36 Mr Venn, On the various notations adopted for [Dec. G. 



(4) On a sundial of a peculiar form, said to have been re- 

 constructed by Lalande, at Bourg-en-Bresse, in France. By Dr 

 J. B. Pearson, D.D., Fellow of Emmanuel College. 



After the termination of the ordinary proceedings, a Special 

 General Meeting, of which due notice in compliance with Sec- 

 tion X. of the Bye-laws had been given, was held ; at which it was 

 moved by Professor Babington, and seconded by Professor Stokes, 

 that for No. 2, Section VI. of the Bye-laws, the following be 

 substituted : 



" The President shall take the chair at 3 P.M. and shall quit 

 it before 5 P.M." 



The motion was carried unanimously. 



December 6, 1880. 

 Professor Newton, President, in the chair. 



The following communications were made to the Society : 



(1) On the various notations adopted for expressing the common 

 propositions of Logic. By John Venn, M.A., Fellow of Gonville 

 and Caius College. 



Most logicians must be well aware of the general fact of the 

 perplexing variety of symbolic forms which have been proposed 

 from time to time by various writers, but probably few persons 

 have any adequate concejotion of the extent to which this license 

 of invention has been carried. I have therefore thought it well to 

 put together into one list the principal forms, so fax as I have 

 observed them, in which one and the same proposition has thus 

 been expressed. For this purpose the Universal Negative has 

 been selected, as being about the simplest and least ambiguous of 

 all forms of statement. This arrangement has not been drawn up 

 with a mere wish to make a collection. Almost every one of these 

 forms, it must be remembered, has been made the instrument of 

 a more or less systematic exposition of the subject. In so far, 

 therefore, as the notation is not entirely arbitrary — which it is in 

 very few instances — we shall find it instructive to compare the 

 different aspects of the same operation to which they respectively 

 direct attention. For convenience of reference and comparison 



