378] 
REPORT OF A COMMITTEE, ETC. 
547 
The Catalogue should not be restricted to memoirs in Transactions of Societies, 
but should comprise also memoirs in the Proceedings of Societies, in Mathematical 
and Scientific Journals, in Ephemerides and volumes of Observations, and in other 
collections not coming under any of the preceding heads. The Catalogue would not 
comprise separate works. 
The Catalogue should begin from the year 1800. 
There should be a Catalogue according to the names of authors, and also a Catalogue 
according to subjects; the title of the memoir, date, and other particulars to be in 
each case given in full, so as to avoid the necessity of a reference from the one 
Catalogue to the other. 
The Catalogue should, in referring to a memoir, give the number as well of the 
last as of the first page, so as to show the length of the memoir. 
The Catalogue should give in every case the date of a memoir (the year only), 
namely, in the case of memoirs published in the Transactions of a Society, the date 
of reading, and in other cases the date on the title-page of the volume. Such date 
should be inserted as a distinct fact, even in the case of a volume of transactions 
referred to by its date. 
The Catalogue should contain a list of volumes indexed, showing the complete 
title; in the case of transactions, the year to which the volume belongs, and the 
year of publication ; and in other cases, the year of publication, and the abbreviated 
reference to the work. 
The references to works should be given in a form sufficiently full to be easily 
intelligible without turning to the explanation of such reference. 
The author’s name and the date should be printed in a distinctive type, so as 
to be conspicuous at first sight; and generally the typographical execution should be 
such as to facilitate as much as possible the use of the Catalogue. 
As to the Catalogue according to the authors’ names, the memoirs of the same 
author should be arranged according to their dates. 
As to the Catalogue according to subjects, the question of the arrangement is 
one of very great difficulty. It appears to the Committee that the scheme of arrange 
ment cannot be fixed upon according to any a priori classification of subjects, but 
must be determined after some progress has been made in the preliminary work of 
collecting the titles of the memoirs to be catalogued. The value of this part of the 
Catalogue will materially depend upon the selection of a proper principle of arrange 
ment, and the care and accuracy with which such principle is carried out. The 
arrangement of the memoirs in the ultimate subdivisions should be according to their 
dates. 
The most convenient method of making the Catalogue would appear to be, that 
each volume to be indexed should be gone through separately, and a list formed of 
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