50 Anniversary Meeting. [Nov. 30, 



In the course of this work many duplicate scientific books, and 

 literary works of little value to the Society, have been thrown out, 

 and tliese have been presented, by order of the Council, to the 

 libraries of the Universities and some of the chief Scientific Societies. 

 The cataloguing of the titles of scientific papers for the decade 

 1874 to 1883 is now complete, and the work is ready for the press. 

 The amount of matter is estimated to require, if printed, three quarto 

 volumes of the usual size. The extraction of the titles, the preparation 

 of the work for the press, and the correction of the proofs of this 

 work, which is really of international importance, have all along been 

 done at the sole charge of the Royal Society ; but the printing of the 

 volumes which have already been published has been done at the 

 Stationery Office, by authority of the Lords of the Treasury, and the 

 proceeds of the sale have been paid in to the Treasury. The Council 

 Jiave applied to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury 

 to sanction the printing of the last decade in a similar manner, and it 

 is hoped that the application may be favourably entertained. 



In the year 1882 a change was made in the amount and mode of 

 administration of the Grant, which for a considerable time before had 

 been voted annually by Parliament for scientific research. Since 

 that year the annual grant has been one of 4,000, which has been 

 administered by the former Government Grant Committee, with the 

 addition of certain ex-officio members, mostly the Presidents of certain 

 scientific Societies. Meetings of this large Committee, consisting 

 usually of about 50 members, have been held twice a year, the 

 various applications for aid from the Grant to enable the applicant to 

 carry out investigations explained by him having been previously 

 discussed in meetings of three, or latterly two, Sub- Committees, into 

 which the whole Committee was divided, and then been submitted 

 to the General Committee for confirmation or modification. 



In the discussion of these Grants, the Government received the 

 benefit of the gratuitous services of a large number of men of the 

 highest distinction in science. In the large Sub-Committees, how- 

 ever, it necessarily happened that of the members present only a 

 fraction would be likely to be conversant with the particular branch 

 of science to which any particular application belonged; and the 

 Council thought that the time of the members might be economised, 

 and at the same time a more efficient discussion of the Grants secured, 

 by arranging the applications under a number of sub-divisions, and 

 assigning the discussion of these to a corresponding number of Boards 

 formed out of the General Committee. It was thought that a good 

 deal of the discussion of the applications in the several branches 

 might be carried on by correspondence among the members of the 

 respective Boards, so that one or two meetings of each Board might 

 suffice. If s.ome trouble were thus saved to the members of the 



