164 



Anniversary Meeting, 



[Nov. 30, 



The President then addressed the Society as follows : — 

 Gentlemen, 



The year which has passed since I last addressed you has been to us a 

 mournfully eventful one. Death has taken from us three of our most emi- 

 nent and respected Members. Two were my predecessors in this Chair, 

 for whom, only a few months ago, we might well have hoped that many 

 ^ears of useful life were yet in store. In regard to the third, the declin- 

 ing health of Faraday (one of the greatest names in our annals) for a 

 considerable time forbade such hope in his case. 



Whilst you deplore with me the losses we have sustained, you will be 

 prepared to read with strong interest the biographical notices of these dis- 

 tinguished men, which are very shortly to appear in our obituary. It is 

 well that I am able to announce that these will be so soon in your hands, 

 for even the feeble attempt on my part to do justice to such a theme on 

 this occasion, which might otherwise have been expected of me (altogether 

 inadequate as it must have been), would have occupied the greater part, if 

 not the whole, of the time claimed by our more ordinary topics. 



I pass therefore at once to the relation of the action taken by the Royal 

 Society in the promotion of science in the past year. 



At the last Anniversary I gave an account of the progress made up to 

 that time in printing the Catalogue of Scientific Papers. I am happy now 

 to be able to announce that the first volume lies before us ready for publi- 

 cation. It comprehends a portion of the first part of the Catalogue, in 

 which the titles are arranged alphabetically, according to authors' names, 

 and extends from A to Ciu. An explanatory Preface and Introduction are 

 prefixed, as is also a list of the periodical works from which the titles have 

 been extracted, with the abbreviations under which they are referred to. I 

 need scarcely remind you how often the appearance of the first volume of a 

 series is necessarily subject to delays not incident to the succeeding volumes. 

 This has happened in the present case ; and we may now confidently anti- 

 cipate that the work will progress rapidly and uninterruptedly. You are 

 aware that the work is being printed at Her Majesty's Stationery OfiSce, 

 and that arrangements vvill be made, with the approval of the Government, 

 for distributing a certain number of copies as presents to scientific institu- 

 tions and other parties, while the remainder will be offered for sale at such 

 a price as may defray the cost of printing. 



The attention of the President and Council has continued to be much 

 occupied during the past year in aiding, at the request of Her Majesty's 

 Government, in the reorganization of the meteorological department of the 

 Board of Trade, and in preparing the preliminary arrangements of a 

 system of British Land-Meteorology to be carried out under the authoriza- 

 tion of that Board. 



In my Anniversary Address of last year, I brought before you, as fully as 



