THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



IOI 



THE PEOGEESS OF SCIENCE 



THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF 

 THE ROYAL SOCIETY 



At the anniversary meeting of the 

 Royal Society held on December 1, Sir 

 William Crookes was elected to the 

 presidency in succession to Sir Archi- 

 bald Geikie. As a change in this office 

 is made only once in five years, election 

 to it is the highest honor for a British 

 man of science, the immediate prede- 

 cessors of Sir Archibald Geikie having 

 been Sir William Huggins, Lord Lister, 

 Lord Rayleigh and Lord Kelvin, a roll 

 of scientific distinction which it would 

 be difficult to parallel. Sir William 

 Crookes was born in 1832, and thus 

 belongs to the group of great men of 

 the Victorian era. As long ago as 1862 

 he discovered thallium, and the weigh- 

 ing of this element in a vacuum led to 

 the construction of the radiometer and 

 to researches on the phenomena pro- 

 duced by the discharge of electricity 

 through the exhausted tubes to which 

 his name has been given. In his theory of 

 radiant matter, he anticipated the elec- 

 tron theory. He has continued his re- 

 searches with unabated vigor. In his 

 presidential address before the British 

 Association in 1898 he announced the 

 discovery of monium and in connection 

 with his work on the rare earths de- 

 veloped a theory of the evolution of the 

 elements. Even since the discovery of 

 radium he has made important re- 

 searches, inventing the spinthariscope, 

 which exhibits the results of radium 

 emanation on a screen. 



The report of the council and the ad- 

 dress of the president review the work 

 of the society. The government gives 

 the society rooms at Burlington House 

 and two grants, one of £4,000 for scien- 

 tific researches and one of £1,000 for 

 publication. The society is, however, 

 only a trustee to award the grant for 



scientific research, and, as Sir Archi- 

 bald Geikie pointed out, the funds of 

 the society are not commensurate with 

 the work it accomplishes. The Cata- 

 logue of Scientific Papers, supported 

 mainly by gifts from the late Ludwig 

 Mond, and the International Catalogue 

 of Scientific Literature are expensive 

 enterprises. The tenth annual issue of 

 the International Catalogue has been 

 published, with the exception of the 

 volumes on physiology and bacteriology. 

 A meeting of the International Council 

 will be held in 1914, at which it will be 

 necessary to consider seriously the ques- 

 tion of continuing the catalogue. The 

 society received last year the bequest 

 made by Lord Lister of about $45,000 

 and a gift of $25,000 from Sir James 

 Caird to be used in five yearly disburse- 

 ments for the furtherance of physical 

 research. 



At the anniversary dinner the prin- 

 cipal toast, that of "The Ro'yal So- 

 ciety" was proposed by Mr. Page, the 

 American ambassador. He suggested 

 that the explanation of the bankruptcy 

 of great literature might be the rise of 

 science, which had changed all our out- 

 look on the world, and had for the first 

 time made us feel at home in this life 

 and unafraid, had for the moment 

 thrown men of great artistic power 

 somewhat out of the use of their powers. 

 It was a pleasing thought, he said, to 

 suppose that some member of that so- 

 ciety, or some similar body, might make 

 a new era by the production of great 

 literature, because the great literature 

 of the future must take account of and 

 must be shaped by the view of life 

 under the dispensation of men of sci- 

 ence. Sir Ray Lankester and Sir Har- 

 old Dixon responded for the medallists; 

 the former having received the Copley 

 medal and the latter one of the royal 



