Abstract
FIFTY years have passed since the publication of the first number of NATURE on November 4, 1869. To start successfully a weekly journal entirely devoted to chronicling the onward march of science was an experiment that could not but involve some financial risk, and certainly required no small editorial ability. To maintain such a journal for half a century on. a high level of excellence, and to gain for it a place admittedly of importance in the periodical literature of our time, is a feat of which Editor and publishers have good reason to be proud. The weekly contributions of this journal to current scientific literature now amount altogether to more than a hundred volumes, which contain a contemporary record of the progress made by every department of natural knowledge, often contributed by the men to whom the progress was due. It may be appropriate, as we take note of this achievement, to cast an eye back upon the condition of science among us fifty years ago, to survey our present position, and to look forward into the vista that is opening out for the future.
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GEIKIE, A. Retrospect and Prospect. Nature 104, 195–198 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/104195a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/104195a0