THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



house for the discussion of chemical subjects, but after 

 a short time the meetings were discontinued. 



In his Introductory Address, when the Linnean Society 

 was formed, Sir James Smith gave as the principal reason 

 for the institution of a new Society outside the Royal 

 Society for the promotion of Botanical studies, that 

 " It is altogether incompatible with the plan of the Royal 

 Society, engaged as it is in all branches of philosophy, 

 to enter into the minutiae of Natural History ; such an 

 Institution, therefore, as ours is absolutely necessary." 

 This Society, though auxiliary in its aims and objects, 

 since it was formed for the promotion of one branch of 

 natural knowledge, and was carried on under the leader- 

 ship of Fellows of the Royal Society, existed from the 

 first as an independent body under its own Charter. 



Later on, as the inevitable outcome of the evolutionary 

 increase of " Natural Knowledge," the Fellows who were 

 geologists, feeling the necessity of a separate association 

 for the fuller discussion of mineralogical and geological 

 subjects, under the leadership of Dr. Babington, the 

 Count of Bournon, and Sir Abraham Hume, all three 

 Fellows of the Royal Society, instituted in 1807 another 

 special Society after the order of the Linnean, to be called 

 " The Geological Society of London." An attempt was 

 made shortly after its formation to consolidate the new 

 Society with the Royal Society as an assistant Society. 



It is of interest to-day for us to consider the conditions 

 under which it was proposed that the new Society should 



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