700 



I should have felt it my duty to urge strongly on the Council the 

 propriety of bringing the whole question before the Society at large, 

 and I have little doubt that that course would have been readily 

 adopted. As, however, the limitation of the number fifteen applies 

 alone to the number to be recommended by the Council, leaving to 

 you the power to elect more candidates, should you think fit to do 

 so, there seemed to me to be no necessity for calling you together 

 in a Special General Meeting. 



Having stated to you my doubts as to the expediency of the limi- 

 tation of the number of Candidates recommended by the Council, it 

 is right to add that those doubts do not at all extend to the change 

 in the manner of our election. I am convinced that considerable 

 advantage must accrue from its being attended with greater solem- 

 nity, and from the participation of a larger number of our Fellows 

 in its exercise. This change has also the further recommendation, 

 that the reading of our papers will not be perpetually interrupted 

 by the circulation of the ballot-box. 



The alteration of the time for the adjudication and presentation 

 of our medals, and for the delivery of the Annual Address of the 

 President, will remove many of the disadvantages of the autumnal 

 period of our Anniversary. As great doubts exist whether we could 

 legally alter the time for the election of our Councils without a new 

 Charter, and as such a course would be attended with many diffi- 

 culties and much expense, we have thought it best to do nothing in 

 that matter. 



In the course of the last twelvemonth we have had the unusual 

 occurrence of a Special Meeting on the question of the adjudication 

 of a Royal Medal by a former Council. I hope and trust that no 

 unpleasant feeling remains on the subject. We are engaged in a 

 noble pursuit — that of scientific truth, and in that pursuit we ought 

 to overlook all minor considerations. 



Three very important works have recently issued from the British 

 press, the results of arduous scientific labours in very distant parts 

 of the globe. Of these, one, the measurement of sections of the 

 Meridional Arc in India, though highly important in itself, and ho- 

 nourable to the scientific ability of Colonel Everest, who carried it 

 through, and to the enlightened policy of the Directors of the East 

 India Company, who ordered it, I shall merely mention thus curso- 

 rily, as the Royal Society is no otherwise connected with it than by 

 its regard to whatever tends to promote the cause of natural know- 

 ledge and to do honour to the science of Great Britain. The two 

 other works are more immediately interesting to us. Of these, one 

 extends our own knowledge of the sidereal heavens, while the other 

 enlarges our acquaintance with our own planet. The first is the 

 filial monument erected by the science of a son to the fame of his 

 equally eminent father. The second, the visit by a British seaman 

 to the South Polar regions after having explored the Arctic Seas. I 

 need not say that I speak of the volumes for which we are indebted 

 to Sir John Herschel and to Sir James Ross. 



The former of these works has received at the hands of your 



