428 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



distinction in science, and among them of one to whom the Society is under 

 lasting obligations for his active interest in its welfare during upwards of a 

 quarter of a century. Need I name Mr. Gassiot, the founder of the Scien- 

 tific Belief Fund, the munificent subsidizer of the Kew Observatory, and 

 the ever-ready and liberal promoter of scientific investigation — Mr. Fox 

 Talbot, the discoverer of photogenic drawing (the Talbotype process), 

 proved to be the fruitful parent of photography — Sir Henry James, under 

 whose administration the operations of the Ordnance Survey of Great 

 Britain were greatly extended, and its resources utilized in various ways, 

 especially through the application of scientific processes all tending to the 

 advancement or diffusion of knowledge — Mr. Bobert Were Fox, eminent 

 for his researches on the temperature and the magnetic and electrical con- 

 dition of the interior of the earth, especially in connexion with the for- 

 mation of metallic- veins, and who was, further, the inventor of some and 

 improver of other instruments now everywhere employed in ascertaining 

 the properties of terrestrial magnetism ? In Sir William Fergusson we 

 have lost a surgeon of rare ability and manual dexterity and an operator 

 of great repute ; in Mr. David Forbes an accomplished traveller, chemist, 

 and mineralogist ; and in Dr. Bowerbank a naturalist of the old school, 

 whose enthusiasm and genial encouragement kindled into a flame the 

 scientific spark that lurked in the breast of many an amateur. There 

 have further been removed by death from the list of Foreign Fellows two 

 recipients of the Copley Medal, the venerable Yon Baer and the compa- 

 ratively young Le Verrier, together with a traveller and physicist of rare 

 attainments, Erman, the narrative of whose travels is one of the richest 

 storehouses of scientific information that has hitherto been given to the 

 world in the narrative form. 



Finance. — As heretofore, I must refer to our Treasurer's Beport for 

 evidence of the satisfactory condition of the Society's finances. Not but 

 that this is a matter that requires constant vigilance, as the demands upon 

 our pecuniary resources annually enlarge, owing mainly to the rapid 

 increment of matter brought before us and found worthy of publication in 

 our Transactions and Proceedings, and, above all, to the number of expensive 

 illustrations which accompany many of them. This, and the prospect of 

 the results of the Government Fund for the encouragement of research 

 being laid before the Society for publication, appeared to me to render it 

 desirable that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into and report 

 upon the receipts and expenditure of the Society, and that the subject of 

 the outlay on printing and paper should be referred to the Library Com- 

 mittee for report, together with that of the compilation of the Catalogue 

 of Scientific Papers, the labour and expense of which were likely to in- 

 crease with that enormous development of scientific literature which cha- 

 racterizes this century. 



On the recommendation of that Committee, our printing has been 



