THE COUNCIL. 



17 



a necessary qualification. But this necessity having ceased, 

 the same desire to promote the good of the Institution which 

 had before induced him to undertake the office, had now 

 determined him to resign it. 



" In the event of the choice of the Meeting falling upon 

 a member who resided at a distance from York, the Council 

 proposed to provide against any inconvenience to be appre- 

 hended from this circumstance, by recommending one of 

 the Vice-Presidents to take the chair in the President's 

 absence, and to execute the duties which he might not be 

 able personally to discharge. If the deputy thus appointed 

 should be annually changed, a greater number of persons 

 would successively be called to take a nearer share, and 

 feel a livelier interest, in the concerns of the Society ; and 

 considerable advantage might be looked for from the 

 multiplied activity which would be produced by such an 

 arrangement. 



" It was not, however, a merely nominal President whose 

 appointment could give satisfaction. To the influence of 

 station and property, there should be added the disposition 

 and ability to take an effective part in the transactions of 

 the Institution : and this union of qualities was not easily 

 to be met with. Yet there was a member of the Society 

 in whom he believed them to be eminently combined ; a 

 member who had shewn the earliest interest in its pro- 

 ceedings, and who had attended the first meeting at which a 

 scientific communication was made ; a member to whose 

 favourable opinion the Society was indebted for the most 



D 2 



