703 



Society. They are feelings so warm that they cannot be enhanced 

 by that which would otherwise enhance them ; by the recollection 

 that you have an hereditary title to our regard. I may, however, 

 venture to say, that among the many reasons for gratitude to your 

 eminent father, it is not the least that he has trained his son to 

 follow in his footsteps and to emulate his fame. 



Dr. Roget, the senior Secretary, then addressed the Meeting as 

 follows :— * 



My Lord, 



I wish to take the opportunity afforded me by the present assem- 

 blage of the Fellows to announce to them my intention of retiring, 

 at the next anniversary, from the office I have so long had the honour 

 of holding in the Royal Society. This determination, as many of 

 my friends well know, has not been formed hastily ; and I would 

 have carried it into effect some time ago, had it not been for the pe- 

 culiar circumstances in which I found myself placed. 



The duties required of the Senior Secretary have, in process of time, 

 become much more laborious and much more arduous than they were 

 at the time of my appointment to that office, when I succeeded Sir 

 John Herschel in the year 1827, which is just twenty years ago. 

 During this long period, which, I may be allowed to remark, con- 

 stitutes a large portion of human life, I have witnessed considerable 

 changes in the Society. There have been changes of Presidents, of 

 Secretaries, of Librarians, of Assistant Secretaries — in fact all the 

 offices, in every department, from the highest to the lowest, have 

 undergone repeated changes. I have seen, in the course of these 

 events, various changes of administration, and many important alte- 

 rations in the mode of carrying on the business both of the Society 

 and of the Council ; and these alterations have been constantly at- 

 tended with increased labour to the Secretaries. It is since the 

 period of my first appointment that the Council have undertaken the 

 office of assigning the channels through which the Royal favour is 

 to flow in the distribution of the Royal Medals ; an office, the proper 

 performance of which, as your Lordship well knows, is generally 

 difficult, often delicate, and sometimes invidious ; and of which the 

 trouble and responsibility have been felt by the Council to be so 

 great, that they have found it expedient to delegate the larger por- 

 tion of that responsibility and trouble to separate standing scientific 

 Committees, which they appoint from year to year. To these Com- 

 mittees they have also consigned the task of determining the se- 

 lection of papers for publication in the Philosophical Transactions. 



Another circumstance which has added considerably to the la- 

 bours of my office, is the practice now adopted of having all the 

 proceedings, both of the Society and of the Council, printed and, of 

 course, published to the world. Upon me has devolved the whole 

 of the editorial labour of these publications, and the superintendence 

 of the minutiae of the press ; not to speak of the far greater care 

 and attention required in preparing the abstracts of the papers read 



