on 17 december 1849 he was elected editor of the chemical society's "journal", and about the beginning of 1860 he also became librarian to the society. early in 1871 it was decided to print in the society's journal abstracts of all papers on chemistry appearing elsewhere. in february 1871 a committee was appointed to superintend the publication of the journal and these summaries, but soon the abstracts were left entirely to watts.