1859.] General Monthly Meeting, 107 



The following Letter from Sie Henry Holland, Bart. V.P.R.T. 

 to the Secretary was read : — 



" Brook Street, April 4th, 1 859. 



*' Mr DEAR Sir, — As I may be unable to attend the Board of 

 Managers to-day, will you let me ask you to be the medium of a pro- 

 posal, which I trust will be accepted, as an expression of my earnest 

 desire to contribute, in some degree, to maintain the Royal Institution 

 in the high position it holds among the scientific institutions in 

 England ? 



" Two or three years ago notice was taken of the expediency of 

 adding to and replacing in parts the apparatus belonging to the 

 Institution. In reference to this important object, I now propose to 

 pay over to the Treasurer for the present year £40, and to continue 

 the same every succeeding year of my life ; this sum being appropriated 

 to the purchase or renewal of apparatus, under such arrangement as it 

 may seem good to the present Board of Managers to direct. The only 

 suggestions I venture to offer are, that the Professors of the Royal 

 Institution should have an official part in the appropriation, and that 

 the term of apparatus should be taken in its largest sense : as including 

 whatever relates to the uses of the Laboratory and to the requirements 

 of the Lectures, which have so greatly tended to sustain the character of 

 the Royal Institution, 



Believe me, dear Sir, 



Yours very faithfully, 



H. Holland. 



'' P.S. — Let me add a line further to say, that if there were found to 

 be any practical convenience in the immediate application of a larger 

 sum to the purposes in question, I shall gladly bring into the present 

 year the payment of the next also." 



The Rev. John Barlow, M.A , 

 Secretary R.I. Sfc. 



Whereupon, it was Resolved — 

 That the special thanks of the Members of the Royal Institution be 

 offered to Sir Henry Holland for a gift so valuable in itself, and so 

 calculated to advance both the scientific character and the popular 

 usefulness of the Institution. 



The Special Thanks of the Members were returned to The Duke 

 of Northumberland, for his present of Mr. McLauchlan*s Works on 

 " Roman Remains in the North of England ;" to M. H. Sainte- 

 Claire Deville, Hon. M.R.I, for his present of his work " De 

 r Aluminium ; " and to Miss Elizabeth Twining, for her presents of 

 her magnificent works, " Illustrations of the Natural Order of Plants," 

 (160 coloured plates, with letter-press descriptions; handsomely bound 

 in two volumes folio) ; and her " Lectures on Plants." 



The Secretary announced that the following arrangements had 

 been made for the Lectures after Easter: — 



Seven Lectures on the General Facts and Leading Princi- 

 ples OF Geological Science, by Professor John Mobbi3* 



