104 Record of the Royal Society. 



A 1752 ~ was determined to place the publication of 



the ' Philosophical Transactions ' directly in the hands of 

 the Council, and the Edition of the Statutes of 1752, while leaving 

 Cap. XIII intact, adds the following two new chapters, enacted March 

 26th of that year : - 



Cap. XX, " Of the selecting of Papers laid before the Society, in 

 order for Publication," establishes and lays down regulations for the 

 " Committee of Papers." These regulations are almost verbatim the 

 same as Sees. 1 to 4 of Cap. XIII, " Of the Publication of Papers," of 

 the Statutes in force at the present time, except that the Quorum of 

 the Committee of Papers is five, not seven, and a provision is con- 

 tained that no entry in the Minute-book of the Committee is 

 to be made of Papers " thought improper to be laid before the 

 public." 



In the Statute in its original form the Committee " shall be at liberty 

 to call in to their assistance . . . any other members of the Society 

 who are knowing and well skilled in any particular branch of Science 

 that shall happen to be the subject-matter of any paper which shall 

 be then to come under their deliberation, "and almost the same words 

 are retained in the Statutes at present in force. The custom of the 

 Committee is now, and for a long time has been, to " call in to their 

 assistance " two or more Fellows, by asking for written reports, and 

 such Fellows so assisting are generally spoken of as "referees." 

 Though the records of the Society show that even in the earliest 

 days of the Society, communications made to the Society were fre- 

 quently submitted to Fellows in order that their opinions thereon 

 might be obtained, the earliest mention which has been found in the 

 Ann 1780 Society's recoi> ds of a paper being technically "referred " 

 is on May 25, 1780, when a paper by Mr. Ludlow was 

 "referred" to Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Hutton. There does riot 

 Ann 1831 a PP ear to ^ e a similar record until March 21, 1831, when 

 a paper by Prof. Davy was referred to Mr. Faraday. By 

 1832, however, the practice of referring papers seems to have become- 

 very common. For some time the name of the person (or persons). 

 to whom the paper was referred is stated in the Minutes of the 

 Committee of Papers, and in all these cases, including those just 

 mentioned, the persons in question were members of the then Council. 

 Very soon, however, the name was omitted, the entry being simply 

 " referred." There seems to be no means of ascertaining when 

 " referees " outside the Council were first had recourse to, or when 

 the practice of written reports first began. 



Cap. XXI, " Of the manner of Publication of the Papers laid 

 before the Society, and defraying the Expences thereof," provides for 

 the printing and distribution of the ' Philosophical Transactions,' and. 

 is to a large extent, even in its very words, the same as Sees. 5 to 9 of 



