2 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Monday, 4dh December 1882. 
The Eight Hon. LOED MONCEEIFF^ President, 
in the Chair. 
The President gave a short historical sketch of the Society on the 
occasion of the commencement of its Hundredth Session. He said 
that, before the business commenced, he ought to call attention to a 
peculiarity of the present meeting, and to make one or two observa- 
tions upon it. This was the hundredth session of the Eoyal Society. 
Most cordially did he congratulate the Society and its members on 
having arrived at that interesting period of its history. But it was 
right he should say that it would he a mistake to suppose that, 
although this was the hundredth session, they were absolutely 
centenarian. This was not the anniversary of the birth of the 
Eoyal Society. For some reason or other — he did not know how — 
the hundredth session began before the Society was absolutely a 
hundred years old. How it exactly came about he was not quite 
sure. The Eoyal Society’s charter bore date March 1783; and he 
supposed, like other great institutions, they had a previous autumn 
session — and in that way, possibly, the difference was to be accounted 
for. But, in any view, it is a great occasion for meditation and 
observation, and there may come a time for such a word, but on the 
present occasion he had not the material sufficient to do anything 
like justice to a theme so large. Only in a few sentences would 
he go back to March 1783, and glance upon the long career which 
the Society had run. A long and distinguished course, he thought 
they might say, seeing it w^as to their distinguished predecessors 
they owed its glory and its present flourishing existence. There 
had been many speculations as to where the Eoyal Society came 
from, and its feeders had been examined and searched for with great 
assiduity. There was a Eankinian Club in Edinburgh towards the 
beginning of last century, and it was claimed as the foundation of 
the Eoyal Society. Then there was a Select Society, a debating 
club — somewhere about 1750 — where Dr Eobertson and the great 
men of those days practised the oratory which they afterwards 
used with such effect ; and they had been told that that to a large 
