 Juey 10, 1902] 
‘where it is used to illustrate a fable of the blacksmith and 
his dog. The dog has been omitted in the Gilbert pic- 
ture, the words Septentrio and Auster have been added 
and some other details modified, but there is no doubt 
where the picture came from. ; : 
Another note of interest is that to p. 165, dealing with 
the discovery of the mariner’s compass, Its construction, 
and the wind-rose or chart of the winds marked on the 
card of the compass. The earliest known examples of 
the wind-rose are on certain Venetian charts dating back 
to 1426 or 1436. Not less interesting is the paper which 
some five years since Prof. Thompson read before the 
Bibliographical Society on “ Peter Short, Printer, and his 
Marks.” This, however, is not in this volume. Peter 
Short, the hitherto unknown printer of the book, used 
as his mark the device of a serpent entwined round a 
T-shaped support, and the investigation as to why this 
mark was used has led to an interesting chapter in the 
history of the printers of the sixteenth century. 
But enough has probably been said to convince even 
an unwilling reader of the value of the book ‘De 
Magnete” and of the services which the editor and his 
colleagues have rendered to science by the issue of this 
English edition. They are to be congratulated on the 
results of their labour of love, which, though it has cost 
them many hours of toil, has had so successful an issue. 
Ie AME 
RECENT HISTORY OF THE ROVAL SOCIETY. 
HEN the “Record of the Royal Society ” was first 
issued in 1897, further editions of that interesting 
compilation were promised, and the Society has con- 
sidered the opening of the new century an ‘appropriate 
time for fulfilling that promise. Although there is not 
much of especial importance in the history of the Society 
to chronicle during the four years which have elapsed 
since the issue of the first edition, no one will quarrel 
with the Council for having taken this opportunity of 
issuing a work’ which contains additions of so much 
interest as does the “ Record” before us. 
The first edition was noticed in our columns in 1897 
(see vol. lvi. p. 343), and the present volume gives us, with 
| 
but slight modification, the historical material contained | 
in the first edition. The work, however, has extended 
from a manual of 224 pages to a substantial volume of | 
427 pages, and this increase in bulk is almost entirely 
due to the valuable list of the Fellows of the Society 
elected since its foundation, arranged in chronological 
order of election, with an alphabetical index. 
While the main portion of the contents of the first 
edition remains unchanged, the short period which has | 
elapsed between the two issues of the ‘‘ Record” has | 
seen modifications in some old associations of the Society. | than to say that its scheme of management and organi- 
sation is set out in full in the volume before us, which 
The Botanic Gardens, Chelsea, formerly known as “ The 
Physick Garden,” established in 1721, after enduring 
various encroachments upon its boundaries and sundry 
risks of absorption into the maw of the London builder, 
has found salvation in that essentially modern sanctuary 
for neglected charities, a scheme of the Charity Com- 
missioners. This garden was granted by Sir Hans 
Sloane to the Society of Apothecaries in February, 1721, 
on conditions mentioned in the notice in NATURE already 
mentioned. In the event of the Society of Apothecaries 
at any time failing to fulfil these conditions, or converting 
the garden into buildings for habitations or any other 
uses Save as a physic garden, the premises were to be 
held in trust for the Royal Society, by which it was to be 
held under like conditions, the obligations in this case 
being to the Royal College of Physicians. The Society of 
1“*The Record of the Royal Society of London.” Second edition 
TQOI. Pp. vi + 427. ‘ 
1go2.”" Pp. 265. (London: Harrison and Sons.) 
NO. 1706, VOL. 66 | 
NATURE 
| Gracious Majesty the King on May 
251 
Apothecaries appears to have carried out the prescribed 
terms, but in 1861 evinced a desire to be relieved of its 
charge, which, however, the Royal Society showed no 
anxiety to assume, and the garden, suffering in the mean- 
time some curtailment on the building of the Chelsea 
Embankment, remained under its original tenure until 
1898, when the Society of Apothecaries, anxious to be rid 
of the burden of its maintenance, applied to the Charity 
Commissioners to draw up a scheme for the administration 
of the garden. Under this scheme, which was drawn up 
in consultation with the Council of the Royal Society, the 
management of the garden is placed in the hands of the 
trustees of the London Parochial Charities, with a com- 
mittee of management of seventeen, upon which each of 
the bodies named in Sir Hans Sloane’s original deed, viz. 
the Society of Apothecaries, the Royal Society and the 
Royal College of Physicians, has one representative ; 
there are also representatives of certain educational 
authorities, and nine nominees of the trustees above 
mentioned. The committee is to provide for the main- 
tenance of botanical specimens of living plants for 
teaching purposes and for the supply of botanical 
specimens for external instruction, and may also provide 
instruction, by means of lectures or otherwise, in botany 
with especial reference to the requirements of elementary 
education. 
Another and more familiar name has disappeared from 
the list of institutions carried on under the zgis of the 
Royal Society. The Kew Observatory, built by King 
George III. on the site of an old monastery in 1769, for 
observing the transit of Venus which occurred in that 
year, was handed over by the Government in 1842 to the 
British Association, who maintained it until 1871. In 
that year Mr. J. P. Gassiot, F.R.S., executed a deed of 
trust for the endowment of the Observatory with a sum 
of 10,000/., the income to be administered by a committee 
of the Royal Society for the purposes of the Observatory. 
Such a committee was duly appointed, and assumed 
control of the Observatory, being subsequently incor- 
porated under the title of the Kew Observatory 
Committee. 
Under the scheme for the establishment of the National 
Physical Laboratory, the Kew Observatory Committee 
has been wound up, and the Observatory has become 
incorporated in the larger institution, of which it forms a 
department. The conditions of Mr. Gassiot’s endowment 
are, however, observed by the retention, as a body in- 
dependent of the governing body of the Laboratory, of 
the Gassiot Committee of the Royal Society, composed of 
those Fellows of the Society who are members for the 
time being of the executive committee of the Laboratory. 
So much has been written lately in these columns and 
elsewhere about the National Physical Laboratory that 
there is no occasion to enlarge upon this subject further 
also contains the full text of the Gassiot declaration of 
trust. 
Another interesting document published in the 
“Record” is the royal warrant for the board of visitors 
of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, granted by His 
23, 1901. a 
The list of benefactions is extended by the addition of 
two bequests received since 1897—the bequest of Sir 
| William Mackinnon, who left to the Society the residue 
of his estate, upon trust, for the foundation and endow- 
ment of prizes or scholarships for the special purpose of 
furthering natural and physical science and of furthering 
original research and investigation in pathology. The 
first award under this bequest was made last year to 
Mr. J. J. R. Macleod, M.B., for researches in pathological 
chemistry. The other bequest is one made by the late 
: ; te 
“"Year-Book of the Royal Society of London’ | Prof. David Edward Hughes, the income “to be an- 
nually awarded either in money or in the form of a 
