Decrease in Attendance 83 



1888. On Nov. ist (the meeting having been inadver- 

 tently fixed for that day instead of in October), Sir W. 

 Grove called attention to the falling off in attendances, the 

 number announced at the anniversary having been 97, 

 one less than in the previous year, and stated that, unless 

 there was a considerable increase, he should propose next 

 anniversary that the Club be discontinued. The subject 

 was resumed at the meeting of Nov. 22nd, when he said 

 that the objects for which the Club had been founded had 

 been mainly accomplished. The Royal Society had been 

 reformed, and its scientific character raised to a higher 

 level ; the other and older Club of its Fellows had also 

 changed its character, and was now chiefly composed of men 

 actively engaged in scientific work. As the members of 

 the Philosophical Club appeared to be losing interest in 

 its meetings, he would ask them to consider at the next 

 meeting whether it could be fused with the Royal Society 

 Club, or, if not, be dissolved. 



Captain Abney and Professor G. H. Darwin were elected 

 to the vacancies made by the retirement of Sir J. H. Lefroy 

 and the transference of Prof. Huxley to the list of honorary 

 supernumerary members. 



SIR WILLIAM DE WIVELESLIE ABNEY, eldest son of Canon Abney, 

 was bom at Derby, July 24th, 1844, and after obtaining a commission 

 in the Royal Engineers, was active in educational work and made 

 a special study of scientific photography. He was elected F.R.S. in 

 1876, received a Rumford Medal in 1882, is an honorary Doctor of 

 Victoria, Durham, and Dublin Universities, and was created K.C.B. 

 in 1900. 



SIR GEORGE HOWARD DARWIN, second son of Charles R. Darwin, 

 was born at Down on July gth, 1845, was second wrangler, second 

 Smith's prizeman, and elected Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 in 1868. His first important paper dealt with the effects of geological 

 changes on the earth's axis. Becoming F.R.S. in 1879, he received 

 a Royal Medal in 1884, and was elected in the previous year Plumian 

 Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge, publishing papers on the 

 precession of a viscous spheroid, the former connexion of the moon 

 with the earth, the effect of strains caused in the ulterior of the 

 latter by the weight of continents, and similar subjects of like 

 importance and difficulty. On his return from South Africa, where 

 he was President of the British Association at the meeting of 1905, 



