573iM) ORDINARY GENERAL MEETIX( J, 



HELD IN THE CONFERENCE HALL, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 13th, 1915, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



Sir Frank W. Dyson, F.E.S., Astronomer Royal, 

 in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary announced the election of Mr. William Barnett, 

 F.R.A.S., as a Member of the Institute, and of Mr. Maurice Gregory 

 and Dr. A. Withers Green as Associates. 



The Chairman introduced Professor A. S. Eddington, F.R.S., Plumian 

 Professor of Astronomy in the University of Cambridge, and invited 

 him to deliver his lecture on " The Movements of the Stars/' 



The lecture was illustrated throughout by lantern slides. 



THE MOVEMENTS OF THE STARS. By Professor 

 A. S. Eddington, F.R.S., Plumian Professor of Astronomy 

 in the University of Cambridge. 



"Tl^THEN you come to hear an astronomical lecture, you come 



prepared to quit this earth for a time and to take a 

 long journey out into the vast territories of the sky. But 

 the lecturer may lead you a comparatively short journey, or 

 a long one. He may only ask you to accompany him a paltry 

 distance of a few hundred million miles in order to show you 

 Mars or Jupiter or the other planets of the solar system ; or 

 perhaps the comets that wander among them may be the 

 subject of his discourse. In that case you are still more or less 

 at home ; the same sun which we see in England — sometimes — 

 will light you on your journey, and you do not seek to quit his 

 small empire where he rules supreme. 



On the other hand, the lecturer may presume further on 

 your acquiescence. He may lead you through the midst of the 

 universe of stars as far as the mind can conceive. That is where 

 I ask you to accompany me to-day. As we pass through their 

 midst, the constellations dissolve into unfamiliar forms. The 

 sun has shrunk to a point of light, and is just one star among 

 the crowd. As for the earth, perhaps it would be best for our 

 sense of proportion if we could forget that so insignificant a 

 globe ever existed. 



