112 



NA TURE 



[December 5, 1895 



utility. I have now the pleasure to announce that arrangements 

 have been made with Messrs. Dulau and Co. to carry out this 

 suggestion, and that Messrs. Dulau have, at their own expense, 

 issued a very useful alphabetical list of all the papers in the 

 Philosophical Transactions, from the year 1 8oo to the present 

 time, any of which may now be separately purchased by the 

 public. 



The great and increasing success of our annual soirees has led 

 the House and Soiree Committee to recommend to the Council 

 that in addition to the two conversaziones held in May and 

 June, some informal receptions for the Fellows should also be 

 occasionally held. This suggestion was readily adopted by the 

 Council, and the first of these receptions was held last month. 



The Water Research Committee have continued the labours 

 which they commenced in conjunction with the London County 

 Council four years ago, and although the County Council no 

 longer contributes to the expenses, the Committee have been 

 able to carry on the researches, partly by means of an assignment 

 from the Government grant, and partly by a grant from the fund 

 established in 1 891, by his Excellency Dr. Gunning. A Report, 

 of 200 pages, by Prof. Marshall Ward, forming the Fourth 

 Report to the Committee, was presented to the Council of the 

 Royal Society last March, and has been published in the 

 Proceedings. This Report treats on the biology of Bacillus 

 ramosus (Fraenkel), a schizomycete of the River Thames. 



With respect to the Gunning Fund which I have just now 

 mentioned, the Committee appointed by the Council to consider 

 and report upon the best terms for carrying out the trust, made 

 the following recommendations, which, with Dr. Gunning's 

 approval, were adopted by the Council : — 



" (i) That the Fund should not be applied in the form of a 

 prize, medal, or reward, but should be devoted to the furtherance 

 of knowledge in some special direction. 



" (2) That, by preference, the interest accruing from the Fund 

 during every three years be applied for the promotion of Physical 

 Science and of Biology alternately. 



" (3) That aid should, by preference, thus be given in Physical 

 Science and Biology respectively, either to investigations or 

 operations which require to be repeated from time to time, 

 or to the development of some specified continued line of 

 research. " 



The Council, while adhering to the policy of retrenchment 

 touched upon in my last address, have had to recognise the fact 

 that the Society was, at that time, already committed to a large 

 amount of publication, a great bulk of printed matter being 

 almost ready for issue. This accumulation has been rapidly 

 worked off during the past session, with the result that the 

 Council, notwithstanding that every effort has been made to 

 limit the amount of fresh publication, have issued in the mathe- 

 matical and physical section of the Philosophical Transactions no 

 less than thirty-one papers, and in the biological section twenty- 

 one. The two sections together contain in all 2259 pages of 

 letterpress and sixty-one plates. Of the Proceedings, fourteen 

 numbers have been issued, containing 1356 pages. 



While determined not to depart from the policy of avoiding 

 all unnecessary expenditure on publication, the Council felt that 

 with only the funds hitherto at its disposal it could not effect the 

 requisite diminution of expenditure without diminishing the 

 efficiency of the Royal Society in promoting the augmentation 

 of natural knowledge, which is the reason for its existence. An 

 application to the Treasury for additional funds was therefore 

 made by a resolution of Council adopted at its meeting of 

 June 20 last. I am happy to say that a favourable answer has 

 been received, and a grant of ;i^ 1 000 a year has been given by 

 the Treasury to the Royal Society on the purpose of aiding in 

 the adequate publication of scientific matter, whether in the 

 Transactions or Proceedings of the Society or through other 

 channels and in other ways. 



At a meeting of the Councilon October 17 it was resolved to 

 send to the Institute of France the following address on the 

 occasion of the centenary of its foundation ; and it was agreed 

 to authorise the President and Treasurer to represent the Royal 

 Society at the commemoration to be held in Paris from October 

 23 to 26 : — 



" The President and Council of the Royal Society of London 

 offer to the Institut de France their most cordial congratulations 

 on the auspicious occasion of the centenary of its existence, 

 which it is now about to celebrate. 



' ' The President and Council are well aware that various 

 ancient Academies flourished in France long before the official 



NO. 1362, VOL. 53] 



foundation of the Institut as a means of recording discoveries 

 and promoting arts and sciences, and that much of that great 

 advance in human knowledge which took place during the 17th 

 and 1 8th centuries was due to the labours of members of the 

 French Academy of Science. 



"The foundation of the Institut, however, comprising as it 

 does five Academies, each with its own special sphere of action, 

 but all united as one harmonious whole, constantly investigating 

 the laws of nature and the developments of art, constitutes an 

 era in the history of civilisation. 



" It would be an endless task to attempt to enumerate the 

 branches of human knowledge which during the past century 

 have benefited by the labours of the Institut. It is a body of 

 which not only France but the whole of the civilised world may 

 be justly proud. 



" It is sad to think, that just at the moment of a commemora- 

 tion which would otherwise have been celebrated with unalloyed 

 pleasure. Science has to mourn the loss of one of her most dis- 

 tinguished votaries. The single-minded and devoted labours of 

 Pasteur, and their beneficial results to man and the domestic 

 animals, are recognised throughout the whole world with 

 the highest gratitude and admiration. The Royal Society 

 assures the members of the Institut of its hearty sympathy in 

 the sad loss that they and humanity at large have sustained. 



" That the Institut may long continue to exist and prosper, 

 and that each succeeding century may witness an ample harvest 

 from its labours, is the heartfelt wish of the President and 

 Council of the Royal Society. 



(Signed) "Kelvin, 



'^ Pres. P.S." 



I had the honour of presenting this address to the President 

 of the Institute of France in person. For myself and other 

 Fellows of the Royal Society who were present along with me 

 I may be allowed to say that we were much gratified with the 

 friendly and fraternal reception accorded to us, as colleagues and 

 fellow labourers in the work of the Institute. 



I am sorry to say that we are now losing the service, as 

 Assistant-Secretary, of Mr. Herbert Rix, who, after seventeen 

 years of faithful work for the Royal Society, retires from this 

 post, as he finds the necessarily increased anxiety and burden of 

 the office to be too great a strain upon his health. We all feel 

 grateful to him for the manner in which he has discharged his 

 duties from the time he first entered the service of the Royal 

 Society ; and I am sure the Fellows generally will agree with the 

 Council in being pleased that we have been able to arrange to 

 still have Mr. Rix to help us in our work, in the less arduous 

 post of Secretary to the Government Grant Committee. 



A very important scientific event of the past year, resulting 

 from work initiated by the Royal Society a quarter of a century 

 ago, is the completion of the " Report of the Challenger 

 Expedition," in fifty large royal quarto volumes containing 

 29,500 pages, and illustrated by over 3000 lithographic plates, 

 copper-plates, charts, maps, and diagrams. I may remind you 

 that H.M.S. Challenger was fitted out by the Government in 

 1872, on the recommendation of the Royal Society, and was 

 absent for nearly four years on an exploration of the Great 

 Ocean Basins. The publication of the numerous observations, 

 which have enriched almost every branch of science, was at first 

 carried on under the direction of Sir C. Wyville Thomson, and 

 subsequently by Mr. John Murray. 



I have been myself much struck with the extreme beauty of 

 many of the plates contained in these volumes ; and, though no 

 expert in the subject, I may be allowed to say that I believe 

 nothing more admirable has been hitherto given to the world in 

 the way of illustration and representation of biological subjects. 

 Of the maps, I may confidently say that they are models of 

 careful, accurate, and elaborate work. Two volumes of the 

 Report deal with the narrative of the voyage, three volumes 

 with the physics and chemistry of the ocean, one volume with 

 deap-sea deposits and geology, two volumes with botany, forty 

 volumes with marine zoology, and two volumes are devoted to 

 a summary of the scientific results. 



How highly the work of the Challenger expedition is appre- 

 ciated by those best qualified to judge of the merits of its 

 results is illustrated by the following words, spoken by Milne- 

 Edwards at a meeting of the International Congress of Zoology, 

 held last September in Leiden :— L'expedition du Challenger 

 a porte des fruits merveilleux. Ceux qui I'ont organise, ceux 

 qui y ont pris part, et dont quelques-uns ne sont plus ici pour 



