CH. XV. FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 123 



cumstances that a small group of scientific men, among 

 whom were Robert Boyle, son of the Earl of Cork, and Dr. 

 Hooke, an eminent English mathematician, began to meet 

 together privately to try and forget public troubles in 

 discussing science. They assembled first in London in 

 1645, but soon moved to Oxford to be out of the way of the 

 constant riots, and continued to meet there till 1662, after 

 the restoration of Charles II., when they settled in London 

 and formed themselves into a regular Society under a 

 charter from the king. 



This was the beginning of the Royal Society of London, 

 which has done so much for science during the last two 

 hundred years, and which is still the leading scientific 

 society of England. The following account of its early 

 meetings is thus given by Dr. Wallis, one of the first mem- 

 bers, ' Our business/ he says, ' was (precluding matters of 

 theology 'and State affairs) to discourse and consider of 

 philosophical enquiries, and such as related thereunto : as 

 Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, 

 Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and Natural 

 Experiments ; with the state of these studies, and their 

 cultivation at home and abroad. We then discoursed of the 

 circulation of the blood, the valves in the veins, the venae 

 lactae, the lymphatic vessels, the Copernican hypothesis, the 

 nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the 

 oval shape (as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots on the 

 sun and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and 

 selenography of the moon, the several phases of Venus and 

 Mercury, the improvement of telescopes and grinding of 

 glasses for that purpose, the weight of the air, the possibility 

 or impossibility of vacuities and Nature's abhorrence thereof, 

 the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver, the descent of 

 heavy bodies and the degrees of acceleration therein, with 



