of Edinhunjh, Session 1862 - 63 . 
25 
IV. — On the Changes in the Society during the last Tiuelve Months. 
The past year has produced more than the usual number of 
casualties both on the home and foreign lists of the Society. Dur- 
ing its course the Society has had to deplore, in common with the 
whole British Empire, the premature decease of H.K.H. the Prince- 
Consort. It would be out of place here to offer a detailed eulogy 
on one whose connection with our body was comparatively slight 
and indirect, but whose loss has been profoundly felt in nearly 
every home in these islands. An enlightened patronage of Science 
and the Arts was one of the especial characteristics of his patriotic, 
unselfish, and too short life. 
Amongst Foreign and Honorary Fellows we miss three, all of 
whom were on the verge of, or had exceeded, fourscore years. 
These would by themselves afford topics for an address. I must 
allude to them very briefly. 
The venerable Jean-Baptiste Biot was born 21st April 1774. 
He has been an Honorary Member of this Society for the uncommon 
period of forty-seven years, having been elected in January 1815.* 
He had become a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 
1803, his jubilee having been celebrated nearly ten years ago. 
But it is also a singular and probably unprecedented fact, that at 
the time of his death he was a member of three out of four of the 
Academies composing the Institute of France ; that is, of the 
Academic Francaise, and that of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, 
the struggle for priority in even second and third rate results of scientific in- 
vestigation, though these are often no more than corollaries to propositions 
well established, or assumed to be so. Such caveats are better adapted for the 
weekly or monthly journals, where they properly and reasonably find a 
place. It seems to be the business of societies to consult more than they 
usually do, the instruction and convenience of readers, and less exclusively 
the sometimes inconsiderate demands on the part of authors. There is, 
perhaps, no society to which these remarks do not more or less apply ; but 
the case of the Comptes Rendus of the French Academy of Sciences supplies 
an example of excessive publication so generally admitted to be an embar- 
rassing evil that it may be referred to as a warning. 
^ I find by the old minute-books of this Society, that a paper by Biot on 
the Polarization of Light by Crystals, was read by Sir David (then Dr) 
Brewster at the ordinary meeting of the 15th January 1815. 
VOL. V. 
D 
