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following account, Since my last to you concerning this 
particular, we have constantly every Monday had a meeting, 
at which one or other would produce discourses no ways con- 
temptible, till about a week before Christmas, we received a 
letter from Dr. Plot, directed particularly to the Provost, Dr. 
Huntingdon, but designed in general for us all, in which he 
takes notice of our design here on foot, for Dr. Huntingdon 
had formally given him an account thereof, and encourages 
us to go on vigorously therewith, promising us all the assis- 
tance we can desire, as, likewise, the favourable countenance 
and encouragement of the Royal Society, as also of such ano- 
ther philosophical meeting as our own, begun within these 
three months at Oxford : assuring us also of the constant cor- 
respondence of them, and that we may at any time command 
whatever we may please to hear communicated from them. 
This encouragement from so great a man, as he is secretary 
both to the Royal and Oxford Societies, made us think upon 
modelling ourselves into better form; and, accordingly, the 
Bishop of Ferns, Sir Wm. Petty, Dr. Willoughby, and I, were 
pitched upon to draw up rules, to be presented to the consi- 
deration of the rest after the holidays; so that yesterday (Jan. 
7, 1684) our rules were presented, and are ordered to be read 
at three several meetings before they pass. The rules are 
much the same as those of the Royal Society, and we have 
entrance money, and a weekly contribution, but what it will 
yet come to, God knows,’ 
«¢ On the 10th of May, William Molyneaux wrote to his 
brother, then at Leyden, the following notice of the young So- 
ciety :—‘ Our Society goes on; we have a fair room in Crow’s 
Nest’ (off Dame-street), ‘ which now belongs to one We- 
therel, an apothecary, where we have a fair garden for plants,’ 
where they first met in April of that year. And again, upon 
the 14th of June we read: ‘ Our society has built a laboratory 
by Dr. Mullen’s directions, in the same house where we have 
taken a large room for our meeting, and a small repository.’ 
