1881.] 



President's Address. 



45 



recommend a name for your consideration. Professor Michael Foster's 

 great scientific attainments, his administrative powers as shown in 

 founding the great School of Biology at Cambridge, the confidence 

 with which he inspires all around him, alike point him out as a man 

 eminently fitted for the post. It would indeed have been agreeable to 

 your President to have had one of the principal Secretaries resident 

 in London ; but the means of communication are now so different from 

 what they formerly were, that questions of distance almost disappear ; 

 and it is certainly not without its advantages that the two principal 

 Secretaries, if not resident in London, should reside in the same city. 



In the course of the spring of the present year, Sir Joseph Copley, 

 the present representative of the Founder of the Copley Memorial, 

 explained in a visit to the President his wish to " provide in per- 

 petuity a yearly bonus of £50, to be given to the recipient of the 

 Copley Medal." As the donor's views on the terms of the gift 

 were completely made up, and were not offered for discussion by the 

 Society, or otherwise open to modification, the Council decided to 

 accept the offer in the spirit in which it was made, and on the terms 

 prescribed. In accordance with this, Sir Joseph transferred a sum in 

 Consols sufficient to provide for the bonus proposed. This acceptance 

 will not in any way affect the adjudication of the Medal, nor, it is to 

 be hoped, the high estimation in which that award has always been 

 held. 



The period of five years during which the experiment of the 

 Government Fund of £4,000 per annum was to be tried, has now 

 expired. In a former address I have expressed opinions gathered 

 from many of the Fellows of the Society, and have indicated my own. 

 The President and Council have now, at the request of the Department 

 of Science and Art, through which the vote is made, drawn up a 

 report on the question, based upon the experience gained up to the 

 present time, and have made suggestions with a view to a modified 

 arrangement for the future. The Society will be duly informed of 

 the result of those communications. In the mean time it may not be 

 out of place to remind the Fellows that a statement of all grants 

 made within the year is published in the report of our anniversary 

 proceedings. 



The Report of the Challenger Expedition, of which mention was 

 made last year, is in the course of publication ; and three volumes 

 have now appeared. Copies of these have been presented by the 

 Treasury to our library. Volumes II and III refer to the curious 

 forms of life found in what Sir Wyville Thomson has called the 

 " Abysmal Region," and are copiously illustrated with lithographs. 

 The interest which attaches to this publication is evinced by the fact 

 that the first edition of the second volume is already exhausted. A 

 second edition of it is in the course of printing. The Fellows will 



