30 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
Dr. Bowerbank was a Fellow of the Royal and nearly all the 
other scientific societies of London. He died at St. Leonards-on-Sea, 
the 8th of March, 1877, in his eightieth year, after an illness of a 
little more than a month’s duration, and was buried in the family 
vault at Hollington Church, near Hastings. 
Charles Tyler. 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
King’s College, December 5 , 1877. 
H. C. Sorby, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the chair. 
The minutes of the preceding meeting were read and confirmed, 
donations announced, and the thanks of the Fellows were unanimously 
voted to the donors. 
The President said it would perhaps be desirable that he should 
make an announcement as to what had taken place that evening at the 
meeting of the Council, with reference to the Journal. On account of 
the death of Dr. Lawson some ditficulties had arisen, and Mr. Bogue 
proposed terms which it was out of the power of the Society to enter- 
tain. The matter had been thoroughly discussed by the Council that 
evening, they having met at six o’clock specially for the purpose ; and 
after going into the question in all its bearings, it had been decided 
that the Society should publish its own ‘ Transactions’ from January 
next. They thought that this plan would offer some advantages to 
the Fellows, and would be altogether more in accordance with the 
dignity of a Society like theirs. A committee had therefore been 
formed to carry out the new scheme. 
Mr. J. E. Ingpen then read a paper by Herr Zeiss, “ On Abbe’s 
Apertometer,” which was illustrated by the exhibition of the 
apparatus and by drawings made upon the black-board. (The paper 
will be found printed at p. 19.) 
The President, in moving a vote of thanks to Herr Zeiss, said he 
had been obliged to pay some attention to this subject of angular 
apertures, and he felt much dissatisfied so far as his experience went, 
from the want of similarity in the results obtained by different 
methods. He thought it would be exceedingly interesting to know 
how far the new method agreed with the others. He suggested that 
it would be well to stop off the front lens of the objective by dia- 
phragms of different sizes, so as to ascertain whether by so reducing 
the front they would obtain results which were consistent with those 
obtained in other w^ays. He would impress upon those who were 
interested in the subject, the desirability of commencing with low 
powers, and gradually working up through the series to the high ones. 
He might just add that the question was one which had been forced 
upon his notice by certain calculations of Professor Stokes, which 
caused him to try and see if the apertures as measured in different 
