LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON". HI 



Square, Cramped for space in tliose obscure and diugy rooms, it 

 required a strong devotion to science to induce an adequate at- 

 tendance at our meetings ; and, saddled with a heavy rent, we 

 could neither purchase books for our library nor find room on our 

 shelves for those presented to us. 



In the spring of 1856, however, an opening was made for our 

 obtaining rooms in Burlington House. I was then on the 

 Council, and joined heartily in the conviction of the importance 

 of availing ourselves of the opportunity, notwithstanding the 

 heavy expense it might entail, which I felt confident we could 

 cover by a subscription amongst our Fellows. Our President 

 undertook the preliminary negotiations ; and at the meeting of * 

 our Council on June 11 a letter was officially communicated to 

 us addressed by the Secretary of the Treasury to the President 

 of the E/oyal Society, allowing the temporary location in Bur- 

 lington House of the Linnean and Chemical Societies, with the 

 Eoyal Society, upon certain conditions — those which afi'ected us 

 being that the Royal Society should be put in possession of 

 the main building of Burlington House on the understanding 

 that they would, in communication with the Linnean and Che- 

 mical Societies, assign suitable accommodation therein for those 

 bodies, and that the Eellows of the three Societies should have 

 mutual access to their three libraries for purposes of reference. 

 Our Society, at a Special General Meeting held on the 17th 

 of the same month, authorized the Council to take the necessary 

 steps for carrying out the proposal of the Groverument ; and in 

 the following February (1857) the Eoyal Society assigned to us 

 the rooms which we have since occupied under the above condi- 

 tions. A subscription was organized which ultimately amovmted 

 to nearly £1100, sufficient to defray all expenses of parting with 

 our old rooms and fitting up the new ones, with a very small sur- 

 plus which was carried to the general account. In the same 

 month of February I was associated with our then active and 

 zealous President and Secretary, and with Mr. "Wilson Saunders, 

 as a Eemoval Committee ; and on Tuesday, June 2, the Society 

 was enabled for the first time to meet in their new rooms. 



Our position, however, although so great an improvement upon 

 Soho Square, was not yet quite satisfactory. It was provisional 

 only, and imder the wing, as it were, of the Eoyal Society, and 

 liable at any time to be exchanged for a worse or a better one, as 

 the case might turn out. This uncertainty is now removed. The 



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