51 
“ That the Proceedings be printed after every meeting, and 
forwarded to the members before the ensuing meeting.” 
“ That the Proceedings shall contain an account of all the 
important business w'hich takes place at the Society’s meetings, 
particularly an abstract of all papers read to the Society, and 
any important scientific matter brought forward in conversation, 
provided that the authors shall communicate abstracts to the 
Secretaries before the conclusion of the meeting, and that a 
copy of the Proceedings be sent regularly to the public news- 
papers of Manchester and such other periodicals as the Council 
may direct.” 
These resolutions the Council considered it their duty to 
carry out forthwith, and they accordingly requested Dr. Joule 
to assist the Secretaries in bringing them into practical opera- 
tion. Of the results of their labours the Society may judge 
by the printed Proceedings, which, since the commencement of 
last session, have been regularly issued and forwarded to the 
members in the interval between every two meetings. The 
thanks of the Society are especially due to Dr. Joule for the 
care with which these accounts of its proceedings have been 
composed and for the accuracy with which the papers read 
have been reported. The advantages resulting from the adop- 
tion of this plan must be apparent to everyone. In the first 
place, the members who do not attend the meetings, as well as 
the public at large, are thereby informed of what has taken 
place at the meetings, and the interest in them is increased. 
A general idea of the contents of each paper may be obtained 
immediately after its being read before the Society, and the 
abstract may be afterwards referred to, even if the paper itself 
should not appear in the Memoirs. Then, many interesting 
though unconnected facts and observations, brought forward 
in the course of conversation, which could hardly find a place 
in the Memoirs, are permanently recorded in the Proceedings. 
Lastly, this plan allows time for due deliberation in regard to 
the question of printing the several papers in the Memoirs or 
