210 Britain's Heritage of Science 



1899, and placed under the control of the Royal Society. 

 Its primary object is to provide proper standards of measure- 

 ment for all branches of science, to test materials, to verify 

 the indications of instruments and to determine physical 

 constants. To serve these purposes, it has to be provided 

 with means for carrying out researches on a large scale, more 

 especially on problems connected with the industrial appli- 

 cations of science. The Laboratory is administered by an 

 Executive Committee, on which six of the more important 

 technical societies are represented. From small beginnings 

 the Laboratory has grown, under the directorship of Sir 

 Richard Glazebrook, with quite remarkable rapidity, and at 

 present its total annual income amounts to 50,000, of which 

 nearly two-thirds is received for work done for private firms 

 or Government departments. 



With foreign academies the Royal Society has always 

 maintained most friendly relationships ; intercourse between 

 scientific men of different countries was, indeed, one of its 

 primary objects. In May 1661, before the incorporation of 

 the Society by Royal Charter, one of its members gave an 

 account of the proceedings at a meeting of French scientists 

 who formed the nucleus of the future French Academy of 

 Science, and in July of the same year a letter was addressed 

 to them requesting the interchange of scientific informa- 

 tion. In a communication sent to the Council of the 

 Royal Society by Christian Huygens during the same month, 

 after referring to his observations on Saturn, the author writes 

 that the members of the French body were " excited to 

 emulation of the Society of London, and proposed applying 

 themselves to philosophical experiments; " and adds that 

 this is " a good effect produced by your example." The 

 " Academie des Sciences " began to meet regularly in 1666, 

 but was constituted finally only in the year 1699. The 

 intimate relationship between the two scientific societies was 

 illustrated in a striking manner when Sir Humphry Davy 

 visited Paris while France and England were at war with 

 each other. He was received with the highest honours, 

 awarded a gold medal (p. 115), and elected a foreign member. 



In the early days of the Society, Mr. Henry Howard 

 (afterwards Duke of Norfolk) interested himself in securing 



