25 



December 6, 1860. 



Major-General SABINE, Treasurer and Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



The Chairman announced that the President had appointed the 

 following Members of the Council to be Vice- Presidents : 



The Treasurer. 

 Sir John P. Boileau, Bart. 

 Thomas Graham, Esq. 

 Sir Henry Holland, Bart. 



The Earl de Grey and Ripon was admitted into the Society. 



In accordance with Notice given at the last Ordinary Meeting, 

 the Right Hon. George Granville Francis Egerton, Earl of Ellesmere, 

 was proposed for Election and immediate ballot. 



The ballot having been taken, his Lordship was declared duly 

 elected. 



The following communications were read : 



I. " On Coal-Gas." By the Rev. W. R. BOWDITCH. Com- 

 municated by Professor WILLIAM THOMSON. Received June 

 10, 1860. 



A distinguished Fellow of the Royal Society discovered coal-gas, 

 when Rector of Crofton, about two miles from my present parish, 

 and nearly all our knowledge of this complex substance is derived 

 from the labours of chemists who have been, or are, Fellows of the 

 Society. I feel assured, therefore, that an attempt to extend the 

 knowledge of the reaction of coal-gas with various substances will be 

 favourably received, and that the application to practice of the facts 

 made known, will not render a memoir less acceptable to the Society 

 which rewarded alike the abstract researches of Leverrier and the 

 practical ones of Arnott. 



Six years ago I introduced the use of clay into gas-works, for the 

 purpose of improving the purification of coal-gas, and now, after so 

 long an experience, the purification of many hundreds of millions of 



