18 Record of the Royal Society. 



In order to carry out their inquiries and investigations more 

 efficiently, the Society not only appointed special committees to 

 make inquiries concerning and to report on particular questions, as, 

 for instance, when Sir John Lawson desired that a Committee might 

 be appointed "to examine Mr. Greatrix's Diving-instrument, or to 

 direct a good way for staying under water for a considerable time, 

 to lay the foundation of the mole at Tangier" (Council Minutes, 

 January 13, 1663), but also instituted permanent Committees, each 

 to take charge of some special branch of Natural Knowledge. Thus, 

 in the first year after the second Charter, on March 30th, 1664, 

 the following eight Committees were appointed : 



" 1. Mechanical. To consider of and improve all Mechanical 

 Inventions. [69 names.] 



2. Astronomical and Optical. [15 names.] 



3. Anatomical. All the Physitians of the Society, Mr. Boyle, 



Dr. Wilkins, Mr. Hook. 



4. Chymical. Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Boyle, Sr. Kenelme 



Digby, Mr. Charles Howard, Mr. Henshaw, Mr. Le Febure, 

 Sr. Robert Paston, All the Physitians of the Society. 



5. Georgical. [32 names.] 



6. For Histories of Trades. [35 names.] 



7. For Collecting all the Pheenomena of Nature hitherto 



observed, and all Experiments made and recorded. [21 

 names.] 



8. For Correspondence. [20 names.]"* 



As will be seen from the Note on the Statutes, the time of the 

 weekly meetings of the Society was fixed, at first in 1663, to be on 

 Wednesday at 2 P.M., but the hour was soon, in July of the same y(3ar. 

 changed to 3 P.M. In 1776 the time of the meeting is fixed as 

 Thursday at 6 P.M., but between this and the above date were changes 

 from Wednesday to Thursday and back again, and from 3 P.M. to 

 4 P.M., and again to 6 P.M. Since 1710 the meetings have been on 

 Thursdays, the hour being changed in 1780 from 6 to 8 P.M., about 

 1831 to 8.30 P.M., and in 1880 to 4 30 P.M. 



*%* The portraits of the six early Presidents given in Plates 1 and 2 are from 

 negatives kindly lent bj the Editor of the ' Leisure Hour.' A nearly 

 complete series of portraits of the Presidents, mostly from pictures in the 

 possession of the Society, is given in the July number of that periodical 

 for 1896. The portraits of Boyle and Oldenburg are from photographs 

 made for this ' Eecord ' from paintings in the apartments of the Society. 



* MS. Journal-book, vol. 2, fol. 61. 



