No one who has not had personal experience of it can imagine the amount of labour thrown on the editor of a scientific periodical by the variation in the methods used by authors to indicate special kinds of type, and indeed, if the truth must be told, by the mistakes made by many authors as to what kind of type should be used. Quite often it is necessary, before a manuscript goes to the printers, to alter nearly every indication given as to the use of italics, capital headings, and so on, simply because the wrong signs are employed.