Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/865

 To this class of literature belongs. Its special work has been to spread current scientific thought in simplified form among the people, and we may confidently claim that in no other publication can there be found a more useful, more complete, or more interesting record of the science of the last twenty years available for the general reader than is contained in the forty volumes to which our new Index is intended as the key.

To place this great store of information at the command of the intelligent reader so that he may inform himself on any given subject with the least outlay of time and attention this Index has been planned and compiled. It groups the articles so that any one looking up, for instance, Anthropology, Evolution. Manual Training, Social Science, Vivisection, can find what has appeared in the on the subject in question under that head. Practical usefulness has been put before mere logical accuracy in classification. As the is a popular magazine, popular names have been preferred to technical ones as names of classes. Thus, articles about Consumption are put under that head with a cross-reference from Tuberculosis. Cross-references from other synonyms have been liberally used.

Large aggregations of titles have been avoided by dividing subjects. Any one wishing to know what the magazine has contained on the question "Are the Planets inhabited?" would be more likely to look under planets than under astronomy; accordingly, all articles dealing exclusively with the planets, sun, moon, stars, or nebulae are put under those respective heads, with a cross-reference under astronomy.

This Index contains a new feature that must prove of great value to users—that is, it gives the number of pages and illustrations in each article in its subject entry. By this means the searcher can see which are the most extended and instructive articles in a long list.

The titles of all books noticed in the have been entered under the subjects of which they treat, these entries being distinguished from the titles of articles by Italics. As all important books of a popular scientific character published in the past twenty years have been sent to this magazine for review, a valuable classified bibliography of popular science for that period is thus furnished.

Having adopted a new plan for the present volume, we have thought best to include in it the whole contents of the magazine from its first number. The Index of Volumes I to XX is thus superseded.

To any one who has a file of the from the beginning, this Index will be like a key to a treasure house. To any one who has not a file, but who depends upon a public library for the use of the volumes when he has occasion to read up a scientific subject, the Index will be an even more valuable possession, for it will enable him to call for the volumes he wants without loss of time.

Finally, we wish to recognize the ability of the compiler, Mr. F. A. Fernald, who, bringing to the work a large experience in indexing, has exercised the utmost care to secure accuracy and completeness, and has also suggested and carried out several improvements that will add greatly to the convenience of readers.



little volume consists of papers that have recently appeared in the Nineteenth Century and the British Medical Journal, and it has been published to meet the wishes of those desiring the latest 