1887 .] 
Chairman's Address. 
3 
transactions from floor to ceiling, and we have nearly come to the 
point when we must choose between the sacrifice of a part of our 
collection, and the alternative of providing additional library 
accommodation. 
The Council has been giving its attention to this subject, and I 
am confident that any practical suggestions which the Council may 
hereafter be able to bring before us will have the support of the 
Royal Society. 
You are aware that our library, I may say like everything that 
is undertaken by this Society, is distinctly specialised. The object 
of the Council has been to make it a complete collection of original 
memoirs on every scientific subject. It includes the transactions of 
every scientific society of repute throughout the world, and all that 
are really valuable among the scientific periodicals of our own and 
foreign countries. Members who are working on special subjects 
accordingly have at their disposal the original papers in which the 
discoveries connected with these subjects were communicated to the 
public, and where the details of investigations are more fully given 
than in the text-books in which the results of research are put to- 
gether. This is obviously the most useful kind of reference library 
for a Society such as ours ; and on the authority of our Librarian, I 
may state that our library is the most complete collection of the 
kind in the United Kingdom, more complete even than that of the 
Royal Society of London. 
In making this statement, I am not at all afraid that some section 
of the community will be seized with a desire to appropriate our 
collection for the purposes of a public library. I am inclined to 
think that our literary treasures will be found for the most part 
capable of exerting a remarkable force of repulsion upon any one 
who approaches them without due preparation. They are eminently 
useful to students of science, and not particularly interesting to the 
general reader. Such being its character, it is desirable that our 
library should be weU cared for, well arranged, and made accessible 
to members. 
The Council having found that it was impossible that the duties 
of an assistant librarian and assistant secretary could be performed 
single-handed, resolved last summer to engage a second assistant 
librarian, to take a share of the duties which had hitherto fallen to 
