ON THE RELATION OP THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF BRI- 

 TAIN TO THE BEITISH ASSOCIATION, AND ON THE BEST 

 MEANS OF GIVING A MORE PERMANENT VALUE TO THE 

 WORK OF THESE SOCIETIES. 



TOURING the past three years the above problems have been 

 ■*-t carefully discussed, alike by meetings of delegates of the 

 societies themselves, and by the Council of the British Associa- 

 tion ; and also by a Committee appointed by the Council specially 

 to prepare a scheme to indicate how they might be solved. The 

 results of the deliberations of this special Committee are now 

 formally under the consideration of the Council, and will be 

 brought before the General Committee of the Association in the 

 course of the coming year. The Committee's report has been 

 printed in the Report of the Association for 1883, and we are 

 now able to give some particulars of the proposals it contains, 

 with which we have been supplied. Believing the subject to be 

 of great interest and importance in respect of the probable effect 

 in stimulating the societies to greater activity, and thereby adding 

 to the results of permanent value attained by them, we shall make 

 use of the information we have received to give a brief sketch of 

 what has passed, and of the present position of matters. 



A desire had been felt for some years by several members of 

 the British Association to utilise its exceptional influence in the 

 scientific community in the direction of making it an organising 

 centre of the work done in the numerous local scientific societies 

 of the country; and in 1880, at the meeting held at Swansea, this 

 desire took practical shape in the form of a meeting of delegates 

 from several societies, present at Swansea as members of the Bri- 

 tish Association. At this conference it was resolved to hold a 

 similar conference annually. In 1881, at York, the Council of 

 the British Association were empowered to appoint a Committee 

 "to consider the number and position of delegates from Scientific So- 

 cieties, and the regulations which should be adopted for governing 

 their relations to the Association" In the following year, at the 

 Southampton meeting of the Association, this Committee recom- 



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