L. ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 
Lonpon, England, May 23rd. 
Your letter unluckily not brought hefore us. We regret delay, and offer our best wishes to the 
Royal Society. 
SPOTTISWOODE, 
President, Royal Society, London. 
The meeting then adjourned until the following day. 
PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE CHAMBER. 
May 23, 1883. 
At twelve o’clock the members of the Society and the delegates of the various Societies present 
assembled in the Senate Chamber, where His Excellency the Governor-General and Her Royal 
Highness the Princess Louise were pleased to extend to them a gracious reception. 
His Excellency then addressed the Society as follows : 
Mr. President, Mr. Vice-President, and members of the Royal Society of Canada :—When we 
met last year, and formally inaugurated a society for the encouragement of literature and science in 
Canada, an experiment was tried. As with all experiments, its possible success was questioned by 
some who feared that the elements necessary for such an organization were lacking. Our meeting 
of this year assumes a character which an inaugural assembly could not possess. The position we 
took in asserting that the time had come for the institution of such a union of the scientific and lite- 
rary men of this country has been established as good, not only by the honourable name accorded to 
us by Her Majesty, a designation never lightly granted, but also by that without which we could not 
stand, namely, the public favour extended to our efforts. Parliament has recognized the earnest pur- 
pose and happy co-operation with which you have met, and worked in unison. Knowing that the 
talents exhibited are not those of gold and silver only, it has stamped with its approbation your 
designs by voting a sum of money, which in part will defray the expense of the printing of your 
Transactions. And here, in speaking of this as a business matter, I would venture to remind you, 
and all friends of this Society throughout the country, that the $5,000 annually voted by the House of 
Commons, will go but a very short way in preparing a publication which shall fully represent Canada 
to the foreign scientific bodies of the world. We have only to look to the Federal and State Legis- 
latures of America to see what vast sums are annually expended in the States for scientific research. 
We see there also how the proceeds of noble endowments are annually utilized for the free dissemina- 
tion of knowledge. It is, therefore, not to be supposed that the comparatively small parallel assistance 
provided by any government grant can absolve wealthy individuals from the patriotic duty of be- 
queathing or of giving to such a national society the funds without which it cannot usefully exist. 
You will forgive me, as one who may be supposed to have a certain amount of the traditional econo- 
mical prudence of his countrymen, for mentioning one other matter on which, at all events, in the 
meantime, a saving can be effected. Where itis necessary to have accurate and finely executed 
engravings of beautiful drawings for the illustration of scientific papers, it is necessary that the 
printing of the Transactions should occasion as little cost as possible; and I believe you will find it 
advisable for the present that each paper shall be printed only in that language in which its author 
has communicated it to the Society. Your position is rather a peculiar one, for although you work 
for the benefit of the public, it is not to be expected that the public can understand all you say when 
your speech is of science in consultation with each other. The public will therefore, I trust, be in 
the position of those who are willing to pay their physicians when they meet in consultation, without 
insisting that every word the doctors say to each other shall be repeated in the hearing of all men. 
When funds increase, it seems to me that the economy which it will probably now be necessary to 
exercise in regard to this may be discarded. 
