ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 828, 28 May 1910, Page 9

ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.

Now that work in connection with the new edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britanniea" is well advanced at the Edinburgh printers', tho proofs are being finally compared with tho "copy," which has all be-on practicallv typewritten, by a staff of readers in' London engaged by tho publb-hers for this purpose. Unlike, previous editions—the issue of the current edition embraced, exclusive of the supplementary volumes, the period IS/o-SO—there wiil bo no long interval between the appearance of the several volumes of the tenth edition. The - various subjects coming within tho scone of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" have been entrusted to specialists; in rare instances only 'has , old matter been utilised, and every 'endeavour bar, been made to render tho new edition in

ovory respect authoritalivo as well as up to date. The term "Encyclopaedia," it may be stated in this connection, was first' applied to a book in Latin issued at Basel in the miiidlo of the- sixteenth .century-; the'famous k'rench "Em-vclo-piiodic" (1751-SO) extended to tli'irlythrce volumes; and the first odilioii'of tiie "Encyclopaedia Uritaunica" was published by Hell and MarKarqualmr, of Edinburgh. The iitie of the work, which appeared in three nm-.rto volumes (17GS-71), set forth that" "it was compiled upon a new plan, with i(:0 Copperplates, by a Society of Gentlemen in Scotland." The "society" is said, however, to have consisted of little moro than the editor, William Smollie. the Edinburgh printer. The second edition (ten vols., 177£-S3), edited by James Tytlor, besides being "a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences,", included biography, history, and geography, and was thus nearer the true encyclo- I paedic ideal. Tytlor not only edited I this edition ; he actually wrote about three-fourths of the whole work —and I for the astounding salary of 17s. a 1 week.