1901] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 21 
Origin of English Scientific Societies. 
From SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 
At the opening meeting of the 147th Session of the So- 
ciety of Arts, held on November 21st, 1900, the address 
given was by Sir Johu Evans, K. ©, B., D. C. L., LL.D., 
Se. D., F. R. S., upon the “Origin, Development, and 
Aims of our Scientific Societies.” 
Sir John Evans stated that no learned Society had re- 
ceived a Royal Charter before 1662, when the Royal So- 
ciety was incorporated. The Society of Antiquaries was 
however, much older, having been founded about 1572. 
Among the meeting places of this staid and respectable 
body was the “Young Devil” tavern in Fleet Street. The 
Society before which the address was given was founded 
in 1754, and incorporated nearly a century later, in 1847, 
as the “Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufac- 
tures and Commerce.” From the trio of Societies—the 
Royal, Antiquaries and Arts—Sir John mentioned that, 
nearly all the numerous leading learned societies in ex- 
istence in this country had sprung by a natural. process 
of evolution. The first, perhaps, was the Medical Soci- 
ety, founded in L773. The Linnean Society for the culti- 
vation of Natural History foliowed in 1788. The lecturer 
pointed out that during the century now drawing to its 
close the vast advances in science and the innumerabie 
aspects which it assumed had led to the foundation of the 
numerous scientific societies with more or less limited 
scope. These were by no means confined to science as 
represented by the ordinary acceptance of the word, as 
many were literary and philosophical in their aims; that 
of Manchester dating back to 1781. The offshoots of the 
Society of Antiquaries had not been so numerous, nor so 
important, as those from the Royal Society; the field of 
archvological research being more restricted than that of 
pure “natural knowledge.” ‘The Society of Arts was the 
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