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vacant as space and convenience allow ; but when more room is needed for French history, the books on the next subject (945 History of Italy) with their label are merely moved along to another shelf.

As ail books on the same subject must bear the same subject number, there must be some rneans of distinguishing books in a class from each other. This is done by giving additional numbers, different for every book in a class. Various schemes hâve beeu devised for this purpose, Mr C. A. Cutter’s alphabetic scheme being most used : e. g. Duruy’s history of France would both be 94.4 Dg3 and Guizot’s 944 G 94. Thus ail books on a subject are kept together and each book is distinguished from every other on the same subject. As numbers relate purely to subjects, 110 renumbering is ever ncces-sary, since the subject of a book remains always the same. When therefore books are to be changed from one room or building to another, it is necessary only to put them on their new shelves and transfer with them iheir corresponding labels.

An essential of a library classification which must provide a place for everything written on any subject is infinité expansibility. As new subjects arise places must be found for them in ptoper relation to older subjects. For this reason the arabic mimerais are used decimally, allowing unlimited interpolation at any point without destroying proper sequence. The field of knowledge is divided into nine main classes, and these are numbered by the digits, 1 to 9. Cyclopedias, periodicals, etc., so general in character as to belong to no one of these classes, are marked O and form a tenth class. Each class is similarly separated into nine divisions, general works belon-ging to no division having O in place of the division number. Divisions are similarly divided into nine sections, and the process is repeated as often as necessary. Thus 5i2 means Class 5 (Natural science), Division 1 (Mathematics), Section 2 (Algebra), and every Algebra is numbered 5i2. The books on shelves and the cards in subject catalogs are arranged in simple numeric order, ail class numbers being décimal.

After the tables is an index, in which ail heads of the tables are arranged in one simple alphabet, with the class number of each referring to its exact place in the preceding tables. This index includes also, as far as they hâve been found, ail synonyms or alternative naines for heads, and many other entries that seemed likely to help a reader to find readily the subject sought. Though the user knows just where to turn to his subject in the tables, by Consulting the index he may be sent to other allied subjects where he will find valuable matter which he would otherwise overlook.

Though the scheme was submitted to wide criticism in order that it

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