ii Proceedings. {Sept. 8th-ioth, 1915. 



The Society's House. 



BY 



C. L. Barnes, M.A., 



Hon. Librarian. 



A short account of the history of the Society, by the 

 President, Professor S. J. Hickson, will be found on pp. 90-92 

 of the B7'itish Association Handbook. The following remarks 

 relate to the house and its contents. 



Founded in 1781 (incorporated in 1875), the Society is one 

 of the oldest scientific institutions in the world, yielding only 

 in point of age to the Royal Society and several State-aided 

 Academies on the Continent. This circumstance has enabled 

 it to acquire, by exchange or purchase, the publications of well- 

 nigh all the important scientific societies at home or abroad, 

 from their foundation. A catalogue of this, the most valued 

 possession of the Society, was issued in 1911, and copies are 

 still available. It contains over 800 separate entries, and the 

 proportion of missing numbers is insignificant. 



A view of the house, 36, George Street, is shewn in the 

 frontispiece, It has been the Society's meeting-place for nearly 

 120 years, but was originally much smaller than at present, the 

 premises having been considerably enlarged in 1885, through 

 the liberality of Dr. Henry Wilde, F.R.S. 



On the left of the entrance is the Secretary's room, where 

 Dalton, who lived not far away, carried on his experiments for 

 many years. This fact is commemorated on a marble tablet 

 over the fireplace. Here are also a small bust of Dalton, one 

 of his barometers, an address presented to him by the Society 

 in 1844, only a few months before his death, and several very 

 delicate thermometers used by Joule in determining the 

 mechanical equivalent of heat. The shelves contain a number 

 of non-serial publications on Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, 

 Chemistry, Geology, and other sciences. 



