ORIGINAL STATUTES OF 1663 125 



and shall after take notes of the orders and material passages of the present 

 Meeting, to be entered by the Clerk in the respective books, to which they 

 relate ; and when there shall be present a competent number for making 

 elections, they, or either of them, shall give notice of any Candidates that shall 

 stand propounded in order to election into the Society. 



IV. The Secretaries, or either of them, shall draw up all letters to be written 

 to any persons in the name of the Society or Council (to be read and approved 

 of in some meeting of either respectively) except, for some particular cause or 

 consideration, some other person be appointed by the Society or Council to 

 draw up any such letter. 



CHAP. XI Of Curators by Office. 



I. WHEREAS the ends of the institution of the Society may be most effectually 

 promoted by employing able and fit persons, who shall be Curators by office, 

 for the service and business of the Society, having such a liberal allowance, as 

 may be a sufficient maintenance for them, without seeking for or engaging in 

 any other employment ; therefore when the Society shall be endowed with a 

 standing revenue, that can bear it, provision shall be made for such Curators 

 accordingly. And because it may happen, that some persons, engaged in other 

 employments, may yet be of eminent usefulness for the business of Curators ; 

 therefore if any such shall be employed by the Society, such allowance shall 

 be made, as may be proportionable to the time bestowed in that service : 

 Provided that the allowance to any one Curator shall not exceed so much as 

 shall from time to time be equivalent to Two hundred pounds per annum, in 

 this present year 1663. Nor shall the number of such Curators be so great, 

 as to exhaust upon their said allowances above one half of the revenue, from 

 time to time belonging to the Society. 



II. The employment and business of a Curator shall be, to take car.e of the 

 managing of all experiments and observations appointed by the Society or 

 Council, and report the same ; and to perform such tasks relating to the ends 

 of the constitution of the Society, as the Society or Council shall from time to 

 time appoint ; such as the examining of sciences, arts, and inventions, bringing 

 in histories of natural and artificial things. 



III. Every person, to be chosen a Curator by office for the Society, shall be 

 of good fame and virtuous conversation, knowing in philosophical and mathe- 

 matical learning, addicted to and well versed in observations, inquiries, and 

 experiments concerning natural and artificial things. 



IV. Every person, standing for the office of a Curator to the Society, shall be 

 propounded at some Meeting thereof, one month at the least before the intended 

 election ; to the end, that every Member may inform himself concerning him, 

 and acquaint the Society or Council with any exception or objection against 

 him : and every such person shall submit himself to the trial and examination of 

 the Council, or of such persons as shall be appointed by them, to be transacted 



