532 POPULAR LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 



" Mr. Newton's book be printed, and that Mr. 

 Halley undertake the business of looking after it, 

 and printing it at his own charge, which he en- 

 gaged to do." 



It seems that at that time the office of Treasurer 

 must have been in abeyance ; but with such a 

 Senior Secretary as Dr. Halley there was no need 

 for a Treasurer. 



Halley, having accepted copies of Willughby's 

 book, which had been offered to him in lieu 

 of payment of arrears of salary 1 due to him, 

 cheerfully undertook the printing of the Principia 



1 It is recorded in the Minutes of Council that the arrears of 

 salary due to Hooke and Halley were resolved to be paid by copies 

 of Willughby's work. Halley appears to have assented to this 

 unusual proposition, but Hooke wisely "desired six months' time 

 to consider of the acceptance of such payment." 



The publication of the Historia Piscinm, in an edition ot 500 

 copies, cost the Society ^400. It is worthy of remark, as illustrative of 

 the small sale which scientific books met with in England at this 

 period, that a considerable time after the publication of Willughby's 

 work, Halley was ordered by the Council to endeavour to effect a 

 sale of several copies with a bookseller at Amsterdam, as appears 

 in a letter from Halley requesting Boyle, then at Rotterdam, to 

 do all in his power to give publicity to the book. When the 

 Society resolved on Halley's undertaking to measure a degree of 

 the Earth, it was voted that "he be given ^50, or fifty Books of 

 Fishes" ( Weld's History of the Royal Society > vol. i., p. 310). 



