iv Report to the General Meetinfj. 



A complete analytical Index to tlie volumes of the Journal 

 already published is in the press, and a new catalogue of the 

 Library is in preparation. 



Prof. Way, the Consulting-Chemist of the Society, has read 

 before the Members a report on the Progress of Chemical Science 

 with reference to agriculture both at home and abroad, and has 

 delivered a lecture on the composition of Drainage-water. He 

 has also devised a mode by which the amount -of nitric acid and 

 ammonia in the atmosphere may be ascertained with approxi- 

 mate exactness. This discovery will at once give interest and 

 importance to the prosecution of agricultural meteorology, a 

 branch of inquiry which has hitherto either entirely lain dormant, 

 or been pursued only with results of an indefinite character. 

 The chemical investigation of the composition of water after per- 

 colation through the soil into drains, will eventually prove of 

 great importance, as showing what portion of manuring matter 

 may in this way be removed from the land : at present the 

 results obtained by Prof. Way are confined to a limited body 

 of facts occurring under certain conditions ; but these are 

 sufficient to indicate the great loss which is probably sus- 

 tained by an injudicious manuring of particular soils. The 

 controversial publications of Baron Liebig and Mr. Lawes 

 have had the effect of calling the attention of scientific men to 

 the chemical principles of agriculture, and of practical men to 

 the application of those principles in a farming and economical 

 point of view. The great questions however involved in this con- 

 troversy have still to be dispassionately considered, when the 

 controversial spirit shall have passed away, and the facts be made 

 subservient only to the progi'ess of philosophic inquiry. The Coun- 

 cil strongly advise the members of the Society to take advantage of 

 their privileges relating to the analysis of artificial manures, 

 as they can thus only obtain security against fraud from adul- 

 teration. The Council have decided that at the end of the cur- 

 rent year the offer of the 1000/. Prize for a substitute for Peruvian 

 guano sliall be withdrawn. Prof. Simonds, the Veterinary In- 



