PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 
► 
VOL. V. 1864-65. No. 66. 
Monday, l^th December 1864. 
Sir DAVID BREWSTER, President, in the Chair. 
The President, on taking the Chair, delivered the following 
Address 
In taking the Chair, to which, by your kindness, I have been ap- 
pointed, it may not be an inappropriate introduction to its duties 
if, in congratulating you on the prosperous state of the Society, I 
should refer to some facts in its history, not generally known, which 
have materially contributed to its prosperity and progress. 
In the closing years of the last and in the first decade of the 
present century, the Society was in a very languid condition. In 
each of the years 1799, 1802, 1803, 1808, and 1809, only one of 
the papers read at its meetings was published in the Transactions ; 
and in 1801 and 1806, not a single paper read in these years was 
published. 
While our Transactions were thus scantily supplied with papers, 
those actually read were few in number, and often too abstruse to 
excite a general interest. The regular meetings of the Society 
had frequently no other business than to read the minutes, elect 
members, and receive donations ; and this was sometimes done in 
the presence only of a Secretary and one or two members of 
Council. Under such circumstances, the Secretary summoned the 
members by a billet, printed with red ink when a paper was to be 
read, and one in hlach when he had nothing to communicate. 
VOL. V. 2 u 
