PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



EOYAL PHYSICAL SOCIETY. 



SESSION CXVIII. 



Wednesday, l^th December 1888. — Professor Sir Wm. Turnek, 

 M.B., LLD., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The Chairman delivered the foUowino- address : 



Having now completed my period of office as President of 

 the Society, to which, through the great courtesy of the 

 Fellows, I was elected three years ago, it becomes my duty, 

 before I resign the Chair to my successor, to say a few words 

 on the present position of the Society. 



When I first became a Fellow, so far back as 1858, the 

 Society, under the fostering care of several admirable natu- 

 ralists then resident in Edinburgh, was discharging most 

 useful work, both by the reading and publication of papers, 

 and by the discussions on them. All of these have now 

 gone over to the majority, and of them I would more par- 

 ticularly refer to Professor John Fleming, Dr T. Strethill 

 Wright, Dr Andrew Murray, Dr James Macbain, Dr Spencer 

 Cobbold, Mr Alexander Bryson, and Dr John Alexander 

 Smith, the last named of whom did excellent service to the 

 Society for a number of years as our Secretary. Since this 

 now somewhat remote period, the Society has exhibited, as 

 is not unfrequent with such bodies, fluctuations both in the 

 number of its members and in the quantity and quality of 



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