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Aymiversary Address by Sir A. Geikie. [Nov. 30, 



Laboratory and the determination of the nature of the work to be under- 

 taken. The welfare and efficiency of this national establishment are thus 

 closely associated with the Eoyal Society. 



Another administrative control of public funds placed in our hands is that 

 of the annual grant of £4000 voted by Parliament for scientific investigations. 

 This money is sometimes ignorantly supposed to be a subsidy to the Eoyal 

 Society itself, but our relation to it is entirely that of administration. 

 Open to everyone who pursues science in this country, it has been 

 instrumental in aiding and encouraging many workers who would otherwise 

 have been unable to commence or to carry on their researches. In order to 

 deal with the numerous claims made upon it, seven Boards have been con- 

 stituted, each representing one of the great subdivisions of science. On these 

 Boards upwards of fifty Fellows of the Society serve, selected for their 

 eminence in their respective fields. Many of them are busy professional men ; 

 yet, entirely at their own charges, they come, in some cases from long 

 distances in the country, to the meetings of the Boards here, and give much 

 time to the consideration of the claims of the applicants. The average 

 annual number of applications for grants during the last five years has been 107. 

 Of these, the annual average accepted by the Boards during the same period 

 is 85. Eecipients of grants are bound to send in reports of their work and 

 of the expenditure of the money voted to them. The average annual number 

 of these reports which have been laid before the Boards during the last five 

 years is 178. I doubt if the distribution of any other Parliamentary grant is 

 more sedulously supervised than this appropriation for scientific investigations. 

 But not only do tlie several ]3oards scrutinise the applications, they are 

 empowered themselves to initiate researches on promising lines of enquiry, 

 and have occasionally availed themselves of this prerogative. 



Eequests are not infrequently made to the Society by different Government 

 Departments for advice or co-operation in mattei's wherein expert scientific 

 knowledge is required. ¥or years past we have had a Tropical Diseases 

 Committee which, in association with the Colonial Office, has been carrying on 

 investigations into tlic nature and proy)hylaxis of some of the maladies 

 incident to the Imman and animal populations of our colonies and protectorates 

 in warm climates. A Commission despatched by this Committee to Uganda 

 has, for some time, been at work uiukir • Sir David Bruce studying- the 

 decimating scourge of Hle('])ing sickncHS, wliile another (commission under the 

 same Committee is busy in London searching experimentally for some drug 

 that may be effective in the treatment of that terrible disease. A few years 

 ago, at the joint instance of tlie War OflRce, Admiralty, and Colonial Office, 

 we despatclicd a ( 'ommissioTi to Malta to investigate tlie ]M>culiar fever 



