One of the great landmarks of descriptive scientific bibliography. With bibliographical details of each work, biographical notices of each writer, and exhaustive lists of references in chronological order, its scope and accuracy set a standard rarely equalled in the bibliography of the history of science. Sir William Osler (d. 1919) considered Ferguson’s catalogue the model of descriptive scientific bibliography. The Young collection is preserved in the Andersonian Library, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Due to wartime paper rationing only 40 copies of the first printing of the catalogue were published when it was issued in 1943; it was reprinted in the 21st century. Ferguson is best known as the author of the extensively annotated catalogue of the Young collection of alchemy and early chemistry. However, this catalogue of around 7500 items on 900 pages demonstrates that Ferguson's personal library surpassed that of Young in various respects.