SIR JOSEPH BANKS XxXxl 
Banks remained in undisputed possession of the chair till 
his death in 1820. 
The excellent qualities of the President whom this 
victory kept in the chair were clearly exhibited by 
the temper with which he regarded the opposition. The 
sketch of his character (says Barrow) given by Lord 
Brougham is true to the life: “He showed no jealousy of 
any rival, no prejudice in anybody’s favour rather than 
another’s. He was equally accessible to all for counsel 
and help. His house, his library, his whole valuable collec- 
tions, were at all times open to men of science, while his 
credit both with our own and foreign Governments, and, if 
need were, the resource of his purse, were ever ready to help 
in the prosecution of their inquiries.” 
One of the earliest official acts of the new President 
was a proof of the estimation in which he held his late 
fellow-voyager Cook. On the death of the latter in 1779, 
Banks proposed to the Council that a medal should be 
struck as a mark of the high sense entertained by the 
Society of the importance of his extensive discoveries in 
different parts of the globe, the cost being defrayed by 
subscription among the Fellows. The medal, designed by 
L. Pingo, bears a portrait of the great navigator in profile 
on the obverse, with a representation of Britannia pointing 
to the south pole of a globe on the reverse. 
Amongst other noteworthy services rendered by Banks 
in his capacity as President of the Royal Society, the 
following may be mentioned. In 1784 the Council obtained 
the permission of George III. to commence a geodetical 
survey under General Roy: this served as the basis of the 
Ordnance Survey. In the following year he made successful 
application to the king to guarantee the cost (amounting 
to £4000) of Sir William Herschel’s 40-foot telescope. 
He served on a committee of the Society appointed, at the 
instance of the Secretary of State, to ascertain the length of 
the pendulum vibrating seconds of time at various localities 
in Great Britain. In 1817 the Council at his suggestion 
recommended Government to fit out an Arctic expedition : 
