Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/272

 240 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920 Vol. 25 1864-65 283 pages Vol. 55 >, 30 1869-70 231, 60 35 1874-75 416 , 65 , 40 1879-80 637 . 70 45 1884-85 525 > n 75 50* 1889-90 568, 80 thus forming an edition of the Monthly Notices which might be bound up with the Memoirs. In this way volumes 19 to 27 appeared in a double form, after which this curious arrangement was discontinued. It was indeed totally unnecessary, as the Monthly Notices had taken its place in the first rank of astro- nomical publications. It has more than once been pointed out by the Council, that the Society does not print papers which have already appeared elsewhere in print ; but foreign astronomers not infrequently make the Monthly Notices the medium of publica- tion of their work. It is interesting to note the increase in the number of pages per volume during late years : 1894-95 553 pages 1899-1900 632 1904-05 893 1909-10 680 1914-15 727 1919-20 820 ,, An important part of each volume is the Annual Report of the Council. This has always been a very readable document, more so perhaps during the first thirty or forty years, when the Council or the Secretaries told their story in their own words. But whatever the Report has lost since then as literature, it has certainly gained as a scientific record, particularly as regards the " Notes on some points connected with the recent progress of Astronomy." These formerly confined themselves to notices on a limited number of important works and Memoirs. But from 1893 an attempt has been made to give a list of discoveries during the year, not only in the cases of minor planets and comets, but in those of double stars, variable stars, stellar spectra, etc. The copious references to the recent literature on these subjects must be a great boon to workers, as it is now more than ever exceedingly easy to overlook some paper or note among the vast multitude published, some of them in journals where one might not think of looking for them. The value of the Monthly Notices as a continuous record of astronomical progress is illustrated by the occasional requests from abroad for copies of those old volumes of the journal which have been out of print for many years. We have mentioned f that volumes 3, 4, 5 have been unobtainable almost from the day they were printed. Volumes 7 and 27 have also been out of print for more than forty years, while there are only a few copies left of several others. Enquiries were made in 1911 as f Above, p. 80.
 * In addition to an appendix of 175 pp. See above, p. 220.