for constructive thought. Many of us, I am sure, have found that this is the case. The trouble is that we use our minds, thus released from bondage, for all sorts of useless thought, for trivial reminiscence, for planning things that need no planning, for fault finding with the very mechanical character of the work that enables us to put it out of the conscious mind altogether. Instead, these periods obviously ought to be used to perfect ourselves in the details of our work, to devise methods of improvement and expansion, to plan for its future development, — increasing the correspondence between it and our own capacities and thereby widening and deepening our joy in it. The routine work of librarianship therefore, apart from its possible future transfer to mechanical devices, ought not to be a lessener of its joys, but rather a contributor to them.

I hear something, here and elsewhere, of the dissatisfaction of library assistants with their work, of their expressed intention to leave it for something which they imagine will be more congenial. So far as this is the result of faulty adaptation, — so far as it is the jolting of the square peg out of the round hole, I sympathize with it and have nothing to say against it. But I believe that it may be more than this. It may signify a general misapprehension of what the congeniality of work implies and an effort to get pleasure from it by first intention instead of as a by-product of one's adaptation to it. In this event, of course, assistants who leave library work for some other form of activity will never find satisfaction; they will never take pleasure in what they are doing; their occupation, whatever it may be, will be forever barren of joys.

It may be, of course, that there are persons who can never adapt themselves to any kind of useful activity, who are butterflies pure and simple, fitted only to flit about in the sun and gleaning joy only from that fitness. It may be, I say, that there are such persons. I know of none and, being now a citizen of Missouri, I demand to be shown one before I acknowledge their existence. Failure to fit oneself to one's work comes never, I prefer to think, from general unfitness for useful activity, but always either from the squareness of the hole in which the round peg reposes or from putting the cart before the horse and thinking that one must love one's work before one can do it well instead of loving it because one is able to do it well.

I have been trying to catalogue infinity. The mathematicians tell us that infinity has no plus or minus sign. Go indefinitely to right or left and you will bring up at the same point. We know it is so on our little round earth, where east and west meet in the antipodes: perhaps it is so in space, too, where by some subtle curvature undetected of our senses, the gazing astronomer, as

suggested by some scientific humorist, may one day succeed in seeing his own back hair. Anyway, I know it is so with our subject. Whether the joys of librarianship are infinitely great, as they seem to me, or infinitely small, as they may seem to some of you, is really all one. It depends, after all, not on your librarianship alone, or on you alone; but, as I have said, on the adaptation of the one to the other. If this adaptation were an absolute quantity unalterable by human effort, I should say to those of you who want to leave us, as Greeley wanted to say to the Seceding States, "Erring sisters, go in peace. But it is not so. Just as "the way to resume was to resume," when we were wondering how to effect the resumption of specie payments, so the way to like librarianship is to like it. The way to fit yourself to it is to stick to it as closely as you may, as Professor William Lyon Phelps tells us he stuck to the symphony concerts that he disliked so much at first. He ended by loving them, and you will end in like manner by loving your work. Those of us who have been at it longest love it most, and we love all its connections, animate and inanimate. Were it not so, your speaker would not have journeyed a thousand miles to say these words to you to-night.

Long may our libraries live and do increasing public service! Long may The New York Public Library stand as the intellectual civic centre of this metropolis! And as the structure cannot stand if the stones crumble, long may your Staff Association, thus auspiciously begun, continue, with undiminished numbers to appreciate and inculcate the Joys of Librarianship.

I

A FOREWORD TO THE LIST OF REFERENCES

ON SUBMARINES

BY SIMON LAKE

HAVE read with great interest the proof sheets of this compilation of books, magazines and technical papers relating to submarines. Now that the submarine is becoming recognized as the most important weapon ever introduced into "The art of warfare on the high seas," information regarding its development is being eagerly sought by many people who are interested in the advancement of science.

The destiny of the submarine is as yet but little understood by the casual reader; at the present time its introduction into the art of warfare has caused it to be condemned by many, while others look upon it as a means of defense against or a means of destroying overwhelming sea power and, perhaps, think it may be utilized to assist in extending domination over other peoples when combined with military supremacy on land. I think those who use it for any illegitimate purpose will eventually see their error.

Submarine inventors have, from the earliest days, considered the submarine boat as a means to advanced knowledge of things beneath the surface of the seas, to recover and restore to the use of mankind many of the things that have gone to the bottom of the sea in ships, and also to recover the natural products of the sea, in the nature of shell fish, sponges, coral, pearls, and to reach mineral and other deposits heretofore inaccessible and unavailable to the people. The introduction of the submarine in war will eventually prove a benefit to all of the smaller and less powerful nations, as the submarine is undoubtedly able to offer to any nation the greatest degree of security for the least expenditure of money in the defense of its coast line.

This compilation will make available to the student of submarine navigation information that it has heretofore been almost impossible to procure, covering, as it does, published articles on this subject dating back from a period of over two thousand years to the present time. I remember in years gone by, many days spent in searching through various libraries for information regarding the submarine, of which little could then be found. I can, therefore, appreciate the great amount of time which the compiler of this bibliography must have given to this investigation. Much of the literature relating to submarines is based on hearsay, romance and imagination, but imagination may lead to scientific development, so that both the student of the romance of "The mysteries of the deep" and the investigator of its uses as a weapon of war, or its possibilities in the commercial field, will all appreciate the labor which has been put into the preparation of this bibliography.

MILFORD, CONN., January 16, 1918.

SUBMARINES

A LIST OF REFERENCES IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

COMPILED BY MARY ETHEL JAMESON
Science Division

This list of references in The New York Public Library is submitted as an aid to those interested in the history and construction of the submarine boat. Questions of international affairs have not been included, although in several cases the documents have involved this phase of the discussion.

The patent records have not been reprinted here, as quite a complete list has already appeared in the General Electric Review for August, 1917. An exception has been made, however, in the case of the mechanism of the deep sea bomb which has proven so effective in combatting the underwater foe, the basic patents for which are listed under date of 1900, covering a self-winding clock. These patents, with modifica tions and subsequent improvements, have been adapted to the pressure bombs which explode at given depths determined by the regulation of the gauge.

So many requests have come to the Science Division for information regarding the transmission and propagation of sound under water that a few references on submarine signalling have been added in a section following the documents.

Attention is directed to the list prepared by Mr. W. A. Ellis on Torpedoes and printed in the Bulletin for October, 1917, v. 21, p. 657-726 (also issued in separate form). This very complete bibliography has made the inclusion of such literature quite unnecessary here, although the submarine and the torpedo are so closely related.

PART I

NON-OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS

Bibliography

3. Herodotus. Book VIII. Urania. (In his: Herodotus, translated... by Isaac Taylor. London, 1829. 8°. p. 584-585.) BAE

The famous reference by Herodotus to the feat accomplished by Scyllias of Scion and his daughter, who dived under the ships of Xerxes, cutting the anchor chains. Scyllias deserted the Persians in order to inform the Greeks of the plans of the Persians and Herodotus ventures the suggestion that it was in an underwater boat.

The Library has many other editions of Herodotus besides the one here cited.

332 B. C.?

4. Aristotle. Problematvm Sectio xXXII.
(In his: Aristotelis opervm. Lutetiæ Paris-
iorvm, 1629. f°. tomus 2, p. 826–828.)

† YAEF
Greek and Latin texts in parallel columns.
For an English translation see that of Thomas
Taylor, London, 1810, v. 6, p. 554-555, † YAEF.

Refers to the difficulties of diving below the surface of the water and suggests that the diver provide himself with a vase or kettle inverted, to prevent the water rushing into the ears and to facilitate respiration.

77 A. D.?

5. Pliny, the elder. The Natural history of Pliny. Translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley. London: H. G. Bohn, 1857. 6 v. 12°. PQC

v. 6, book 35, chap. 40, p. 278. Refers to the statue erected in Rome to the great diver Scyllias.

1555

6. Olaus Magnus, bishop of Upsala. De nauibus insidiosis. illus. (In his: Historia de Gentibvs septentrionalibvs, Romae, 1555. fo. cap. 17, p. 334-335.) Reserve

Description of the first Scandinavian submarines. The quaint illustration is an attempt to convey the impression of boats submerged.