow the space 
necessary to the full answer of every form of query on a given minor sub- 
ject, nor, on theother hand, a complex system of cross-reference. 
In consideration of these facts, the following system was reached: 
It involves both an author and a subject-index. In the author-index 
are given the following data: 
1. The full name of the author. 4 
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2. The date of the reading of the paper, or if that is not available, the 
date of publication. 
3. The original title. 
4. If that is not sufficiently specific, a brief emendation added in brack- 
ets. 
5. The volume and page of the periodical in which the paper first ap- 
peared, followed by a list of the places where abstracts are found. 
The index of authors is in alphabetical order; while the different papers 
written by the same author are arranged In chronological order under 
his name. 
The titles in the subject-index are made up from a consideration of the 
specific subject-matter of a paper, rather than from its title; the arrange- 
ment is alphabetical, just like any ordinary subject-index, but references 
are made under the subdivisions of each specific title to the authors who 
have written on the subject indicated by that particular subdivision, fol- 
lowed by the date of the paper given in the author-index. Under each 
subdivision, the names of the authors occur in alphabetical order. 
To illustrate, take the article appearing in the Journal of the Chemical 
Society of London, Volume 23, page 371, detailing the discovery of bu- 
tyric ferment in water contaminated by sewage, and entitled Organic 
Matter in Water, by Charles Heisch, Lecturer, etc. Reference to the 
Proceedings of the Society shows it to have been read ou June 16, 1870. 
The author-index would have the following entry: 
Heisch, Charles 
1870, June 16. 
Ou Organic Matter in Water. 
[Occurrence of butyric ferment introduced by sewage contamination.] 
J. Ch. Soc. 23, 27. 
List of Abstracts 
In the subject-index the following entries would be made : 
1) Butyric Ferment. 
Occurrence in water contaminated by sewage. 
Heisch, C., 1870, June 16. 
2) Water, 
Contaminated by sewage. Occurrence of butyric ferment in. 
Heisch, C., 1870, June 16. 
By the use of this plan the following advantages are gained : 
1. A ready reference to any paper, given a knowledge of its authorship 
or subject. 
2. A general idea of the lines of investigation already opened up, re- 
lating to any specific subject, from a glance at the subject-index. 
3. A knowledge of what any author has written on the subject proper REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 
5 
of the bibliography, and in what chronological order, from a glance at 
the author-index. 
4. A ready access to the history of any detail of a specific subject by 
reason of the relatively small number of references under the proper sub- 
division, and the use of dates in connection with those references in the 
subject-index. 
5. A possibility of great expansion of the subject-index with the re- 
quirements of only a small additional amount of space, and without com- 
plexity of cross-reference. 
6. The compact arrangement in the author-index, of all data necessary 
to the distinctive knowledge of an article. 
It may seem that an indication of the locus of a paper might with advan- 
tage be appended to the date in the subject-index, but a consideration of 
the multitude of abstracts will show immediately the reason for the omis- 
sion. 
Again, it may be urged that the first of the principles announced as the 
basis of the system—viz. : the paramount importance of subject and 
authorship, would require a subject-classification of the papers under 
the name of a given author, rather than the chronological order which 
is adopted. An attempt to arrange according to the original titles will 
soon be found untrustworthy; an arrangement according to emended ti- 
tles is found to interfere with the ready grasp of the details which are 
presented in the author-index, and are its marked features. 
Finally, it may be objected that an index, prepared according to this 
system, suffers from the disadvantage of being at best, much more bulky, 
than those prepared according to other pians which have been proposed; 
thus involving both greater labor in preparation, and increased expense 
in publication. In reply to these objections, attention must be called to 
the fact that the mere labor of writing an index is very small, relative to 
that expended in finding what to write, and that the latter factor is a con- 
stant, whatever plan be adopted, and second, that though the cost of pub- 
lication be slightly greater, the greatly increased completeness and utility 
far outweigh this difference in cost. 
[Salem Press, October, 1885.]