344 



NATURE 



[August 12, 1897 



into a separating glasse after the lungs have been well 

 emptied of Aire. Several! persons of the Society trying 

 it, some sucked up in one suction about three pintes of 

 water, one six, another eight pintes and three quarters 

 &c. Here was observed the variety of whistles or tones, 

 which ye water made at the severall hights, in falling out 

 of the glasse again. 



*' Mr. Evelyn's experiment was brought in of Animal 

 engrafting, and in particular of making a Cock spur grow 

 on a Cock's head. 



" It was discoursed whether there bee any such thing 

 as se.xes in trees and other plants ; some instances were 

 brought of Palme trees, plum trees, hollies. Ash trees. 

 Quinces, pionies, &c., wherein a difference was said to 

 be found, either in their bearing of fruit or in their hard- 

 nesse and softness, or in their medicall operations : some 

 said that the difference which is in trees as to fertility or 

 sterility may be made by ingrafting. 



" Mention was made by Sr. Rob. Moray of a French 

 Gentleman who having been some while since in 

 England, and present at a meeting of the Society, dis- 

 coursed that the nature of all trees was to run altogether 

 to wood, which was changed by a certaine way of cutting 

 them, whereby they were made against their nature to 

 beare fruit, and that according as this cutting was done 

 with more, or lesse, skill the more or less fruitfull the tree 

 would bee. 



" A proposition was offered by Sr. Robert Moray about 

 the planting of Timber in England and the preserving 

 of what is now growing. 



" Mr. Boyle shew'd a Puppey in a certaine liquour, 

 wherein it had been preserved during all the hott 

 months of the Summer, though in a broken and unsealed 

 glasse. 



" Sir James Shaen proposed a Candidate by Sr. Rob. 

 Moray." 



The experiments were afterwards carried out by 

 " Curators of Experiments," and some account is here 

 added of this office, which was first held by Robert 

 Hooke. 



The whole of this condensed history extends to only 

 eighteen pages. It is illustrated by two plates containing 

 portraits, not indeed of the first six Presidents, for the 

 portrait of Sir Cyril Wyche is wanting, but of the Presi- 

 dents from Lord Brouncker to the Earl of Carbery, with 

 this exception. If these can be continued in future 

 issues, and especially if some likeness of Wyche, and of 

 any others which may be at present missing can be dis- 

 covered and reproduced, it will make a valuable series. 

 Portraits of Henry Oldenburg, the first Secretary, and of 

 Robert Boyle, one of the earliest Fellows, are also given. 



This introductory history of the Society's birth and 

 youth is followed by other matters of more or less his- 

 torical interest ; the text of the Charters, a history of 

 the Statutes, a list of the Benefactors of the Society 

 from "Carolus Secundus, Fundator," downwards; a 

 history of the Trusts, and so forth. We are also fur- 

 nished with accounts of other institutions which are 

 controlled by, or more or less closely connected with, the 

 Royal Society, from the Kew Observatory, which is 

 governed by a Committee appointed by the Royal 

 Society's Council, to " The Physick Garden " of Chelsea, 

 in which the Society has, as we read, " only a reversionary 

 interest." 



With respect to the latter institution, its connection 

 with the Royal Society at its first foundation was closer 

 than at present, and was rather curious. The garden, 

 now more generally known as " The Botanic Garden, 

 Chelsea," was founded by Sir Hans Sloane in 1722, by a 

 deed which enacted "That the garden should at all 

 times hereafter be continued as a Physick Garden " by 

 the Society of Apothecaries, which Society should yearly 

 present to the Royal Society '' fifty specimens or samples 



NO. 1450 VOL. 56] 



of distinct plants, well dried and preserved, and which 

 grew in the said garden the same year, together with 

 their respective names or reputed names, and so as the 

 specimens or samples of such plants be different, or 

 specifically distinct, and no one offered twice, until the 

 complete number of two thousand plants have been 

 delivered." This tale of two thousand was completed, 

 we learn, in the year 1762. 



The " Record " contains, furthermore, statements of 

 the origin and progress of various branches of work 

 which the Society is still carrying on^ — the Government 

 Grant for Scientific Investigations, which finds its spring 

 and source in a letter addressed in the year 1849 '>y Lord 

 John Russell to the late Earl of Rosse ; the Society's 

 publications, comprising, besides monographs, the 

 Philosophical Transactions— 3. noble series of volumes 

 extending over more than two centuries — the Proceed- 

 ings, and the Catalogue of Scientific Papers. The last- 

 named arduous undertaking is, indeed, one of the most 

 important branches of work at present being carried on 

 by the Society. Some account of it, reprinted in part in 

 the volume under review, appeared in our pages some 

 time since (Nature, vol. xlv. p. 338). Then there is the 

 library, the pedigree of which, so far as concerns some of 

 the classical and antiquarian literature, is traced through 

 the Arundel Library (presented to the Society in its. 

 earliest days by Henry Howard, afterwards sixth Duke of 

 Norfolk) to Bilibald Pirckheimer, the friend of Albrecht 

 Diirer, and from him to Matthias Corvinus, King of 

 Hungary. 



Sundry lists are added — a list of instruments and 

 relics, a list of portraits, a list of medals, of presidents, 

 treasurers and secretaries of the Society, and of persons 

 to whom the Society's medals have been awarded, all of 

 which, though arranged, as we have said, in official 

 form, and obviously intended for official purposes, contain 

 matter which the future historian of science cannot fail 

 to find of great importance. Here, for instance, we 

 learn that the Society has in its possession many relics 

 of Sir Isaac Newton, including his telescope, the mask 

 from the cast of his face taken after death, and the MS. 

 of the Principia from which the first edition was printed. 

 Here we learn that the Society treasures Boyle's air- 

 pump, Petty's double-bottomed boat, Huyghens's aerial 

 telescope, Priestley's electrical machine, and the original 

 Davy's safety lamp ; and here, under the names of the 

 successive Presidents, we find biographical notes which 

 should be of value. Weld's " History of the Society " 

 carries us down only to the year 1830, and it is but an 

 imperfect compilation at the best. When the story is 

 continued by some later hand — as continued it certainly 

 ought to be — the prospective series, of which this "Record" 

 forms the first volume, should considerably lighten the 

 historian's task. X. 



SOARING FLIGHT. 



SOME time ago we referred, in an article on " Soaring 

 Machines" (Nature, vol. liii. p. 301 ; see also p. 

 365), to the experiments which Mr. Percy S. Pilcher had 

 commenced to carry out in this country on the lines laid 

 down by the late Herr Lilienthal in Germany. Since 

 that time Mr. Pilcher has gained considerable experience 

 both in the making and handling of these aero-planes, 

 and quite recently he was able to make a successful 

 ascent and descent before numerous spectators, under 

 conditions which were not very favourable. An idea 

 of the general shape of the machine he used may be 

 gathered from the six accompanying illustrations, which 

 are enlargements of six out of the numerous pictures 

 taken during flight by means of the cinematograph. The 

 machine itself weighed fifty pounds, the framework being 

 made of bamboo ; the latter could be easily folded up, 

 but when spread out and carried the sail material covered 



