COMMITTEES OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 271 



to their maintenance. The history and present constitution of this Committee 

 will be found stated on p. 179. 



Glass-workers' Cataract Committee was appointed at the request of the 

 Home Office to investigate the disease of the eyes known as * Glass-workers 1 

 Cataract ', with the view of ascertaining its nature and cause and discovering 

 if possible some means of prevention or cure. The researches of this Committee 

 are still in progress. 



Indian Government Advisory Committee. This Committee was appointed in 

 1899, at the request of the Secretary of State for India, to advise the Govern- 

 ment of India on matters connected with scientific inquiry in that empire ; 

 and, by further request from the Secretary of State in October 1902, it was 

 continued as a Standing Committee. The annual reports and programmes 

 of work of the Board of Scientific Advice in India are submitted to this 

 Committee, and its opinion is invited by the Secretary of State on matters 

 which arise therefrom. 



International Association of Academies Committee was instituted for the pur- 

 pose of co-operating with the academies of other countries in the international 

 scientific matters which constitute the business of the Association, and particu- 

 larly in regard to matters which on the part of this country should be brought 

 before the Association or respecting which the action of the British delegates 

 should be decided in advance. 



International Catalogue Committee. This Committee was originally 

 appointed to initiate and promote the arrangements whereby the work of 

 preparing a Catalogue of Scientific Literature, which the Royal Society had 

 undertaken to complete for the nineteenth century, should be thereafter taken 

 over and continued by international co-operation, as related in Chapter XI 

 (p. 294). Its chief function now is to prepare for the meetings of the Conven- 

 tion of the Catalogue which take place in London every five years and 

 are attended by delegates from the different countries that subsidize the 

 Catalogue. 



Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee, consisting of eleven Fellows of the Royal 

 Society and eleven representatives of the Royal Astronomical Society, who 

 decide upon and supervise the expeditions which from time to time are 

 dispatched to different parts of the world for the purpose of observing solar 

 eclipses. 



Library Committee, appointed for looking after the proper upkeep and 

 administration of the library, with authority to expend each year without 

 further reference a sum not exceeding 250 in the purchase of books and not 

 more than 150 in the binding of books belonging to the Society. 



Observatories Committee. This Committee was appointed in July 1897 in 

 the place of a previously existing Committee known as the Indian Observa- 

 tories Committee, which had been nominated by the President of the Society 

 in May 1885 at the request of the Astronomer Royal and with the approval 



