17 
THE COUNCIL. 
a necessary qualification. But this necessity having ceased, 
the same desire to promote the good of the Institution which 
had before induced him to undertake the office, had now 
determined him to resign it. 
In the event of the choice of the Meeting falling upon 
a member who resided at a distance from York, the Council 
proposed to provide against any inconvenience to be appre¬ 
hended from this circumstance, by recommending one of 
the Vice-Presidents to take the chair in the President s 
absence, and to execute the duties which he might not be 
able personally to discharge. If the deputy thus appointed 
should be annually changed, a greater number of persons 
would successively be called to take a nearer share, and 
feel a livelier interest, in the concerns of the Society; and 
considerable advantage might be looked for from the 
multiplied activity which would be produced by such an 
arrangement. 
It was not, however, a merely nominal President whose 
appointment could give satisfaction. To the influence of 
station and property, there should be added the disposition 
and ability to take an effective part in the transactions of 
the Institution : and this union of qualities was not easily 
to be met with. Yet there was a member of the Society 
in whom he believed them to be eminently combined ; a 
member who had shewn the earliest interest in its pro¬ 
ceedings, and who had attended the first meeting at which a 
scientific communication was made; a member to whose 
favourable opinion the Society was indebted for the most 
D 2 
