26 RECORD OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 



3 p.m. In 1776 the time of the meeting was fixed for Thurs- 

 day at 6 p.m., but previous to this date changes had taken 

 place from Wednesday to Thursday and back again, and from 

 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., and again to 6 p.m. Since 1710 the meetings 

 have been on Thursdays, the hour being changed in 1780 from 

 6 to 8 p.m., and about 1831 to 8.30 p.m. In 1880 the meetings 

 ceased to be held in the evening, the hour being altered to 

 4.30 p.m., at which time it still remains. The Fellows, however, 

 are in the habit of meeting for general conversation in the tea- 

 room from 4 o'clock till the opening of the meeting at 4.30. 



The habitat of the Royal Society has likewise undergone various 

 changes during the last two centuries and a half. The meetings con- 

 tinued to be held at Gresham College for some years, but they were 

 interrupted by two successive calamities which befell the City of 

 London. After June 28, 1665, they were for more than eightmonths 

 discontinued on account of the Great Plague, when the Court 

 and a large part of society fled from the pestilence. Some of the 

 Fellows of the Royal Society, however, who had public functions 

 to discharge, remained courageously in London, and at imminent 

 risk of infection continued the active prosecution of their duties. 

 Thus John Evelyn gave up his time and energies to the anxious 

 work that devolved upon him as one of the three Commissioners 

 appointed to take care of the sick and wounded and the prisoners 

 in the war which had been declared against Holland. Samuel 

 Pepys, too, stuck to his important Admiralty post with its multi- 

 farious engagements. The entries in the diaries of these two 

 contemporaries, especially that of Pepys, bring vividly before the 

 imagination the appalling nature of the scourge. Oldenburg 

 the Secretary, together with his family, likewise bravely remained 

 in London, and escaped the infection. 



After the plague began to abate the meetings of the Society 

 were resumed at Gresham College on March 14, 1665-6. But 

 before long they were again rudely interrupted by the disaster of 

 the Great Fire of London, which broke out on the night of the 

 2nd September of that year. The meetings which were due on 

 the 5th and 12th of that month were not held, and though the 

 Society seems to have met on the 19th and some following 

 weeks at Dr. Pope's lodging, or in other rooms in Gresham 



