jou"rnai%K^^^^^ ^oi/al Microscoj)ical Society. 147 
scattered throughout the country. The mass of matter brought 
before all these bodies would preclude the possibility of combining it 
all in one publication of reasonable dimensions, but some record 
might be given of the most interesting facts contained in their 
papers, and a journal sanctioned by the Society and thus bringing 
to a focus information that had hitherto been so scattered as to 
be practically beyond the reach of most students, would render 
important service to the scientific world. 
In reference to the third point of inquiry, it was deemed 
essential that the Society should have a copyright in an important 
portion of the title of any publication in which its transactions, &c., 
might appear, and that the proprietors of the journal in which they 
were published should only be at liberty to use such portion of the 
title so long as an agreement to that effect between him and the 
Society might subsist, and that the Society should have a voice in 
the appointment of an editor, whose duty it would be to place him- 
self in intimate communication with it and to promote its interests. 
It was thought proper that the proprietors of the ' Quarterly 
Journal of Microscopical Science' should have ample opportunity 
for making any offer to the Society complying with the preceding 
requisitions, but as they positively declined, attention was turned in 
other directions, and an arrangement was made with Mr. Eobert 
Hardwicke, in conformity with all the Society's stipulations for the 
issue of the Monthly Journal, to commence on the 1st of January, 
1869, to be edited by Professor Lawson, M.D., and to contain, in 
addition to the matter furnished by the Society, an ample digest of 
British and Foreign Histological Kesearch and Microscopical In- 
telligence. Two monthly parts of the new publication have now 
been issued. 
The cost to the Society for 450 copies of the new Journal will 
be £20 per month, and additional copies will be charged Is. each. 
By this arrangement the Fellows will receive about twice as much 
matter in the course of each year as was supplied under the late 
arrangements, and they will have a monthly publication without 
materially adding to the expense heretofore incurred by the Society. 
The first number njade its appearance under considerable 
disadvantage, in point of the time allowed to the editor and pub- 
lisher for getting it up, as circumstances prolonged the deliberations 
of the Council to within a few days of its issue. Your Council has 
pointed out to the editor what they deem necessary to give sufiicient 
prominence to the Society's matter, and the editor has manifested 
every desire to meet their views. 
I will now briefly pass in review the subjects that have been 
brought before us during the past year. In March, Dr. Murie read 
an elaborate paper on the " Classification and Arrangement of 
Microscopic Objects in Cabinets," a subject on which he could speak 
