SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN THE 17TH CENTURY. 365 
were this day on Fire, and how it goes out in a place where the ayre is not 
free, and sooner out where the: air is exhausted, which they showed by an 
engine on purpose.”—Vol. ii., p. 248. 
On March Ist he seems to have paid his admission money, forty 
shillings, to the Society. On January 9th, just previous to his elec- 
tion, Pepys was present at a meeting at Gresham College, and— 
“Saw the Royal Society bring their new book, wherein is nobly writ 
their charter and laws, and comes to be signed by the Duke* as a 
Fellow; and all the Fellows’ hands are to be entered there and lie as 
a monument; and the King hath put his with the word Founder.”— 
Vol. ii., p. 238. 
In what spirit the merry monarch thus inscribed his royal 
autograph in the Fellows’ book may be well guessed, for in Pepys’ 
pages do we not read (February Ist, 1663-4) how his Majesty 
“mightily laughed at Gresham College for spending time only in 
weighing of air and doing nothing else”? It is perhaps only fair, 
however, to add here that Bishop Sprat, in his History of the 
Society, says the King evinced “ much satisfaction that this enter- 
prise was begun in his reign,” and in various ways displayed 
interest in the success of the Society thus bappily inaugurated. 
The “new book” is still in use, containing the autograph of every 
Fellow from the institution of the Society to the present day. 
We now from time to time come upon entries in the ‘ Diary’ 
referring to papers read before, and the proceedings generally of, 
the Society, at whose meetings Pepys evidently had become a 
frequent and zealous attendant. On March Ist, 1664-5, we read :— 
“To Gresham College, where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious 
lecture about the late comet; among other things proving very probably 
that this is the very same comet that appeared before in the year 1618, 
and that in such a time probably it will appear again, which is a very new 
opinion ; but all will be in print.”—-Vol. i1., p. 253. 
The ‘ Philosophical Transactions,’ by which name the published 
proceedings of the Royal Society are known, commence on the 
6th March, 1664-5, and continue to the present day. By their 
means the papers and other matters spoken of by Pepys may be 
traced with tolerable readiness. The “late comet” referred to 
was the subject of several papers, and will be found described in 
Mr. Russell Hind’s exhaustive little treatise on those bodies. 
* The Duke of York. 
