Note 38 — WHAT IS AN INDEX? (continued 2)

My brother (Mr. B. R. Wheatley) writes as follows of Allibone’s forty Indexes: “What however shall we say of the sub-indexes which really have no existence whatever, except in the list of their titles at the commencement? Take, for instance, the first—Alchemy—which refers you to Class or Index 8, which is Chemistry. How much nearer are you to Alchemy?—it is a more secret science in the Index than it was in the middle ages—you have 500 names under Chemistry, and you must look out the whole of them before you find the philosopher’s stone which lies hid in this five-century crucible of mixed ingredients.”—Trans. Conference of Librarians, 1877.