December i, 1892] 



NA rURE 



107 



toric Archaeology ; the Rumford Medal to Mr. Nils 

 C Dundr (received by the Swedish Minister), for 

 his Spectroscopic Researches on Stars ; a Royal Medal 

 to Mr. J. N. Langley, F.R.S., for his work on Secreting 

 Glands, and on the Nervous System ; a Royal Medal to 

 the Reverend Prof. Pritchard, F.R.S., for his work on 

 Photometry and Stellar Parallax ; the Davy Medal to 

 Prof. Francois Marie Raoult, of Grenoble, for his 

 researches on the Freezing Points of Solutions, and on 

 the Vapour Pressures of Solutions ; and the Darwin 

 Medal to Sir J. D. Hooker, F R.S., on account of his 

 important contributions to the progress of Systematic 

 Bi i:iny, as evidenced by the " Genera Plantarum" and 

 the " Flora Indica," but more especially on account of his 

 intimate association with Mr. Darwin in the studies pre- 

 liminary to the " Origin of Species." 



The Society next proceeded to elect the Officers and 

 Council for the ensuing year. The following is a list of 

 those elected : — President: The Lord Kelvin. Treasurer: 

 Sir John Evans. Secretaries : Prof. Michael Foster, 

 The Lord Rayleigh. Foreign Secretary : Sir Archibald 

 Geikie. Other Members of the Council : Capt. William 

 de Wiveleslie Abney, Sir Benjamin Baker, Prof. Isaac 

 Bayley Balfour, William Thomas Blanford, Prof. George 

 Carey Foster, Richard Tetley Glazebrook, Frederick 

 Ducane Godman, John Hopkinson, Prof. Joseph Norman 

 Lockyer, Prof. John Gray McKendrick, William Davidson 

 Niven, William Henry Perkin, Rev. Prof. B. Price, The 

 Marquis of Salisbury, Adam Sedgwick, Prof. William 

 Augustus Tilden. 



In the evening the Fellows and their friends dined 

 together at the Whitehall Rooms, Hotel M^tropole. 



The following is the address delivered at the anniver- 

 sary meeting by Lord Kelvin : — 



Since our last Anniversary Meeting, the Royal Society has 

 lost 27 Fellows on the Home list, and 5 Foreign Members, a 

 sadly great number. 



Pedro (Dom) II. (d'Alcantara), Emperor of Brazil, December 



5, 1891. 

 Ramsay, Sir Andrew Crombie, December 9, 1891, aged 77. 

 Stas, Jean Servais, December 13, 1891, aged 78. 

 Bennett, Sir James Risdon, December 14, 1891, aged 82. 

 Devonshire, William Cavendish, 7th Duke of, December 21, 



1891, aged 83. 



Russell, William Henry Leighlon, December 28, 1891, aged 



68. 

 Kronecker, Leopold, December 29, 1891. 

 Wood, John, December 29, 1891, aged 66. 

 Airy, Sir George Biddell, January 2, 1892, aged 90. 

 Henry, William Charles, January 7, 1892, aged 88. 

 Quatrefages de Breau, Jean Louis Armand de, January 12, 



1892, aged 81. 



Adams, John Couch, January 21, 1892, aged 72, 



Paget, Sir George Edward, January 29, 1892, aged 83. 



Caird, Right Hon. Sir James, February 9, 1892, aged 76. 



Dittmar, William, February 9, 1892, aged 59. 



Grant (Lieut. -Col.), James Augustus, February ii, 1892, 



aged 65. 

 Hunt, Thomas Sterry, February 12, 1892, aged 66. 

 Bates, Henry Walter, February 16, 1892, aged 67. 

 Hirst, Thomas Archer, February l6, 1892, aged 61. 

 Kopp, Hermann Franz Moritz, February 20, 1892, aged 75. 

 Gregory, Right Hon. Sir William Henry, March 6, 1892, 



aged 75. 

 Knowles, Sir Francis Charles, March 19, 1892, aged 90. 

 Bowman, Sir William, Bart., March 29, 1892, aged 76. 

 Hofmann, August Wilhelm von, May 5, 1892, aged 74. 

 Thomson, James, May 8, 1892, aged 71. 

 Bramwell, George William Wilsher, Lord, May 9, 1892, 



aged 84. 

 Aitken, Sir William, June 25, 1892, aged 67. 

 Schorlemmer, Carl, June 27, 1892, aged 58. 



Clark, Frederick Le Gros, July 19, 1892, aged 82. 

 Sherbrooke, Robeit Lowe, Viscount, July 27, 1892, aged 8i. 

 Sutherland, George Granville William Sutherland-Leveson', 



Gower, Duke of, September 22, 1892, aged 64. 

 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (Poet Laureate), October 6, 1892, 



aged 83. 

 Calver (Captain), Edward Killick, October 28, 1892. 

 Biographical notices will appear in the Proceedings. 



During the past year, in the mathematical and physical section 

 of the " Philosophical Transactions," eighteen papers have been 

 published, and in the biological section, eleven; the two sections 

 together containing a total of 1235 pages of letterpress and 50 ■ 

 plates. Of the "Proceedings," fourteen numbers have been 

 issued, containing 1223 pages and 20 plates. This unusually 

 large bulk is partly accounted for by the publication in the 

 "Proceedings' of certain extra matters which the Council 

 deemed likely to interest the Fellows. One part (No. 307), 

 which forms an appendix to volume 1., contains results of the 

 Revision of the Statutes, to which I alluded in my Anniversary 

 Addre.»^s last year. It consists of a summary of the second and 

 third chapters, and a copy of the Statutes as now revised, 

 followed by an interesting note on the history of the Statutes, 

 which has been drawn up by our senior secretary, Prof. Michael 

 Foster. In addition to these matters, the same number contains 

 a complete list of the portraits and busts at present in the ajiart- 

 ments of the Society, compiled by order of the Library Com- 

 mittee, a work which was much needed, as no such list had been 

 made since Weld's Catalogue, printed thirty-two years ago. 

 The new " list" is not a descriptive catalogue, but the names of 

 the painters and donors, and the dates of the gifts, so far as a 

 thorough and somewhat laborious examination of the Council 

 minutes and Journal books has revealed them, are furnished. 

 The list of portraits is followed by a full descriptive catalogue of 

 the medals at present in the possession of the Society, which has 

 been carefully made by our clerk, Mr. James, under the super- 

 vision of the treasurer. 



Another extra number of the "Proceedings" (No. 310) is 

 devoted to a First Report of the Water Research Committee on 

 the Present State of our Know ledge concerning the Bacteriology 

 of Water, by Profs. Percy Frankland and Marshall Ward. It 

 contains 96 pages, full of most valuable information regarding 

 the vitality of micro-organisms in drinking water, to which in a 

 large measure the spread of Asiatic cholera, typhoid fever, and 

 other zymotic diseases is now known to be due. 



In my Presidential Address of last year, I referred to this 

 Water Committee as having been appointed by the Royal 

 Society, in alliance with the London County Council ; and this 

 first instalment of its work seems amply to justify its originators 

 in their expectations of results, most valuable for the public 

 health, from the investigation which has been commenced. 



A third extra number (No. 311) contains the report of the 

 Committee on Colour Vision. This Committee, from the time 

 of its appointment in March, 1890, held over thirty meetings, in 

 course of which it examined more than 500 persons as to their 

 colour vision, and tried various methods and many kinds of 

 apparatus for colour testing. The report of the results of the 

 whole inquiry contains a large mass of most interesting matter, 

 and the Committee's work ends in a set of practical recommen- 

 dations, from which we may hope that much benefit will come, 

 in the prevention of inconvenience and disaster liable to be pro- 

 duced by mistake of colour signals, both at sea and on railways. 

 Mr. Ellis's communication (Roy. Soc. Proc, November, 

 1892, vol. Hi., p. 191) to the Royal Society of last May, and 

 Prof. Grylls Adam.s' communication (Phil. Trans., vol. 

 clxxxiii. 1891-92, p. 131; of June, 1891, both on the sul'ject of 

 simultaneous magnetic disturbances found by observations at 

 magnetic observatories in different parts of the world ; the 

 award of a Royal medal two years ago to Hertz, for his splendid 

 experimental work on electro-magnetic waves and vibrations ; 

 and Prof. Schuster's communication (Phil. Trans, vol, 

 clxxx.. 1889, p. 467) to the Royal Society, of June, 1889, oa 

 the "Diurnal Variations of Terrestrial Magnetism," justify me 

 in saying a few words on the present occasion regarding terres- 

 trial magnetic storms, and the hypothesis that they are due to 

 magnetic waves emanating from the sun. 



Guided by Maxwell's " electro-magnetic theory of light," and 

 the undulatory theory of propagation of magnetic force which it 

 includes, we might hope to perfectly overcome a fifty years' out- 



NO. 1205. VOL, 47] 



