618 General Monthly Meeting [June 12, 



GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, 



Monday, June 12, 1922. 



Sir James Crichtox-Browne, M.D. LL.D. J.P. F.R.S., 

 Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Henry Cooke, 



Eric Davies, 



Miss Joan Evans, 



Mrs. Agnes Jacobs-Larkcom, 



were elected Members. 



The Chairman announced the decease on May 26, 1922, of 

 Ernest Solvay, and the following Resolution, passed by the Managers 

 at their Meeting held this day, was read and unanimously adopted : — 



Resolved, That the Managers of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 

 deplore the great loss the Institution has sustained by the death of its Honor- 

 ary Member, Ernest Solvay, Minister of State of Belgium; Member of the 

 Academy of Sciences, Paris ; Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, Grand 

 Cordon of the Order of Leopold; Honorary Member, American, German, 

 French and Dutch Chemical Societies ; Corresponding Member, Prussian 

 Academy of Sciences ; Lavoisier Medallist, Institute of France ; Grand 

 Medallist, University of Paris; Author of "La Gravito-Materialitique " (1911), 

 and other Papers. 



Ernest Solvay was one of the greatest inventors of the century, and by 

 his ingenuity and enterprise became the founder of the Ammonia Soda 

 Industry. He revolutionised the Basic Industry of the production of 

 Carbonate of Soda from Common Salt by the use of Ammonia in the chemical 

 reaction. The Solvay Process superseded the Leblanc Process, which involved 

 the use of furnace temperature, by one acting at ordinary temperature, and 

 therefore highly economical. 



The inventions of Ernest Solvay enabled the late Dr. Ludwig Mond to 

 establish the Ammonia Soda Process in this country as early as 1873 ; and 

 subsequently Solvay Factories have been extended throughout the world. 



He was a generous benefactor in many branches of pure Science, including 

 Physiology, Physics, Chemistry, Public Health, Social Welfare. In 1893 he 

 established two Institutes in Brussels, the University Institute of Physiology, 

 and an Institute for Electro-Biological Researches. 



He organised numerous International Conferences in Brussels to stimulate 

 Scientific Research. In 1912 he established an International Institute of 

 Physics, and in 1922 a similar International Institute of Chemistry, with 

 specific endowments of one million francs to be expended in thirty years from 

 their Foundation for the Promotion and Extension of Physics and Chemistry. 



