470 Anniversary Meeting. [Dec. 1, 



the candidates on the ground of scientific merit, a strictly limited 

 number of men of very high eminence in other ways. The Committee 

 recommend that such a power be entrusted to the Council, the 

 number of Fellows who have been thus elected, existing at any time, 

 being limited to a maximum of twenty -five, and the number elected 

 in any year to a maximum of two. 



The question was also discussed whether the maximum number of 

 foreign members, which at present stands at fifty, should be increased, 

 and was decided in the negative. 



Another recommendation of the Committee which, perhaps, it may 

 be as well to mention, is one enabling the Council, in any year, to 

 regulate for the ensuing year the length of the Christmas and Easter 

 holidays. At present the weekly meetings are resumed in the second 

 week after Christmas week, and there is then no intermission till Passion 

 week, although the earlier portion at least of this interval is a time 

 during which papers intended for reading do not usually come in so 

 frequently as towards the end of the session. According to the 

 statute fn force till 1838, three of the ordinary weekly meetings 

 between Whit-Sunday and the last meeting in June were cut out, by 

 the Whitsun holiday, Ascension Day, and the annual election of 

 Fellows ; and as at that time of year papers commonly come in 

 pretty frequently, there was a considerable congestion of papers 

 towards the close of the session. This congestion was partially 

 relieved by an alteration of the statutes, which came into force in 

 1888, enacting that an ordinary meeting should be held at the con- 

 clusion of the Annual Meeting for the election of Fellows ; but the 

 fact that the proportion between the number of meetings held and 

 the number of papers that come in varies a good deal with the season 

 seems to render it desirable that the regulation of tlie number of 

 meetings should be rather more elastic, and should, to some extent, 

 be left in the hands of the Council. 



Since the last anniversary twenty-five memoirs have been published 

 in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' containing a total of 10G8 pages 

 and 72 plates. Of the ' Proceedings,' eleven numbers have been 

 issued, containing 1165 pages. 



In the library, the work of making room for growing series, and of 

 obtaining volumes or parts to complete series that were imperfect, 

 has been continued. In the course of this work the Council have, 

 upon the recommendation of the Library Committee, distributed some 

 L500 volumes, consisting partly of duplicates and partly of works of 

 small scientific value, among various public institutions. The cata- 

 logue of the manuscripts, which I mentioned in my last year's 

 address as about to be commenced, has been completed during the 

 past session. The maps and charts, the pictures and busts, have also 

 been catalogued ; and the collection of the manuscripts of memoirs 



