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following; account. Since my last to you concerning this 

 particular, we have constantly every Monday had a meeting, 

 at which one or other would produce discourses no ways con- 

 temptible, till about a week before Christmas, we received a 

 letter from Dr. Plot, directed particularly to the Provost, Dr. 

 Huntingdon, but designed in general for us all, in which he 

 takes notice of our design here on foot, for Dr. Huntingdon 

 had formally given him an account thereof, and encourages 

 us to go on vigorously therewith, promising us all the assis- 

 tance we can desire, as, likewise, the favourable countenance 

 and encouragement of the Royal Society, as also of such ano- 

 ther philosophical meeting as our own, begun within these 

 three months at Oxford : assuring us also of the constant cor- 

 respondence of them, and that we may at any time command 

 whatever we may please to hear communicated from them. 

 This encouragement from so great a man, as he is secretary 

 both to the Royal and Oxford Societies, made us think upon 

 modelling ourselves into better form; and, accordingly, the 

 Bishop of Ferns, Sir Wm. Petty, Dr. Willoughby, and I, were 

 pitched upon to draw up rules, to be presented to the consi- 

 deration of the rest after the holidays ; so that yesterday (Jan. 

 7, 1684) our rules were presented, and are ordered to be read 

 at three several meetings before they pass. The rules are 

 much the same as those of the Royal Society, and we have 

 entrance money, and a weekly contribution, but what it will 

 yet come to, God knows.' 



" On the 10th of May, William Molyneaux wrote to his 

 brother, then at Ley den, the following notice of the young So- 

 ciety : — ' Our Society goes on ; we have a fair room in Crow's 

 Nest' (off Dame-street), ' which now belongs to one We- 

 therel, an apothecary, where we have a fair garden for plants,' 

 where they first met in April of that year. And again, upon 

 the 14th of June we read : ' Our society has built a laboratory 

 by Dr. Mullen's directions, in the same house where we have 

 taken a large room for our meeting, and a small repository.' 



