64 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



taken by Messrs. Grove and Huxley to be disrespectful to 

 the present President of the Royal Society, and regretted 

 that the paragraph recording it should have been placed 

 on the Minutes. He also referred to a member of the Club 

 having made a similar statement at a Council Meeting of 

 the Royal Society. Professor Williamson said he had done 

 the latter, but on his own responsibility and without making 

 any reference to what had passed at the Philosophical Club. 

 Mr. Grove said that he had not expressed any opinion on 

 the matter, but had merely mentioned that the Council of 

 the Royal Society had once passed a minute in favour of 

 a limitation of tenure. He had, however, no hesitation 

 in expressing his concurrence with Prof. Huxley, and 

 vindicated the course which had been followed, by showing 

 that it was " one of the primary objects of the Philosophical 

 Club to discuss these and similar questions." The Treasurer, 

 in accordance with a request from Professor Huxley (who 

 was unavoidably absent), read a letter which the latter 

 had addressed to Mr. Gassiot, in reply to one announcing 

 the intention of bringing forward the subject. In this 

 letter Professor Huxley stated that, had he been present, 

 he should have been disposed to question Mr. Gassiot's 

 right to open any discussion on minutes already confirmed, 

 but he was nevertheless quite ready that any opinion of 

 his recorded on the minutes should be discussed in his 

 absence, so he requested the Treasurer to make an extract 

 from them of the passage referred to and bring it before the 

 Club as new matter. 



The vacancy caused by the death of Dr. W. A. Miller was 

 filled by the election of Mr. C. W. Siemens. 



SIR CARL WILLIAM SIEMENS was born at Lenthe, Hanover, in 

 1823, the second of four brothers who were closely associated in 

 practical scientific work. After passing through the University 

 of Gottingen he came to England in 1823, when at first he made 

 but slow progress in business. This improved with his invention 

 of a water-meter and a ' regenerative furnace ' especially applicable 

 to melting steel. Naturalized in 1859, he was elected F.R.S. in 

 1862. He then turned his attention to electricity, and especially 

 to submarine cables. He laid that from Dover to Calais in 1851, 



