INTRODUCTION. 



The Conferences in connection with the Special Loan Collection of 

 Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington Museum, of which these 

 volumes form a record, originated in a suggestion contained in a letter 

 addressed by the Right Hon. Viscount Sandon, M.P., Vice-President 

 of the Committee of Council on Education, to the Presidents of the 

 various Learned Societies. In this letter his lordship stated that it 

 had been represented to the Lords of the Committee of Council on 

 Education that the utility of the approaching Loan Collection of 

 Scientific Apparatus would be much enhanced, both to the English 

 and to the Foreign men of Science who might be expected to visit it, if 

 arrangements were made for explaining and demonstrating the method 

 of using the various instruments, as well as for reading papers on, and 

 discussing, scientific subjects ; and he added that their lordships 

 would be glad to afford every facility for earring out this proposal, and 

 they desired to suggest, that with this view the various learned 

 Societies should organise a series of Conferences similar to the 

 sectional meetings of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science. 



In accordance with this suggestion a Sub-Committee was formed 

 consisting of the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of each of the 

 Learned Societies by whom the details of the scheme were considered, 

 and it was finally decided to recommend to their Lordships that the 

 Sub-Committees of the various sections should be requested to 

 undertake the organization 0*. the Conferences in those branches of 

 science which came within their cognizance. It was also proposed 

 that the Conferences should begin on the 1 6th of May, 1876, and last 

 till the end of the month, and that the subject of the Conferences 

 should be confined to the description and use of the instruments 

 exhibited. The following are the Sub-Committees to whose labours 

 the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education are so largely 

 indebted for the successful carrying out of this proposal. 



