THE REPOSITORY OF RARITIES 37 



should receive Directions and Instructions from the Royal Society 

 for making Inquiries relating to the Improvement of Natural 

 Philosophy.' 1 Since those days the gradual increase in the num- 

 ber and scope of the Government departments has relieved the 

 Royal Society of most of these duties, but it still acts as a kind 

 of advisoiy board to the Government on matters wherein scientific 

 opinion is required. Some of its various committees are entirely 

 concerned with researches conducted at the request of one or other 

 of these official departments. Further information on this subject 

 will be found on subsequent pages (see Chapters IX and XI). 



Another function of the Royal Society during the first century 

 of its history may be here referred to. The habit of collecting 

 what were called ' rarities ' was then in full vogue, and various 

 private collections were to be found in different parts of the 

 country, wherein, besides valuable and interesting specimens in 

 natural history and antiquities, all sorts of curiosities, natural and 

 artificial, were gathered together. There was at that time no 

 public institution to which zoological, botanical, geological, or 

 mineralogical specimens could be sent for examination or preser- 

 vation. The Society, therefore, properly undertook the task of 

 collecting, arranging, and cataloguing specimens in all depart- 

 ments of natural science, doubtless in those days including much 

 that might be curious, but had no real scientific value. Some 

 care, however, was exercised to prevent the inclusion of useless or 

 undesirable objects. Thus in a letter from Oldenburg to Boyle 

 of January 18, 1667-8, it is mentioned that persons, not Fellows, 

 who desired to present specimens to the Society were obliged to 

 show them first to the President * for fear of lodging unknownly 

 ballads and buffooneries in these scoffing times '. 



The British Museum was not created until 1753. For nearly 

 a hundred years, therefore, the Royal Society's Repository was the 

 centre to which specimens of every kind were sent from all parts 

 of the country and from abroad. 2 By the spring of 1666, that is in 

 three or four years, it had grown so much that a committee was 



1 Journal-book, xi, p. 326, January 22, 1712-13. When the thanks of the Society were 

 given to the Queen for these marks of her consideration, she ' was pleased to express her 

 intention of countenancing and encouraging the studies of the Society'. 



2 In his history of the early years of the Royal Society, Sprat remarks : ' All places and 

 corners are now busy and warm about this work ; and we find many noble rarities to be 



