14 JUNE 1879, Page 24

periodical is an enterprise which ought to be known to

every man of science, if not to every man of business and letters. Dr. Hildebrandt undertakes to compile every month a complete consolidated index to

or fifty of the principal weekly scientific papers, reviews, and some of the daily papers, including the Times. Thus a person in- terested in any particular subject has only to open the Mouthy Index under the proper subject-heading, and he will have references at once to almost the whole ephemeral literature published during the month on that subject. If Clocks be the subject of interest, we look under the title "Horology," and learn that the Journal of .Applied Science for February bad a description of a new alarm-clock ; that the Engineer of February 14th treated of the self-luminous clock, and also of synchronising clocks by Greenwich time ; that the Scientific American described an improved attachment to a stem-winder ; and so forth. The Index, although to a large extent scientific, is not exclusively so, and all kinds of matters of general public interest are minutely indexed. Thus, under "Capital and Labour," "Public Works," "Museums and Libraries," "Legal," "Geographical Discoveries," "Societies," and countless other headings, we find a fund of infor- mation opened up to the inquirer. The fruits of the two numbers as yet issued are faults of detail, which can easily be remedied in future issues. The general idea and form of the index are just what is wanted to enable us to cope with the ever increasing mass of periodical literature, and it is to be hoped that Dr. Hildebrandt will meet with sufficient support to enable him to go on improving and extending his really wonderful and invaluable enterprise.