4 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
desire it can, as at present, have the Transactions in the volume 
form. The Proceedings will he issued in parts as soon as sixty-four 
pages are in type and passed for press, so that they may thus sooner 
he in the hands of Fellows. Occasional delays in bringing out 
Transactions and Proceedings are unavoidable, especially in the case 
of the former, which may have to he illustrated by plates requiring 
great nicety and skill on the part of the artist; hut that need 
hardly occur in regard to the Proceedings , if authors will only second 
the endeavours of the Council by promptitude in furnishing abstracts 
and reports of papers. The issuing of parts will not be stopped 
when sixty- four pages are ready, because some author may not send 
in his MS. ; and if it occurs that such papers are not made public 
till after the issue of others which should not have preceded them, 
the author must blame himself. If due attention is paid to 
promptitude, the issue of Proceedings may be made as regular as 
that of a serial publication. 
A further new arrangement is that writers of papers who will 
furnish, when the paper is sent in, an abstract of not more than 
twelve lines, may have this inserted in the billet of the meeting at 
which the paper is to be read, and thus inform the Society of the 
nature and scope of the subject to be discussed. 
There is one point regarding which the Council is not in a con- 
dition to congratulate the Society, viz., on its local habitation. The 
want of accommodation for our books, now forming a large and 
most important scientific library, has long been a subject of much 
lamentation, and those who may chance to find their way into the 
penetralia to the south of the Hall, and find a staircase filled with 
books to the roof, must have occasionally experienced the dread of 
their possibly being overwhelmed by a literary avalanche, and have 
wondered how in such circumstances our worthy Librarian can, 
■without personal danger, find anything there that may be desired 
of him. We must, however, in the meantime live in hope that 
the building which the munificence of an unknown donor is erecting 
in Queen Street, and to which some of the contents of the Royal 
Institution are to be removed, may enable the Trustees of the Board 
of Manufactures to find some extension of accommodation for the 
Royal Society. 
It is impossible, when mentioning our library, to avoid noticing 
