FIRST MEETING. 



ROYAL INSTITUTION, October 2(Uh, 1845. 

 JOS. B. YATES, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



The Secretary read the following Report of the retiring 

 Council : — 



" In accordance with Law xxviii. of the Society, the re- 

 tiring Council beg to present a summary of their proceedings 

 during the past Session. At the commencement of the 

 Session, the Society consisted of 80 ordinary and 40 corre- 

 sponding members ; their numbers have since been aug- 

 mented by a union with the Natural History Society to the 

 extent of 40 ordinary and 10 corresponding members, and 

 by the admission of nine members by ballot. The Society 

 has lost five members by resignation, and three by death. 

 The members deceased are Mr. Merritt, Mr. Fawcett, and 

 Mr. Winstanley. The Council cannot refrain from express- 

 ing their deep regret at the loss which the community at 

 large, and this Society in particular, has sustained by the 

 removal of these gentlemen, each of whom has occupied a 

 distinguished place in science or literature. In the province 

 of the fine arts, likewise, Mr. Winstanley, — by the taste and 

 discernment always evinced by him, and by his enthusiastic 

 zeal in diffusing among his fellow-townsmen a kindred 

 spirit, — will long be held in grateful and melancholy re- 

 membrance. The Society accordingly consists of the fol- 

 lowing members, whose names, with the dates of their 

 admission, respectively, are given in the Report just 

 issued : — 



Ordinary Members 130 



Corresponding Members G8 



For an account of the Literary and Scientific proceedings 

 of the Society during the past Session, the Council refer to 

 the volume which they have caused to be printed, in 

 compliance with a resolution of the Society, passed at an 

 extraordinary meeting convened on December 2d, 1844. 

 In the compilation of this volume, the Council have been 

 guided in arranging the matter for publication, by the 

 principle that original communications, or those obtained 

 from sources not generally accessible, demanded a larger 

 space to be devoted to them than papers which were derived 

 from works known to the literary and scientific reader, 



