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On the present state of Science in Great Britain. 

 No. IV. Wemerian Natural History Swnety. —^Resumed.) 



Is the eighth number of this Journal, for May last, we expressed our satis- 

 fiitction at having " instigated an investigation, by the independent members of 

 the Wernerian Society, into the singular condition of their mis-directed institu- 

 tion ;" and it was our intention not to have made further allusion, for the pre- 

 sent, to the proceedings of the Committee which had been appointed, leaving the 

 zealous members to pursue, systematically and undisturbed, the good work of 

 reformation which was begun. But we find ourselves unexpectedly forced from 

 our meditated silence, by the appearance of a sort of official document which has 

 has recently obtained circulation under rather an equivocal form. 



The history of the Wernerian Society, with respect to the subjects of which 

 we have before spoken, is simply as follows : 



So far back as 1824, complaints were occasionally heard in the Society, 

 against the inefficiency of the system by which it was regulated ; for it was 

 found, in particular, that the advantage to be derived from the library of the So. 

 ciety could not be shared by the members, as the room in which it was reported 

 to be contained was not open to them, except on the days of the Society's meet- 

 ings ; and when any applications for books were made, the general answer was 

 that they were not in. And in December of that year, Mr. Falconar of Carlow- 

 rie moved that the Council make particular inquiry into the state of the library. 



A committee was accordingly appointed by the Council for this purpose, but 

 for reasons hereafter to be stated, nothing was done. After the lapse of three 

 years, (1827,) the system continuing as heretofore, Mr. Falconar again found it 

 necessary to bring the matter before the Society, and the committee were request- 

 ed to expedite their report. About a month afterwards, however, though the 

 committee had not yet given in any report, a meeting of Council was called by 

 the secretary, under the president's direction, and a list of the books was given in 

 by Mr. James Wilson, the librarian. It was then agreed that, as a preliminary 

 titep, a notice be added to the next intimation of the Society's meetings, earnest- 

 ly calling upon members who may have borrowed books from the Society, to re- 

 turn them without delay. And in this preliminary condition matters remained 

 till this present year, (1830,) the interval being marked by no new circumstance, 

 except the election of Mr. Macgillivray to the newly created office of assistant 

 librarian, in November 1828. 



In the beginning of the present year, we were led by circumstances to examine 

 into the condition of the Wernerian Society, as one of the scientific institutions 

 which had formerly been held to be of considerable importance in this country, — 

 an institution which was favourably known to us by several volumes of transac- 

 tions which it had published during a period of seventeen years, and more parti- 

 cularly by the numbers of celebrated names which swelled its list of meinbers. 

 The investigation which we conducted, soon showed to us that the Society had 

 been for some time in a dormant state, — that no transactions had been given to 

 the public for the last five years, — that the members were unacquainted with the 

 state, or even the present existence of a library or museum, though many dona- 

 tions were known to have been presented to the Society, — and that, as is almost 

 invariably the result of laxity in the forms of a public body, and of permanency 

 of office in the executive powers, several abuses had crept into the management of 

 the Society, which required correction before any thing in science could be done. 

 For instance, it was well known that the president, who is the editor of a scien- 

 tific journal, was in the constant habit of appropriating to his own use the papers 

 which ought to have formed part of the Transactions ; and if a member asked 

 the librarian for any particular volume, (which was of very rare occurrence,) it was 

 found that the books had never been delivered over to him, — that he had no cata- 

 logue of the library, — and that he did not even possess the key of the case in 

 which it was believed that a portion of the library was contained. 



