k the long journey to Italy to study
there; the Italian, the Frenchman, and the German wandered from one seat
of learning to another; and many a man held a chair in a country not his
own. There was help, too, as well as intercourse. The Royal Society of
London took upon itself the task of publishing nearly all the works of the
great Italian, Malpighi; and the brilliant Lavoisier, two years before his
own countrymen in their blind fury slew him, received from the same body
the highest token which it could give of its esteem.

In these closing years of the nineteenth century this great need of mutual
knowledge and of common action felt by men of science of different lands
is being manifested in a special way. Though nowadays what is done
anywhere is soon known everywhere, the news of a discovery being often
flashed over the globe by telegraph, there is an increasing activity in
the direction of organization to promote international meetings and
international cooperation. In almost every science, inquirers from many
lands now gather together at stated intervals, in international
congresses, to discuss matters which they have in common at heart, and go
away, each one feeling strengthened by having met his brother. The desire
that, in the struggle to lay bare the secrets of nature, the least waste
of human energy should be incurred, is leading more and more to the
concerted action of nations combining to attack problems the solution of
which is difficult and costly. The determination of standards of
measurement, magnetic surveys, the solution of great geodetic problems,
the mapping of the heavens and of the earth--all these are being carried
on by international organizations.

* * * * *

One international scientific effort demands a word of notice. The need
which every inquirer in science feels to know, and to know quickly, what
his fellow worker, wherever on the globe he may be carrying on his work or
making known his results, has done or is doing, led some four years back
to a proposal for carrying out by international cooperation a complete
current index, issued promptly, of the scientific literature of the world.
Though much labor in many lands has been spent upon the undertaking, the
project is not yet an accomplished fact. Nor can this, perhaps, be
wondered at, when the difficulties of the task are weighed. Difficulties
of language, difficulties of driving in one team all the several sci