i6o 



NATURE 



IDec. 13, 1888 



who died before the month was out were all far advanced in 

 years. Two of them were eminent in the medical world. Sir 

 George Burrows and Dr. Arthur Farre, both of whom served on 

 -our Council. Early in the year we lost one of our Fellows, who, 

 ■while not a man of science, was eminent in literature and juris- 

 prudence. While our ranks are mainly recruited from men of 

 ■science, we gladly welcome among us men who, like Sir Henry 

 Sumner Maine, have proved their ability and earned their dis- 

 tinction in other branches of knowledge ; whose connection with 

 us we look on as honourable to the Society, while, as the very 

 fact of their joining us shows, they regard the Fellowship as 

 honourable to themselves. Admiral Sir Cooper Key, who was 

 highly distinguished as a naval officer, and was at one time 

 Director of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, was another 

 ■who served on the Council. Philip Henry Go-se, who died at 

 an advanced age, is well known for his charming popular works 

 •on natural history. These are some of the Fellows on the home 

 list who died since the last anniversary ; but, besides these, we 

 have lost no less than three of our foreign members. Prof 

 Anton de Bary, so well known for his researches on the Crypto- 

 gams, and the eminent naturalist. Prof. Asa Gray, who not very 

 long ago was over in this country, both died in January. Com- 

 paratively recently we have lost Prof. Clausius, so eminent as a 

 physicist, especially in the department of thermodynamics. 



The year of the Society which terminates to-day has shown 

 no flagging in scientific activity. Since the last anniversary, 

 thirty-three memoirs have been published in the Phdosophical 

 Transactions, containing a total of loio pages and 91 plates. 

 Of the Proceedings, nineteen numbers have been issued, con- 

 taining 1008 pages and 17 plates. In addition to this, a mono- 

 graph of the Horny Sponges of Australia, by Dr. R. von 

 Lendenfeld, which was accepted for publication by the Council, 

 and which when completed will extend to about 1000 pages, is 

 now nearly through the press. 



A large amount of work connected with the Library has been 

 ■done since the last anniversary. A special effort has been made 

 to complete imperfect series of scientific periodicals ; and by 

 •means of exchange, or by the generosity of our corresponding 

 ■Societies, some hundreds of deficient numbers have been ob- 

 tained. The Lists of Institutions entitled to receive gratis the 

 Philosophical Transactions and Proceedings have also been 

 carefully revised by the Library Committee. 



In December last, Mr. Arthur Soper was engaged as a special 

 Assistant to continue the formation of the Shelf-Catalogue, and 

 the revision of the Catalogue of MSS., and other work. The 

 Shelf-Catalogue of the Upper Library is now completed — a 

 work involving the rearrangement or removal to the lower 

 stories of several thousands of volumes. Considerable pro- 

 gress has been made in collating and cataloguing the Archives 

 and other manuscripts belonging to the Society, and an instal- 

 ment of slips have been written towards a Catalogue of the 

 Miscellaneous Literature in the Library. 



In the course of this work many duplicate scientific books, 

 and literary works of little value to the Society, have been 

 thrown out, and these 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 title, the preparation of the work for the press, and the cor- 

 rection of the proofs of this work, which is really of international 

 importance, has 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 

 the authority of the Lords of the Treasury, and the proceeds of the 

 ■sale have been paid in to the Treasury. The Council have applied 

 to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to sanc- 

 tion the printing of the last decade in a s'milar 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 re- 

 search. Since that year the annual grant has been one of ;^4000, 

 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 fifty members, 

 fiave been held twice a year, and the various applications for aid 



from the grant to enable the applicant to carry out investigations 

 explained by him, have been previously discussed in meetings of 

 three, or latterly two, Sub-Commhtees, into which the whole 

 Committee was divided, and then 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-Commit- 

 tees, however, 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 applica- 

 tion belonged ; and the Council thought that the time of the 

 members might be economized, and at the same time a more 

 efficient discussion of the grants secured, by arranging the applica- 

 tions under a number of subdivisions, 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 mi<iht be 

 carried on by correspondence among the members of the re- 

 spective Boards, so that one or two meetings of each Board 

 might suffice. If some trouble were thus saved to the members 

 of the Committee in regard to personal attendance at long 

 meetings, there would probably be more expenditure of time in 

 the way of correspondence, and it was thought that one meeting 

 of the General Committee in the year would in most cases 

 suffice. To meet pressing cases in the interval, it was suggested 

 that a limited sum might be placed by the General Committee 

 at the disposal of the Council of the Royal Society. There are 

 further provisions for forming a reserve fund of not more than 

 ;^20O0 to meet special objects involving unusual expenditure, 

 and for holding in reserve out of the money available for any one 

 year enough to meet annual grants of limited amount made for 

 a period not exceeding three years, the future grants being con- 

 tingent on the receipt by the Committee of satisfactory evidence 

 of progress in the inquiry. . The new regulations, of which I 

 have merely given a slight sketch, have been communicated to 

 the Treasury, and will come into operation next year. 



The Krakatab Committee have now completed their work, and 

 the volume which is the outcome of their labours is in the hands 

 of the public. The Society is much indebted to those Fellows 

 and other gentlemen who discussed and reported on the different 

 subjects into which the whole inquiry was divided, and to Mr. 

 Symons, who was the first to propose that the materials should 

 be collected, and to whose unwearied labour as Chairman of the 

 Committee, director of the correspondence, and editor of the 

 volume the successful accomplishment of the undertaking is 

 largely due. The work has been favourably noticed in more 

 than one quarter. A comprehensive and digested account of 

 that extraordinary volcanic explosion, remarkable both for its 

 magnitude and the striking disturbances and other phenomena 

 attending or following it, is now placed within easy reach of the 

 ordinary reader, and will go down to posterity ; whereas, had 

 the various accounts remained in their is jiated form, they would 

 many of them have perished, and the remainder could not have 

 been brought together without a most laborious search. It must 

 be a great satisfaction to my predecessor in this chair to remember 

 that he urged upon the Council the importance of collecting the 

 facts before the materials should have become dissipated, and 

 while the freshness of men's recollection of the event kept up a 

 lively interest in all that belonged to it. 



The Royal Society is in possession of some important stand- 

 ards for the safe keeping of which we are responsible. Parlia- 

 mentary copies of the standard yard and standard pound have 

 been intrusted to our custody ; and we have also a standard 

 measure of length known as Sir George Schuckburgh's scale, 

 with reference to which the length of the seconds pendulum for 

 Greenwich has been determined by Kater and Sabine. This 

 length, as determined by experiment, has been defined with 

 reference to the interval from the o to the 39- and 40-inch gradua- 

 tions on the scale ; but no exact comparison has hitherto been 

 made between the length of this portion of the scale and the 

 national yard, and such a comparison is no easy matter. It 

 happens that Commandant Deforges has been engaged in 

 determining the length of the seconds pendulum at Greenwich 

 with reference to the French standard metre, and just before his 

 return to Paris he came to our meeting, and offered to take 

 charge of the scale, bring it with him to Paris, and there deter- 

 mine the length of the part of the scale used by Kater and Sabine 

 with reference to the metre, for doing which he has all the requisite 

 appliances ; and as we know the ratio of the metre to the yard. 



