1893- NEWS OF UNIVERSITIES, ETC. 77 



Dr. R. Blanchard, Secretary of the International Zoological Congress, 

 announces that the subject for the first award of the prize offered by Czarewitch of 

 Russia is " A Study of the Fauna of one of the great Regions of the Globe and its 

 Relations to the neighbouring Faunas." Manuscripts must be received before May i, 

 1895, 3-nd they may relate either to a Fauna in general or to one particular class 

 of animals. The award will be made at the Leyden Meeting in 1895, o" ^^^ report 

 of a Committee consisting of Messrs. Milne Edwards, Blanchard, Bogdanov, 

 Zograf, Jentink, Studer, and Bowdler Sharpe. Detailed particulars may be obtained 

 from the office of the Congress, 7 Rue des Grands-Augustins, Paris. 



The following letters have been circulated this month among the Fellows of 

 the Royal Geographical Society of London : — 



" Savile Row, W. 



" ist June, 1893. 

 ' ' Dear Sir, — At the recent Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society^ 

 in the course of a discussion on the admission of ladies to its Fellowship it was 

 suggested, and the suggestion met with the appro\al of the meeting and was accepted 

 by the President, that the best course would be to obtain the opinion of the body of 

 the Fellows throughout the country. General R. Strachey — acting in the absence 

 of Mr. Clements Markham — has consequently directed me to send you the accom- 

 panying note and postcard. A general vote, thus taken, is not formally binding on 

 the Society, but its result will, there is every reason to believe, be acquiesced in and 

 confirmed by a General Meeting, as a conclusion to the recent controversy. 



' ' The admission of ladies to the Society is no new idea. It was accepted in prin- 

 ciple as a measure both of justice and expediency by the Council in 1887. Its appli- 

 cation was deferred to a convenient occasion, and that occasion arose when last year 

 an eminent lady traveller, Mrs. Bishop (Miss Bird), declined to furnish a paper to a 

 Society that would not acknowledge her as a geographer. I need not catalogue the 

 many other ladies, from our Gold Medallists, the late Mrs. Somerville and Lady 

 Franklin to Miss Edwards and Miss North, whose names are well-known to all 

 interested in the literature and results of travel. 



" The ladies the Council particularly desire to see admitted as Fellows are, in the 

 first place, travellers who contribute to geographical knowledge, and also ladies who 

 ha\e so warm an interest in geographical progress that they desire regularly to 

 attend our meetings and to use our library. Up to the present time, such ladies, if 

 widows or unmarried, have only been able to be present at meetings by begging a 

 ticket on each occasion from a Fellow. The Society has refused their subscriptions, 

 and they have been debarred from the privileges accorded to members. Is not such 

 a state of things an anomaly at a date when ladies are already admitted as members 

 of a large proportion of the more important Scientific Societies of the metropolis, 

 and of, I believe, all the other Geographical Societies in the United Kingdom and 

 the Colonies ? It appears in this light, not only to the Council, but also to Fellows 

 of such experience as Lord Northbrook, Lord Brassey, Sir John Lubbock, Sir 

 Alfred Lyall, Sir Richard Temple, and Sir William Flower, P.Z.S., and Director of 

 the Natural History Museum, not to mention many others. In my own twelve 

 years' experience as one of the Honorary Secretaries of our Society, I may venture 

 to subscribe to their opinion and to express my belief that the admission of qualified 

 ladies as Fellows will add to the prosperity and reputation of the Society, and 

 greatly conduce to its main object — the growth of geographical science — and to 

 geographical knowledge. 



" Some of our Fellows have recently found a legitimate subject of complaint in 

 the fact that, owing to the extensive use by Fellows of their privilege of admitting a 

 companion, the best seats at the most interesting lectures have sometimes been half 

 filled by ladies. It must be pointed out that the Council have recently taken a step 

 that will remedy this grievance by modifying a bye-law, so as to empower the 

 officers, on occasions of exceptional interest, to seat all Fellows before any guests. 

 It would obviously be unjust to exclude qualified ladies from the Fellowship because 

 unqualified ladies, admitted as visitors, have occasionally occupied an unfair pro- 

 portion of our benches ! 



"The Council, deeply impressed by the importance of geographical knowledge to 

 the generation of the English people, and noticing every day how its absence 

 is felt in questions of politics, of commerce, or of emigration, trust you will be able 

 to agree with their view, and to answer the question submitted to you in the 

 affirmative. " I am, yours faithfully, 



"Douglas \V. Freshfield, Hon. Sec." 



