5 
meetings of our Society, in face of such apparently ample resources. 
But, as one means of counteracting them, I may he permitted to 
point out to all, hut especially to the cultivators of science in our 
northern land, that they are not perhaps fully aware of the advan- 
tages to he derived from promulgating their inquiries and discoveries 
through the medium of the Society’s meetings and published Proceed- 
ings and Transactions. It cannot be too well known to them, that 
our Prizes, founded through the affection and munificence of the late 
Sir Alexander Keith and Dr Neill, and of our present President, 
Sir T. M. Brisbane, are sufficiently numerous to hold out a reason- 
able prospect of substantial public honours for every successful and 
important investigation ; — that our printed Proceedings and Trans- 
actions , promptly published, and at once widely disseminated by 
exchange with every distinguished scientific Society in Europe and 
America, hold out the temptation of easy and extensive advertisement 
of discoveries and researches ; and that our Meetings supply, in our 
audiences, an assemblage of men of talent and weight in every rank 
and profession, who are competent judges of ability, and whose good 
opinion will ever tend to foster, advance, and reward true merit, 
especially among the young and aspiring in science. I could men- 
tion not a few instances in my own time of men of celebrity, whose 
first successful step in life rested on the fame acquired for them 
among the Fellows of this Society by a paper read at its Ordinary 
Meetings. 
But there is also a whole galaxy of names in our list, of men in 
need of no such encouragement, who pursue science for its own sake 
alone, and yet who choose other channels than this Society for pro- 
mulgating their successes. These I beg simply to remind that the 
Royal Society is no longer the tedious channel, whose former tardi- 
ness has probably led to a falling off in the number of important 
communications to our Meetings ; and farther, that the production 
of a paper here does not prevent its author from selecting any other 
medium of communication which he may prefer to our Transactions. 
In making the survey which has led to these, I trust, neither un- 
seasonable nor unreasonable considerations, my attention has been 
naturally turned to the changes which the lapse of a short year has 
created in our List of Fellows. Of the Ordinary Fellows, as the list 
stood last year, nine have died, and one has resigned. The ordi- 
