NATURAL SCIENCE: 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No. 40. Vol. VI. JUNE, 1895. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



The Royal Society's Selection. 



THE following candidates have been selected by the Council of the 

 Royal Society for election as Fellows : — Mr. J. Wolfe Barry, Pro- 

 fessor A. G. Bourne, Mr. G. H. Bryan, Mr. J. Eliot, Professor J. R. 

 Green, Mr. E. H. Griffiths, Mr. C. T. Heycock, Professor S. J. 

 Hickson, Major H. C. L. Holden, Mr. F. C. M'Lean, Professor W. 

 MacEwen, Dr. S. Martin, Professor G. M. Minchin, Mr. W. H. 

 Power, Professor T. Purdie. We have neither the intention nor the 

 desire to join the protestations of a certain disaffected set who take an 

 annual opportunity of cavilling at the selected list. We believe all 

 the candidates to be worthy of their places, and we offer them our 

 sincere congratulations. Last year, in noticing the list, we said : — 

 "It is not likely that anyone whose opinion is worth having will 

 cavil at this year's selection. Still we cannot help regretting that no 

 geologist has been nominated." The fact that this year again 

 zoologists, botanists, physiologists, medical men, engineers, chemists, 

 physicists, and mathematicians have found a place, while geology is 

 unnoticed, deserves more than a passing mention. There are geolo- 

 gists and to spare in England ; indeed, geology for long has been a 

 characteristically English branch of science, and, in our opinion, its 

 English exponents are as numerous and as ardent as ever they have 

 been. The Royal Society's annual list may be taken as a fair index 

 of the estimation in which the exponents of each science are held by 

 the exponents of all the sciences. It is plain that either the 

 exponents of geology already in the Royal Society, and especially on 

 its Council, or the exponents of geology outside the Royal Society, 

 are behind the exponents of other sciences in convincing scientific 

 men of the relative claims of geology. It is for geologists to search 

 out the reason and to set their house in order. 



The Harveian Oration. 

 Dr. Lauder Brunton has recently published his oration for 

 1894. Taking as his subject the modern developments of Harvey's 



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