119 



before the stock of our publications can be made available for sale. A policy like this is 

 noi compensated for by the small additions which it makes to the reserve-fund, and we 

 trust that when we have escaped from the incubus that now presses upon us no such 

 damnosa hmreditas as that to which we have referred will be left to our successors. 

 Part of the necessary outlay for completing the plates required for the past volumes 

 of the ' Transactions,' has been already defrayed ; the rest remains to be provided, and 

 we consider it proper to state openly to the Society that if it be your pleasure to re-elect 

 the retiring Officers we shall think it right to pursue the policy of last year, and still 

 further to reduce the balance in hand in order to meet the extraordinary expenses 

 which as above mentioned have been cast upon us, and so to leave the current income 

 to supply the current wants of the Society. 



But the liabilities already alluded to are not the only set of arrears with which we 

 Lave had to deal. The largest item in our expenditure for 1862 (amounting altogether 

 to £172 9s. lOd.) is for printing and illustrating new parts of the ' Transactions ' and 

 ' Journal of Proceedings.' Besides producing a general index to the five volumes 

 composing the second series of the ' Transactions ' and ' Proceedings,' a third series 

 has been commenced, and four parts of the first volume have appeared during the year. 

 Those parts contain no less than thirty separate papers, extending over 416 pages and 

 illustrated by 13 plates, and the ' Proceedings' comprise 9Q pages. We may mention that 

 the previous volume (1859-61) included only twenty-eight papers, extending over 420 

 pages. It appears, therefore, that during 1862 the Society has published as much as 

 it did during the three previous years all put together; and not only has the quantity 

 increased, but we believe that the quality has not deteriorated, and that the volume in 

 question, both in the value and variety of its contents, may well vie with any of its 

 forerunners. We have in fact published in one year the papers which were read 

 during two years, and this of course has materially increased our outgoings. We trust, 

 however, that the Society will be of opinion that the course adopted was judicious ; we 

 cannot but think it desirable that papers should be published as soon as possible after 

 they are read to the Society; the authors themselves will more readily favour us with 

 further communications, others will be more likely to become authors, the readers of 

 the ' Transactions ' get their information earlier, and the Society itself has a better 

 claim to regard, as the promulgator of the latest scientific views, rather than the tardy 

 distributor of stale intelligence. We rejoice to inform the Meeting that the whole 

 mass of arrears has now been published; and, in fact, papers which were read at the 

 Ordinary Meeting for this present month are now in type, and will in February be 

 ready for your perusal. 



Another event of unfrequent occurrence and calling for passing notice has been the 

 revision of the Bye-Laws. The changes introduced were not of a very sweeping or 

 extensive character. The constitution as amended in 1855 worked well in nearly all 

 its details, and the Council trusts that the further amendments of 1862 will ensure to 

 the Society at least a septennium of uninterrupted harmony and ever-increasing pros- 

 perity. 



January 26, 1863. 



