1888 - 89 .] 
Chairman’s Opening Address . 
5 
a bibliographic event in which we all have a deep interest. I 
allude to the near completion of the Challenger Reports. 
This monumental work, so interesting from the importance and 
novelty of the results it has given to the world, is the most extensive 
and perhaps the most valuable record of a scientific voyage ever 
published by any nation, and it is due to the skilful supervision and 
indomitable energy of the editor, my brother Vice-President, Dr 
John Murray, that the work, notwithstanding its unparalleled mag- 
nitude, has been brought so soon and successfully to a close. 
To another matter of great public interest, though not directly 
connected with the work of the Royal Society, a short reference 
may be permitted. The Universities (Scotland) Bill has long been 
before the nation, and has been the subject of much discussion and 
some opposition. It would, of course, be entirely out of place for 
me to say anything either in the way of approval or criticism of a 
measure now before Parliament, and I would not have alluded to 
it but for a single noteworthy circumstance. 
Among the original provisions was one proposing the transference 
of the Royal Observatory and the Royal Botanic Garden to the 
custody of the University of Edinburgh, which threatened to pro- 
duce opposition from many quarters, including among others our 
municipal authorities. These bones of contention have happily 
been taken out of the way, the one directly and the other indirectly, 
by the munificent action of the Earl of Crawford. 
Our learned Vice-President, Lord McLaren, whose absence from 
among us, owing to bad health, we all so much regret, in his open- 
ing address to the Society this time last year, expressed the hope 
that the Edinburgh Observatory, in accordance with the agreement 
between its founders and the Government of the day, would be 
maintained as a national institution properly endowed and adequately 
equipped. This wish of the learned Lord is in prospect of being 
realised in a way that could not have been thought of twelve months 
ago. By his gift to the nation of his celebrated Observatory at 
Dunecht, with the powerful instruments and valuable apparatus, 
which the noble Earl has accumulated at an immense cost, along with 
his astronomical library, the most complete collection in the king- 
dom of works referring to his favourite science, Lord Crawford has 
secured for Scotland a national observatory, not by the retention of 
