re otherwise; I would urge them to put a stop to a
practice, which, whilst it has no advantages to recommend it, is unjust
to those who contribute, and is only calculated to produce conflicting
claims, equally injurious to science, and to the reputation of that
body, whose negligence may have given rise to them. [Mr. Herschel,
speaking of a paper of Fresnel's, observes--"This memoir was read to
the Institute, 7th of October, 1816; a supplement was received, 19th of
January, 1818; M. Arago's report on it was read, 4th of June, 1821: and
while every optical philosopher in Europe has been impatiently expecting
its appearance for seven years, it lies as yet unpublished, and is only
known to us by meagre notices in a periodical journal." MR HERSCHEL'S
TREATISE ON LIGHT, p. 533.--ENCYCLOPAEDIA METROPOLITANA.]

One of the inconveniences arising from having no historical portion in
the volumes of the Royal Society is, that not only the public, but our
own members are almost entirely ignorant of all its affairs. With a
means of giving considerable publicity (by the circulation of above 800
copies of the Transactions) to whatever we wish to have made known to
our members or to the world, will it be credited, that no notice was
taken in our volume for 1826, of the foundation of two Royal medals,
nor of the conditions under which they were to be distributed. [That
the Council refrained from having their first award of those medals thus
communicated, is rather creditable to them, and proves that they had a
becoming feeling respecting their former errors.] That in 1828, when
a new fund, called the donation fund, was established, and through the
liberality of Dr. Wollaston and Mr. Davies Gilbert, it was endowed by
them with the respective sums of 2,000L. and 1,000L. 3 per cents;
no notice of such fact appears in our Transactions for 1829. Other
gentlemen have contributed; and if it is desirable to possess such a
fund, it is surely of importance to inform the non-attending, which is
by far the largest part of the Society, that it exists; and that we are
grateful to those by whom it has been founded and augmented. Neither
did the Philosophical Transactions inform our absent members, that they
could purchase the President's Discourses at the trade-price.

The list of the Officers, Council, and Members of the Royal Society is
printed annually; yet, who ever saw it bound up with the Philosophical
Transactions, to which it is intended to be