432 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



tific researches ; and that £1500 be granted for new land- stations, and 

 £500 for the extension of telegraphy to Sundays. The result of these 

 new measures will be to raise the annual grant for the Meteorological Office 

 from £10,000 to £14,500. 



Tour Council having further been requested to nominate the effective 

 members of the Meteorological Council for the approval of the Lords of 

 the Treasury, proceeded to do so in accordance with the spirit of the 

 resolutions which gave scientific research so prominent a position — keep- 

 ing in view, at the same time, the necessity of obtaining the services of 

 as many members of the old Committee as possible, their knowledge of 

 the details of the Office being at first indispensable, and their efficiency 

 already proved. The result has been the appointment of Mr. Henry 

 Smith, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, as Chairman, and your 

 Senior Secretary, Mr. F. Galton, Mr. De La Kue, and General Strachey 

 as the other members. The services of Mr. Scott, who has so long and 

 so ably directed the practical operations of the Office, and of Mr. 

 Toynbee, whose labours in ocean meteorology are so well known to you, 

 and of the other officers being all retained, nothing would seem to be 

 wanting, in men or money, to develop the science of meteorology, and 

 to supply the public with data for all the useful purposes contemplated 

 in the establishment of the Meteorological Office. It is to be hoped that 

 the tentative measure thus inaugurated will lead, in five years, to the con- 

 stitution of a national Meteorological Office under the undivided control 

 of a man of high scientific attainments. 



Government Fund of £4000 per Annum for Five Years. — The constitu- 

 tion of the Committee for the administration of this fund, under the 

 authority of the Lord President of the Council, has been provisionally 

 settled, and as much of the first year's grant as was available for the last 

 quarter of the financial year March 31, 1876, to April 1, 1877, was 

 allotted in March last. 



The first meeting of the Committee took place on January 11th, when 

 it was resolved: — that four subcommittees should be constituted — namely, 

 (A) Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy, (B) Biology, (C) Chemistry, 

 (D) General Purposes ; and that all applications for grants should be 

 addressed to the Secretaries of the Society, and referred by them to 

 one of the first three subcommittees for examination and report and 

 recommendation ; that the subcommittees' reports and recommendations 

 should be printed and circulated among the members of the General 

 Committee not less than one week before the meeting at which the 

 grants would be discussed ; and that the grants applied for should be 

 limited to sums required for a period not exceeding twelve months. 

 It was further resolved that a report of progress should be required 

 of the recipient at the end of the year in which the grant was made, 

 and that instruments of permanent value purchased out of the 



