Imagens da página
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Economic Museum at Kew, the Bibliotheca Historico-Naturalis from 1862 to 1880, the Botanisches Centralblatt since its establishment last year to the present time, The Pharmaceutical Journal from its formation in 1842 to the end of October last. Mr. H. B. Wheatley was kind enough to furnish me with the titles of articles in the Journal of the Society of Arts to the end of 1880, since then I have taken them out myself. Taken altogether, these entries supply a very fair startingpoint for almost every question in Vegetable Technology; the number of articles brought forward from the original list is 326, which has been increased, as noted, to 3580, exclusive of translations and different editions. One peculiarity of the old list was its paucity of works in the German language; this has been to some extent remedied in the present volume, as a book which professed to treat of forestry and ignored German literature on the subject, would be sadly deficient.

The Journal of Applied Science and The Technologist have not been regularly searched and cited, like the Journal of the Society of Arts and The Pharmaceutical Journal; for whilst confidence may be reposed in the statements given in these two latter journals, I could not confidently assert the same of the two former.

I have endeavoured to meet the wants of inquirers by compiling a comprehensive index. This not being an elementary work on applied botany, I have not attempted the task of determining the various products which appear under the native names, sometimes in different spellings; to have done so critically would have consumed months to very little purpose. The Index is designed to help in finding the books on a given subject, which are distributed under the authors' names, and more than this should not be demanded; a directory does this

for persons, without trying to define the mutual affinities of those bearing the same name. It is hardly necessary to insist upon the need of searching all entries likely to give the information sought; thus, if an inquirer do not find his wants satisfied when referring to 'Materia Medica,' he should look up cognate headings, such as 'Drugs' and 'Medicinal Plants.'

I should have been glad to include a complete series of references to consular reports, also the selections of Indian papers bearing on Vegetable Technology, but I found I could not attain even approximate completeness therein. Consular reports are often quoted in The Pharmaceutical Journal, whence they are cited here, and a good series of the Indian selections is to be found in the Library Catalogue of the Royal Geographical Society. These publications are often regarded as ephemeral, and the department responsible for their issue rarely has a complete set.

Parliamentary papers have not been quoted in full, for in the majority of cases their value is commercial or manufacturing; in the Index, however, I have made references to suggest paths which may be followed up by those who want more than I have given. The formulae 'Refer to' and 'Refer also to' signify something outside this volume, whilst 'See' and See also' are ordinary cross-references.

[ocr errors]

The rules of the Index Society are followed in their spirit, the article preceding a name being used in the alphabetical arrangement, so that 'De Vrij,' and similar Dutch names, figure under the article, with a cross-reference from the substantive following. As in the Guide to the Literature of Botany, modified vowels and diphthongs are spelled out, ä, ö, ü, becoming ae, oe, ue, and so forth.

[blocks in formation]

The heading Anonymous Publications' has been much altered from its original shape. In the former list there were several entries which have been here reduced to their proper authorship; others have been excluded by the change of plan; many were too hopelessly defective to be here given. The system of cataloguing anonymous books at the British Museum is an excellent method of drafting off such ware into the Library, but it gives almost no assistance to the searcher. In some cases it is not enough to know all that the book itself states, as where a medical tract by John Pechie is entered under Sir John Micklethwaite's name, because, Pechie addressed his pamphlet "To the President of the College of Phisitians," and the cataloguer having taken the pains to find out who was President of the College for the time being, entered it under his name. The Old General Catalogue, with its common-sense entries, is far more useful for hunting up these books than the New General Catalogue, with its elaborate system of rules.

The abbreviations used will, I believe, in every case be recognized without giving a tabular statement-Pharm. Journ.' for Pharmaceutical Journal, and so on. In this, as in Mr. Solly's Index to ... Titles of Honour, and my Guide to the Literature of Botany, the sign is used to signify in progress'; many of the abbreviations I was compelled to use in my Guide to the Literature of Botany are not used here, as I have been able to quote the titles fully, any omissions in the middle being shown by dots..., at the end by etc.

During the progress of the work I have been indebted to many friends for help on special points, for which I here tender my hearty thanks; but I must especially name Mr. C. G. Warnford Lock for much help afforded throughout, and

for supplying many titles of papers and books which I should otherwise have missed.

In spite of inevitable shortcomings, I believe that this volume will prove to be of greater use than its predecessors on the same topics. Dryander's Catalogue of the Banksian Library, which is arranged most minutely as to subject, and the systematic portion in both editions of Pritzel's Thesaurus, are less convenient for reference than the one alphabetic index which closes this book.

30, STOCKWELL ROAD, LONDON, S.W.,

27th December, 1881.

B. DAYDON JACKSON.

VEGETABLE TECHNOLOGY.

PART I.

« AnteriorContinuar »