EXPERIMENTS AT THK MEETINGS :n 



fc A proposition was offered by Sr. Robert Moray about the planting of 

 Timber in England and the preserving of what U now growing. 



4 Mr. Boyle shew\l a Pnppey in a certaine liquour, wlierein it had been 

 preserved during all the hott months of the Summer, though in a broken and 

 unsealed glasse. 



* Sir James Shaen proposed a Candidate by Sr. Rob. Moray." 



So important a part did experiments play in the early work of 

 the Royal Society that the Society (as in the Wan-ant for its 

 Mace) could be spoken of as one * for the improving of Natural 

 Knowledge by experiments'. The experiment was performed 

 for and by itself, and not merely, as at present, in illustration of a 

 * paper communicated '. Papers were read then as now ; but the 

 reading of such papers formed only a part, and by no means 

 a great part, of the business of the meeting. Much time was 

 spent in discussing the bearings of such experiments as were 

 shown, and in devising other experiments to be exhibited at some 

 subsequent meeting, or in instituting investigations to be carried 

 out in divers places and under various circumstances. 



The importance of the experiments performed at the meetings 

 is shown by the Society early availing itself of the power granted 

 to it by the Charter of * appointing two or more curators of 

 experiments', and appointing to this office Robert Hooke, who 

 had been assistant to Boyle, admitting him also as a Fellow 

 of the Society. He was elected Curator to the Society on 

 January 11, 1664-5, ' for perpetuity, with a salary of 30 a year, 

 pro temporej apartments being assigned to him for residence. 

 He held the appointment concurrently with the secretaryship, to 

 which he was elected in 1677. In 1684 Papin was chosen joint 

 Curator with Hooke, and continued so until 1687, when he 

 became Professor at Marburg. Both Hooke and Papin were 

 very active in providing experiments to be shown at the meetings. 

 The early Journal -books record hundreds of experiments devised 

 by Hooke. 



There appear to have been additional Curators for special 

 departments, besides the general Curatorship of Hooke. Thus, 

 in November, 1667, Dr. Lomer was appointed ' Curator in 

 Anatomical Experiments'. In April, 1672, Dr. Grew was 

 appointed ' to be a Curator to the Royal Society for the Anatomy 



