1895.] 



President's Address, 



115 



every effort has been made to limit the amount of fresh publication, 

 have issued in the mathematical and physical section of the ' Philo- 

 sophical Transactions' no less than 31 papers, and in the biological 

 section 21. The two sections together contain in all 2259 pages of 

 letterpress and 61 plates. Of the ' Proceedings,' 14 numbers have 

 been issued, containing ]356 pages. 



While determined not to depart from the policy of avoiding all 

 unnecessary expenditure on publication, the Council felt that with 

 only the funds hitherto at its disposal it could not effect the requisite 

 diminution of expenditure without diminishing the efficiency of the 

 Royal Society in promoting the augmentation of natural knowledge, 

 which is the reason for its existence. An application to the Treasury 

 for additional funds was therefore made by a resolution of Council 

 adopted at its meeting of the 20th of June last. I am happy to say 

 that a favourable answer has been received, and a grant of £1,000 

 a year has been given by the Treasury to the Royal Society for the 

 purpose of aiding in the adequate publication of scientific matter, 

 whether in the 1 Transactions ' or ' Proceedings ' of the Society or 

 through other channels and in other ways. 



At a meeting of the Council on the 17th of October it was resolved 

 to send to the Institute of France the following address on the 

 occasion of the centenary of its foundation; and it was agreed to 

 authorise the President and Treasurer to represent the Royal 

 Society at the commemoration to be held in Paris from the 23rd to 

 the 26th of October :— 



" The President and Council of the Royal Society of London offer 

 to the Institut de France their most cordial congratulations on the 

 auspicious occasion of the centenary of its existence, which it is now 

 about to celebrate. 



" The President and Council are well aware that various ancient 

 Academies flourished in France long before the official foundation of 

 the Institut as a means of recording discoveries and promoting arts 

 and sciences, and that much of that great advance in human know- 

 ledge which took place during the 17th and 18th centuries was due 

 to the labours of members of the French Academy of Science. 



" The foundation of the Institnt, however, comprising as it does 

 five Academies, each with its own special sphere of action, but all 

 united as one harmonious whole, constantly investigating the laws of 

 nature and the developments of art, constitutes an era in the history 

 of civilisation. 



"It would be an endless task to attempt to enumerate the 

 branches of human knowledge which during the past century have 

 benefited by the labours of the Institut. It is a body of which not 

 only France but the whole of the civilised world may be justly 

 proud. 



