X PBOCEEDINGS OF THE 



has doubtless been in the hands of most of the Fellows of this 

 Society ; and I hope that I shall not be considered as travelling 

 much out of the record, if I recall at this time, when the Boyal 

 Society has so lately been deprived of his services, the great merits 

 of one who would yield to no one of his predecessors in a zealous 

 and unselfish devotion to the interests of science, in the employ- 

 ment of the prestige which his social and official position alike 

 gave him in promoting its objects, and in the solid judgment, 

 never within my experience surpassed, by which the affairs of the 

 Royal Society were conducted by him, whether in Council or in 

 private ; — and in addition to these considerations, the Pellows of 

 the Linnean Society would, with good reason, consider me as 

 wanting in my duty to them, as well as to that excellent noble- 

 man, if I were to omit a grateful allusion to the kind and friendly 

 interest which he invariably manifested for the welfare of this 

 Society, and the urbanity and consideration with which he ever 

 received any suggestions for that mutual assistance and goodwill 

 which he was always anxiously desirous to promote. 



I cannot, however, close this digression without referring with 

 grateful satisfaction to the choice which the Royal Society has 

 made of a successor to Lord Wrottesley, in the person of one who 

 devoted the leisure hours of a long and laborious professional 

 career to the successful cultivation of a branch of science allied to 

 those which are considered as especially the objects of this Society; 

 whilst by a marvellous power of acquiring and retaining know- 

 ledge, and by that incessant employment of the intervals of pro- 

 fessional labour in which, as our great moralist has well declared, 

 consists the true economy of time, he has stored his acute and 

 capacious mind with a fund of knowledge as rich as it is varied. 

 In the close relation in which we now happily stand to the Royal 

 Society, the appointment of its President is matter of no small 

 moment to us in our corporate capacity, in addition to the interest 

 we must feel as competitors in the arena of scientific labour ; and 

 I am quite sure that we shall continue to enjoy in the conduct of 

 the present President the advantages of that combined kindness 

 and wisdom which characterized his predecessor. 



If the events of the past year have not, however, as I have 

 stated, been so influential or emphatic as some which have marked 

 the period of their occurrence as an epoch in scientific history, the 

 more silent and finally not less productive current of discovery is 

 ever going on, and its recent results in every field of research have 

 been such as to prove that the yearning after knowledge was never 



