The Presidents Address. 
61 
which diminished the length of the spectrum and increased 
the refractive power. 
In trying experiments on the manufacture of glass for 
optical purposes, the drawback has hitherto been the neces- 
sity of operating on large quantities with expensive furnace 
arrangements; for it is useless to attempt to make small 
samples in the usual forms of glass furnace, on account of 
the intrusion of a larger proportion of impurities which 
impair the quality of the glass. 
With the aid of the now well-known forms of gas fur- 
nace, test-samples not exceeding an ounce in weight may be 
fused without the encroachment of extraneous matter ; and 
thus, if combinations of all the known materials that can 
be employed in glass-making were worked into equilateral 
prisms, and their spectra measured, we should probably 
arrive at valuable results, and obtain a flint and crown glass 
of greater and less dispersive power than at present known, 
and thus be enabled to employ longer radii in the contact or 
cemented surfaces of microscopic object-glass. 
The subject of a Royal Charter of Corporation has specially 
occupied the attention of the Council during the present 
Session, and it is the opinion of your Council that this 
Society should make application for a Royal Charter. 
The Society, as now organised, possesses no legal existence. 
In the infancy of the Society no great inconvenience would 
arise out of this ; but now that we have acquired property to 
some amount, — that is to say, a large and increasing Library, 
a large and increasing collection of Microscopes and Micro- 
scopic Objects, &c., and a considerable sum of money, at 
present invested in Government Stock, in the names of 
Trustees, — it appears to your Council that it would be the 
duty of the Society, as well as an act of prudence, to present 
a petition to the Crown, humbly praying that Her Majesty 
would be graciously pleased to grant a Royal Charter for 
incorporating into a Society the several persons who have 
already become Members. 
The Society, as a corporate body, would be better able to 
promote a general spirit of inquiry on Microscopic researches; 
the Council and Members would be more closely connected 
together, and more closely connected with all who had pre- 
ceded them ; and the lawful contracts or engagements made 
by our Council would be binding on their successors. We 
are possessed of certain property, but it Avould not be easy 
to establish legal ownership for Avhat we have acquired. The 
present Members are in no degree successors by law to past 
Members who accumulated the said property, and it would 
VOL. XIV. c 
