Science in The Age of Enlightenment - Periodicals

Periodicals

Academies and societies served to disseminate Enlightenment science by publishing the scientific works of their members, as well as their proceedings. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, published by the Royal Society of London, was the only scientific periodical being published on a regular, quarterly basis. The Paris Academy of Sciences, formed in 1666, began publishing in volumes of memoirs rather than a quarterly journal, with periods between volumes sometimes lasting years. While some official periodicals may have published more frequently, there was still a long delay from a paper’s submission for review to its actual publication. Smaller periodicals, such as Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, were only published when enough content was available to complete a volume. At the Paris Academy, there was an average delay of three years for publication. At one point the period extended to seven years. The Paris Academy processed submitted articles through the Comité de Librarie, which had the final word on what would or would not be published. In 1703, the mathematician Antoine Parent began a periodical, Researches in Physics and Mathematics, specifically to publish papers that had been rejected by the Comité.

The limitations of such academic journals left considerable space for the rise of independent periodicals. Some eminent examples include Johann Ernst Immanual Walch's Der Naturforscher (The Natural Investigator) (1725–1778), Journal des sçavans (1665–1792), the Jesuit Mémoires de Trévoux (1701–1779), and Leibniz’s Acta Eruditorum (Reports/Acts of the Scholars) (1682–1782). Independent periodicals were published throughout the Enlightenment and excited scientific interest in the general public. While the journals of the academies primarily published scientific papers, independent periodicals were a mix of reviews, abstracts, translations of foreign texts, and sometimes derivative, reprinted materials. Most of these texts were published in the local vernacular, so their continental spread depended on the language of the readers. For example, in 1761 Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov correctly attributed the ring of light around Venus, visible during the planet’s transit, as the planet's atmosphere; however, because few scientists understood Russian outside of Russia, his discovery was not widely credited until 1910.

Some changes in periodicals occurred during the course of the Enlightenment. First, they increased in number and size. There was also a move away from publishing in Latin in favour of publishing in the vernacular. Experimental descriptions became more detailed and began to be accompanied by reviews. In the late 18th century, a second change occurred when a new breed of periodical began to publish monthly about new developments and experiments in the scientific community. The first of this kind of journal was François Rozier's Observations sur la physiques, sur l’histoire naturelle et sur les arts, commonly referred to as "Rozier’s journal", which was first published in 1772. The journal allowed new scientific developments to be published relatively quickly compared to annuals and quarterlies. A third important change was the specialization seen in the new development of disciplinary journals. With a wider audience and ever increasing publication material, specialized journals such as Curtis’ Botanical Magazine (1787) and the Annals de Chimie (1789) reflect the growing division between scientific disciplines in the Enlightenment era.