1878.] 



Presiden t's A ddress. 



45 



of its being devoted to tlie encouragement of Scientific Research by 

 periodical grants to investigators whom your Council might think it 

 expedient thus to aid. Shortly after the receipt of this munificent 

 gift, the Government announced its intention of devoting annually for 

 five years £4,000 to the same object, thus anticipating the special 

 purpose which Mr. Jodrell had in view. Thereupon, with his 

 consent, the donation was temporarily funded and the proceeds 

 applied to the general purposes of the Society until some other scheme 

 for its appropriation should be approved. In April last I received a 

 farther communication from Mr. Jodrell, declaring it to be his wish 

 and intention that, subject to any appropriation of the sum which we 

 might, with the approval of the Society, make during his lifetime, it 

 should immediately on his death be incorporated with the Donation 

 Fund, the annual income in the meantime going to the general revenue 

 of the Society. Upon this subject I have now to state that since the 

 receipt of that letter Mr. Jodrell has approved of £1,000 of the sum 

 being contributed to a fund presently to be mentioned. 



I have also to inform you of a cheque for £1,000 having been 

 placed in my hands by our Fellow, Mr. James Young, of Kelly, to be 

 expended in the interests of the Society in such manner as I should 

 approve. 



Mr. De La Rue, to whose beautiful experiments I shall have occasion 

 to refer, has presented to the Society both the letterpress and the 

 exquisitely engraved fac-similes of the electric discharges described 

 in his and Dr. Hugo Miiller's paper, recently published in our 

 " Transactions." 



Our Fellow, Dr. Bigsby, has presented seven copies of his " Thesaurus 

 Devonico-carbonif erus " for distribution, and they have been distributed 

 accordingly. 



A very valuable addition to our Gallery of deceased Fellows has 

 been the gift by Mr. Leonard Lyell of a copy in marble by Theed 

 of the bust of his uncle the late Sir Charles Lyell, F.R.S., together 

 with a pedestal. This is the best likeness of the late eminent geo- 

 logist that has been executed, and is in every respect a satisfactory 

 one. 



I have the gratification of announcing to you, that through the muni- 

 ficence of a small number of Fellows, means have been advanced for 

 reducing the fees to which all ordinary Fellows in future elected will 

 be liable. That these fees, though not higher than the most econo- 

 mical expenditure on the part of the Society for its special purposes 

 demanded, were higher than it was expedient to maintain if any 

 possible means for reducing them could be obtained, was not only 

 my own opinion but that of many Fellows. They exceed those of 

 any other scientific society in England or abroad; their amount has 



