THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



remain in vital union with, or rather indeed as an integral 

 part of, the mother Society ; and also the reasons which, 

 after discussion, decided the Fellows who formed the 

 members of the recently instituted Geological Society to 

 forego the obvious advantages of remaining in intimate 

 connection with so powerful a body as the Royal 

 Society, and to prefer to set up for themselves, and to 

 make their own way as a wholly free and independent 

 body. 



The two principal conditions of the plan by which it 

 was proposed that the newly constituted Society should 

 remain permanently connected with the parent body were, 

 first, that the Members of the Geological Society who 

 were Fellows of the Royal Society should constitute a 

 distinct first class, or Council, who should be entrusted 

 with the entire management of the Society, while the 

 other Subscribing Members should form a second class, 

 and be distinguished as Assistant Members. The second 

 condition was, that this first class, or Council, should 

 communicate regularly to the Council of the Royal Society 

 all papers and communications received by them, in 

 order that that body might select such papers as it pleased, 

 to be read at its meetings, and to be printed in the Philo- 

 sophical Transactions the papers not so selected to be 

 returned to the new Society, to be dealt with in such 

 way as it might decide. 



At the special general meeting of the recently formed 



Geological Society, which was called to consider the fore- 



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