THE ROYAL SOCIETY 89 



in the exercise of his office as President. It required some 

 delicacy to deal with each case as it arose. As it happens, 

 there does not appear, in all his accessible correspondence, 

 any example in which one decision conflicted with another. 

 As he treated everybody with good humour, and an al- 

 most excessive politeness, it is likely that in few cases did 

 he leave his correspondents offended. He had often to 

 repeat that it was his duty, as was that of his predecessors, 

 to examine with some degree of attention the pretensions 

 of those who wished to belong to the Society, in points 

 of view that might never occur to them nor to their 

 friends, and he particularly seems to have set his face 

 against " aspirants in the medical profession who could 

 raise five guineas"; but who could not establish any 

 record of original research. 



In the same way, Sir Joseph had to dismiss a good 

 many persons who offered ingenious papers for publica- 

 tion in the Philosophical Transactions, who had worked 

 out discoveries for themselves, but did not know that 

 Science was in advance of them. It was out of the ques- 

 tion to submit such papers to the Society, seeing that its 

 members were supposed to be conversant with opinions 

 generally accepted. 



M. Barthelemy Faujas de Saint-Fond made the tour 

 of England and Scotland and the Western Islands, in 

 the year 1784 ; a gentleman of some distinction, par- 

 ticularly versed in mineralogy and the infant prospects 

 of Geological inquiry. He wrote a very agreeable book 1 

 on his experiences in this country ; rather above the 



1 Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides, undertaken for the 

 purpose of examining the State of the Arts, the Sciences, Natural History, 

 and manners, in Great Britain " (transl., 2 vols., London, 1799). A new 

 and revised edition of this translation, with notes and memoirs, by Sir 

 Archibald Geikie, has recently been published (Glasgow, 1907). Faujas 

 is a man that should not be forgotten. He was one of those eccentric 

 beings who believed in the possibility of scientific men not being jealous 

 of each other, and was pleased to notice the generous tone in England 

 of all whose company he frequented. 



