make or collect observations of this kind in all parts of the world, and to communicate them to the Royal Society, "in order to leave as complete a history as may be to those that are hereafter to compare all together, and to complete and perfect this abstruse theory."

Another science which at this era engaged the attention of the Society was geology, or, as it was then termed, "the Natural History of the Earth;' chief representatives of which, before the Society, appear to have been Dr. Lister and Dr. Woodward. Of the former, Lyell remarks: "He was the first who was aware of the continuity over large districts of the principal groups of strata in the British series, and who proposed the construction of regular geological maps." Woodward published an essay towards a Natural History of the Earth, which attracted much attention and was elaborately reviewed in the Transactions. Dr. Whewell, moreover, has noted as one of the most remarkable occurrences in the progress of descriptive geology in England, the formation of a geological museum by William Woodward as early as 1695. This collection, formed with great labor, systematically arranged, and carefully catalogued, he bequeathed to the University of Cambridge; founding and endowing at the same time a professorship of the study of geology. The Woodwardian Museum still subsists, a monument of the sagacity with which its author so early saw the importance of such a collection."*

An official connexion of the Society with the progress of astronomical observations resulted from its relations to the observatory of Greenwich (founded 1675,) of which, after having done much to sustain and advance it during the many years while it remained neglected by government, the Society finally became the formal directors or visitors by royal warrant. Under this authority the Society are required to exact from the astronomer royal for the time being an account of the annual observations made, to inspect the instruments of the observatory, and to superintend and, if deemed proper, to direct its operations. If, therefore, so eminent an authority as M. Struve has singled it out as a point well worthy of remark and encomium, that the astronomers of this illustrious observatory have maintained one unchanged system or plan in their labors during the long period from the origin of the establishment to the present day, something of this uniformity may reasonably be ascribed to its connexion with and subordination to a fixed and self-perpetuating body like the Royal Society. The application of steam, which in our day has acquired so astonishing a development, did not fail to find among the early Fellows of the Society at least one curious inquirer, whose speculations and projects are preserved in the Transactions. Dr. Papin, inventor of the well-known digester for softening bones, and whose "philosophical supper" prepared upon that plan may still be enjoyed by the readers of Evelyn's Diary, is noticed in 1690 as having invented a method of draining mines by the force of "vapor," in which, though much was wanting to the practical perfection of the engine, the philosophical principle of the condensation as well as elastic force of steam is observed and pointed out. At a later period Dr. Papin communicated to the Society an extension of this principle to the propulsion of boats "to be rowed by oars moved with heat," and had the honor of having his project referred to Sir Isaac Newton, from whom it received a conditional approval.t

* Woodward, whatever his scientific merit, seems to have been of an irascible temperament. He was expelled from the council of the Society for insulting Sir Hans Sloane and refusing to apologize. He fought a duel with Dr. Mead, occasioned by a dispute, as Voltaire says, sur la maniere de purger un malade. Woodward's foot slipped and he fell. "Take your life!" exclaimed Meade. Anything but your physic," replied Woodward.

The better known project of Savery, whose engine was able, through the introduction of a vacuum, to perform double the work of that devised, at a still earlier day, by the Marquis of Worcester, was exhibited before the Society (1699,) and the certificate granted by that body to the ingenious contriver, was the means of his obtaining a patent from the Crown for the manufacture of steam-engines.-Weld, I, 357.

While the Society was thus pursuing its diversified and prosperous career, Charles II, "founder and patron," had died, having entertained no intercourse with the learned corporation during his later years, except to send it a receipt for the cure of hydrophobia, compounded, after the manner of that time, of as many simples (agrimony roots, dragon roots, star of the earth, &c., &c.) as could well be disposed of in one preparation. Lord Brouncker had resigned the presidency after fifteen years of acceptable service, and had been followed in succession by Sir Joseph Williamson, (1677,) Sir Christopher Wren, (1680,) Sir John Hoskins, (1682,) Sir Cyril Wyche, (1683,) Samuel Pepys, (1684,) Lord Carbery, (1686,) Lord Pembroke, (1689,) Sir Robert Southwell, (1690,) Lord Halifax, (1695,) and Lord Somers, (1698.) The Society was soon to remove from the precarious quarters which it had heretofore occupied to a house of its own in Crane Court, Strand, and, as appears by one of its statutes, had found reason to place some further restriction on the too indiscriminate and easy admission of Fellows.

On the withdrawal of Lord Somers, in 1703, Sir Isaac Newton was elected to the presidency, the duties of which he continued to fulfil for 24 years with exemplary punctuality. His treatise on Opticks was now presented to the Society, a work prepared long before, but which he had decided to withhold from publication during the lifetime of Hooke. The remark suggested by the. death of that able but morose and jealous man of science seems, therefore, to be fully justified: La Sociètè y gagne plus que la geometric n'y perd; but, as if the sensitiveness of Newton was doomed never to be freed from importunate molestation, the dispute respecting the authorship of the Infinitesimal analysis soon supervened; a dispute in which Newton, indeed, maintained his usual reserve, but which his own partisans, equally with those of Leibnitz, conducted with so much asperity and prejudice that the contest might have seemed one of honor or interest between Germany and England.* At the instance of Leibnitz, a committee was appointed by the Royal Society, in March, 1712, to examine the evidence bearing on the matter in question, and, in April following, were submitted, in a report, the reasons which led the committee "to reckon Mr. Newton the first inventor." That this did not satisfy or silence the partisans of Leibnitz will be readily believed; but at this distance of time we may acquiesce in the opinion pronounced by the historian of the Society, that Newton was the inventor of Fluxions as early as 1666, but that Leibnitz has the merit of having first given full publicity to his discovery of the Differential Calculus in 1673. "Had Newton done this," says Mr. Weld, "a controversy, painful in its nature and unsatisfactory in its results, would have been avoided. But all admit that he labored more for the love of truth than of fame; and this is one of the reasons why Newton is the greatest of philosophers."

This great man died on the 20th March, 1727, being, perhaps, the only one who has ever lived whose genius and virtues could sustain the exaltation of his epitaph: Sibi grantulentur mortales tale tantumque exstitisse humani generis. He was succeeded in the presidency of the Society by Sir Hans Sloane, who had long acted as secretary and vice-president, and whose merits as a botanist, habits of business and official assiduity, relieved the council of embarrassment in a choice, even after Newton. Martin Folkes, (elected 1741,) Earl of Macclesfield, (1752,) Earl of Morton, (1764,) James Burrow, (1768.) James West, (1768,) Sir John Pringle, (1772,) bring down the succession in the presidency to the protracted official term of Sir Joseph Banks, (1778-1820.) There are points of interest, however, in this long interval, upon which it is proper to touch even in so rapid a sketch as the present.

* M. Arago seems to have been willing to make France a third party to this memorable competition, for, in his Notices Biographiques, vol. III, p. 522, he brings forward the claims of his countryman, Fermat of Toulouse, as an earlier inventor of the Calculus than either Newton or Leibnitz.

From an early date the Society seems to have labored under two especial causes of embarrassment: want of pecuniary means, arising chiefly from the failure of members to pay the stipulated contribution, and a constant tendency to extend the honor of membership to persons whose pretensions were of doubtful validity. We learn with some surprise that, while a few were occasionally exempted from the payment of the small weekly contribution, (among whom at one time was Sir Isaac Newton,) there were many others of ample means who suffered their liabilities to accumulate until the Society, to which no doubt they prided themselves in belonging, was reduced almost to the point of inaction. Nor does it increase our respect for this class of delinquents to find that when, in 1728, the Attorney General had given his opinion that the Society was authorized to sue for such arrears, and steps were taken for that purpose, the liabilities were generally discharged and the Society placed in comparative ease.* The extent of the second inconvenience may be appreciated from a saying ascribed to D'Alembert, who, in allusion to the extreme prodigality with which the honors of the Fellowship were distributed, used "jocularly to ask any person going to England if he desired to be made a member of the Society, as he could easily obtain it for him, should he think it any honor." The necessity, therefore, for some additional restriction being sensibly felt, the .Society sought legal advice as to their powers in that regard, and were advised that, while their charter did not appear to authorize them to limit the Fellows to a certain number, it clearly empowered them to describe and ascertain the qualifications of persons to be elected. A statute was thereupon enacted, which has since been steadily observed, by which it is required that all candidates, except peers and some other privileged persons, shall be proposed at a meeting of the Society by three or more members, and that a paper signed by them and setting forth specifically the qualifications of the candidate, "shall be fixed up in the meeting-room at ten several ordinary meetings before the said candidate shall be put to the ballot." It appears that candidates were also expected to send in a paper on the branch of science with which they were most conver

sant.

Another but more occasional source of disquietude has been a jealousy sometimes manifested of undue influence or irregular procedures on the part of the presiding officer. This exhibited itself to some extent even towards Newton in the course of the preliminary steps for the removal of the Society's quarters to Crane court; but it broke out with excessive violence against Sir Joseph Banks, in 1784, upon the alleged charge of improper interference with elections, and particularly of having favored the pretensions of naturalists in preference to those of mathematicians. Groundless as this charge is shown to have been, and factious and overbearing as was the conduct of Dr. Horseley, who, with very slender scientific pretensions, affected the leadership of the mathematical party, this schism not only disturbed the harmony of the Society, but seemed for a time to threaten its stability.

The influential part borne by the Society in the introduction of the reformed calendar into England may render an allusion to it in this place not irrelevant. By this change, which took place on the 2d September, 1752, "eleven nominal days were struck out, so that the last day of old style being the 2d, the first of new style (the next day) was called the 14th instead of the 3d. The same

* Before the incorporation, ten shillings were required of members on the admission and a weekly payment of one shilling. By the statutes of 1663 the initiatory fee is advanced to forty shillings, the weekly payments remaining as before. In 1847 the former charge had become ten pounds, and the weekly contribution been converted into an annual one of four pounds, to be paid in advance. Liberty is given to compound for the whole by the payment, in some cases, of forty, in others of sixty pounds.

↑ See Lord Brougham's Lives of Philosophers, p. 363.

year

legislative enactment which established the Gregorian year in England in 1752, shortened the preceding year (1751) by a full quarter. Previously the ecclesiastical and legal year was held to begin with the 25th March, and the A. D. 1751 did so accordingly; that year, however, was not suffered to run out, but was supplanted on the 1st of January by the year 1752, which it was enacted should commence on that day, as well as every subsequent year."*

The attempt to retrace here, even in the most summary manner, the philosophical labors of the Society would suggest a starting contrast between the narrow limits allotted to this outline and the vast field which it would be necessary to traverse. How mere a catalogue of names and of terms would be the result of any attempt to recall those achievements in every department of natural science which have distanced imagination and rendered the fictions of poetry tame and spiritless in comparison! Especially would this be the case. as we approached that wonderful era of discovery, the close of the eighteenth century, which suggested to Cuvier the imposing retrospect with which he opens the Eloge of Haüy: "The laws of a geometry, as concise as comprehensive, extended over the entire heavens; the boundaries of the universe enlarged, and its spaces peopled with unknown stars; the courses of celestial bodies determined more rigorously than ever, both in time and space; the earth weighed as in a balance; man soaring to the clouds or traversing the seas without the aid of winds; the intricate mysteries of chemistry referred to certain clear and simple facts; the list of natural existencies increased tenfold in every species, and their relations irrevocably fixed by a survey as well of their internal as external structure; the history of the earth, even in ages the most remote, explored by means of its own monuments, and shown to be not less wonderful in fact than it might have appeared to the wildest fancy: such is the grand and unparalleled spectacle which it has been our privilege to contemplate!" And in the realization of each and all of these surprising results the Royal Society of London has borne its effective part, yielding to none in the reflected lustre of its long line of brilliant names: its Herschels, Bradleys, Maskelynes, Youngs, Priestleys, Daltons, Watts, Wollastons, Davys, Bucklands, Murchisons, Faradays, and Airys. For, as the illustrious savant just quoted has elsewhere said with equal force and generosity, "The philosophers of England have taken as glorious a part as those of any nation whatever in the labors of the intellect which are the common heritage of the civilized world; they have dared the ices of either pole, nor is there any nook of the two oceans which they have not visited; they have multiplied tenfold the catalogue of the kingdoms of nature; by them the heavens have been made populous with planets, satellites, and stupendous phenomena; they have counted, so to say, the stars of the galaxy; if chemistry has assumed a new face, the facts which they have furnished have essentially contributed to the transformation; to them we are indebted for inflammable air, pure air, phlogisticated air; they have discovered the decomposition of water; new metals in large number have sprung from their analyses; by them only has the nature of the fixed alkalies been demonstrated; finally, at their voice, mechanics has become pregnant with miracles, and placed their country above all others in nearly every species of productive industry."‡

* Herschel's Astronomy, p. 413. So great was the popular repugnance to the change of the style or calendar, that the mob pursued the minister in his carriage, clamoring for the days by which, as they supposed, their lives had been shortened; and the illness and death of the astronomer Bradley, who had assisted the government with his advice, was attributed to a judgment from heaven. It is also related that when the grandson of Lord Macclesfield, who had likewise been prominent in effecting the change of style, was standing a contested election for Oxford, the mob insultingly called out to him, "Give us back, you rascal, those eleven days which your grandfather stole from us."-Weld.

+ See Smithsonian Report, 1860, Memoir of Haly.

Cuvier, Eloge of Sir Joseph Banks.

Among the incentives and rewards of scientific research employed by the Society are three medals, derived from funds bequeathed or granted for that purpose. 1st. The Copley medal, the fruit of a legacy bequeathed in 1709 by Sir Godfrey Copley, and termed by Sir Humphrey Davy "the ancient olivecrown of the Royal Society," being regarded as the most honorable within its gift. This has been annually awarded, with a few intervals, since 1736, in conformity with a resolution then adopted by the Society, "that the medal should be adjudged to the author of the most important scientific discovery or contribution to science, by experiment or otherwise." It cannot but be peculiarly gratifying to an American to find that when, in 1753, on the death of the surviving trustee of the legacy, the adjudication devolved on the president and council for the time being, the first award of the medal was made to Dr. Franklin, On this occasion the Earl of Macclesfield, in his address as president, stated that the council, "keeping steadily in view the advancement of science and useful knowledge, and the honor of the Society, had never thought of confining the benefaction within the narrow limits of any particular country, much less of the Society itself." The money value of this medal is five pounds, and it bears as a legend the motto of the Society, Nullius in verba. 2d. The Rumford medal, derived from the interest of a fund of £1,000, given by Count Rumford, in 1796, for the purpose of promoting discoveries in heat and light. This premium is duplicate, consisting of two pieces struck in the same die, the one of gold, the other of silver, and by the terms of the gift is to be awarded "once every second year." The device on this medal is a tripod with a flame upon it, and the inscription from Lucretius, Noscere quæ vis et causa. It is gratifying to note that the first adjudication of this prize was justly made to the founder himself, "for his various discoveries respecting light and heat," while the names of Malus, Fresnel, Melloni, and Biot, among later competitors, show that this, too, is freely accorded to foreign merit. 3d. The Royal medal, which, again, is duplicate, consisting of two gold medals of the value of fifty guineas each, a beneficence projected by George IV in 1825, though not actually realized till the reign of his successor. These medals, bearing on one side the likeness of the reigning monarch, and on the reverse the figure of Sir Isaac Newton, with emblematical accompaniments, are given for such papers only, on important and completed discoveries, as have been presented to the Royal Society, and inserted in their Transactions. Here, also, the distinguished names of Struve, Encke, Mitscherlich, and De Candolle, in the list of recipients, apprise us that this recompense has been liberally offered to the competition of all countries.

The subjects for which these prizes have been awarded are almost too multifarious for classification, and afford no indifferent criterion of the astonishing progress which has been made "since the day when the founders of the Royal Society went forth to collect May dew for its supposed cosmetic virtues, or with the Virgula divina in search of the hidden treasures of the earth." Yet those early inquirers are perhaps not less entitled to honor for the fidelity and heroism (for heroism it was at that epoch) with which they adhered to experiment amidst the difficulties and obscurity which surrounded them, than those who, following them in the use of the same irresistible instrument, continued to press forward with firmer and more rapid steps in the pursuit of abstract science, as if conscious that in that and its applications rested the sole hope for mankind of any real and sustained progression. Nor can either of the two classes cited justly claim pre-eminence over the intrepid explorers of to-day, who, undeterred by the seemingly exhaustive research to which the heavens and the earth have been subjected, still lift their minds to new and mightier enterprises, and, having encircled the entire globe with observatories and observers, shrink not from grappling with problems as subtle and inconstant as magnetism or the winds, and vast as the secular movements of suns and constellations.