(419) 
KOYAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFKICA. 
PEESIDENTIAL ADDKESS. 
By S. S. Hough, F.E.S. 
(Read April 17, 1910.) 
The retiring President delivered his address : — 
I should like to-night to have traced the development of our Society 
from its small beginnings in 1878 to the present time, a growth with 
which, however, our new President has been so intimately associated that 
it is perhaps more fitting that I should leave this subject to be dealt with 
by him on a future occasion. There is, however, at least one matter to 
which I feel that reference should be made to-night. Those of us who 
were concerned in the drafting of our new constitution decided to follow 
as closely as our modified circumstances w^ould permit the model furnished 
by the Royal Society of London — a Society which has uniformly secured 
the confidence of scientists, administrative bodies, and the public as 
representative of the highest interests of true science. Partly at least as a 
result of this course, we have been enabled to approach the Union Govern- 
ment with a request for financial assistance, which I am pleased to be 
able to record, as you will see from the Treasurer's report, has been willingly 
accorded. It has been decided by the Council that the funds thus raised 
should form the nucleus of a fund which it is hoped may be added to 
from other sources, and which should be earmarked for the purpose of 
assisting research work in science. A scheme for its administration, in 
which the co-operation of other bodies, scientific and educational, in South 
Africa is invited, has been prepared by the Council. The applications 
already received for assistance from this fund testify as to its usefulness 
in assisting what may perhaps be described as personal researches, as 
distinct from those more organised researches, such, for instance, as those 
conducted in the public laboratories directly subsidised by Government. 
