1877.] 



President's Address. 



433 



Fund, or supplied by the Government on the recommendation of the 

 Royal Society, should be regarded as the property of the Govern- 

 ment. 



The Committee meetings are fixed for February in each year ; those of 

 the subcommittees will take place whenever summoned by the Secretaries 

 of the Society ; and notice has been given that applications for grants are 

 to be sent to the Secretaries of the Royal Society not later than December 

 31st in any year. 



At the meeting of the General Committee in March last the subcom- 

 mittees reported that 102 applications had been received, and that the 

 amount applied for was <£14,459. Of the 102 applications 33 were 

 approved, and sums of £300 and under (the total being £2220 Is. Qd. for 

 instruments, assistance, and materials, and .£1810 for personal remune- 

 ration) were granted. 



The results of this step towards the endowment of research will, I hope, 

 be narrowly watched, in the interests both of science and of this Society, 

 which, in undertaking to administer for the Government a sum so 

 largely devoted to personal remuneration, has assumed a very onerous 

 responsibility, and largely increased the burthen of your Secretaries. 



Reports of Naturalists sent by the Society to Rodriguez and Kerguelen 

 Island. — These are being printed uniformly with our Transactions, under 

 the editorship of Dr. Giinther and your President. They will consist of 

 a series of papers, illustrated with plates, on all branches of the natural 

 history of the islands, contributed by the naturalists themselves and 

 various coadjutors, whose services are gratuitous. The cost of printing 

 will be defrayed by the liberality of your Treasurer, and some of the 

 plates have been presented by the contributors. . 



The Polar Expedition. — The scientific results of the Polar Expedition, 

 and especially the biological, appear to me to have, in most departments, 

 quite come up to our expectations ; and considering that but one season 

 was available for collecting and observing (and we all know how short 

 that is in the arctic regions), they are indeed most creditable to the gen- 

 tlemen who contributed them. Geology has proved by far the most pro- 

 lific field of research. Perhaps Botany comes next, and this, and the insects 

 which have been worked up by Mr. M'Lachlan, prove that, between 80° 

 and 83° N., in Grinnell Land, the conditions for the existence of these 

 organisms are far more favourable than are those of lands a long way to 

 the southward. 



The floras of the series of channels between 80° and 83° N., the shores 

 of which have been botanized by the officers of the Polar Expedition, have 

 yielded upwards of 70 flowering plants and ferns, which is a much greater 

 number than has been obtained from a similar area among the polar 

 islands to the south-westward, and is unexpectedly large. All are from 



