the national position of the Society was followed and 

 confirmed a few years later by a request from the Depart- 

 ment of the Admiralty, for assistance from the Royal 

 Society in raising some ships sunk off Woolwich. The 

 Council replied that, though they would have great 

 pleasure in affording all assistance in their power by 

 advice, the want of funds rendered it impossible for them 

 to provide the necessary machinery. 



From that time down to the present, the Royal Society, 

 while remaining a purely private institution for the pro- 

 motion of Natural Knowledge, has been regarded by the 

 Government as the acknowledged national scientific body, 

 whose advice is of the highest authority on all scientific 

 questions, and the more to be trusted on account of the 

 Society's financial independence ; a body which, through 

 its intimate relations with the learned Societies of the 

 Colonies, has now become the centre of British science. 

 The Society's historical position and the scientific eminence 

 of its Fellows have made it naturally the body which the 

 scientific authorities of foreign countries regard as repre- 

 senting the science of the Empire, and with which they 

 are anxious to consult and to co-operate, from time to 

 time, on scientific questions of international importance. 



On their part, the Fellows of the Royal Society, re- 

 membering that the promotion of Natural Knowledge is 

 the great object for which it was founded and still exists, 

 and that all undertakings in the home and in the State, 



since they are concerned with Nature, can be wisely directed 



68 



