Monday, 6th December 1875.

DAVID MILNE HOME, Esq., of Wedderburn, LL.D., Senior Vice-President, in the Chair.

The Chairman delivered the following opening Address:•Gentlemen, FellOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH,—In compliance with a request of the Council, I have the honour to come before you this evening to give an address, on this the first night of our Winter Session, in pursuance of the custom prevalent in this and most other Societies.

I need not say how much I regret, for your sakes as well as my own, that this duty is not to be discharged by our eminent President.

The first point which I will submit to your notice, is the nature and amount of the work we as a Society are doing, and our means of doing it.

The second and concluding part of my Address will have reference to the present aspect and prospects of science generally in the country.

With regard to the work we are carrying on, it may be sufficient to refer to the proceedings of our last winter's session. Our Secretary tells me that it was the longest session he remembersit having been prolonged beyond mid-summer.

You are aware that our Society was intended by its founders to embrace literature as well as science; and that in regard to science, we encourage investigations in any of nature's various fields. The following abstract, under different heads, of the papers read during last session, indicates the range and variety of the Society's operations:

In Applied Mathematics or Physics, we had 11 papers read; in Pure Mathematics, 9; Notes from Professor Tait's Physical Laboratory were read at five meetings; of Geological papers, 4 were read; of Chemical papers, 3; of Physiological papers, 3; of Anatomical papers, 3; of Meteorological papers, 2; of Literary papers, 2; separate Biographical Memoirs of eleven deceased Members were

read. Many interesting experiments were shown at our meetings; and in particular, our President, at one of our meetings, exhibited and explained his wonderful tide-calculating machine, by means of which there can be obtained in a few seconds, results which hitherto have required minute and laborious calculations.

The three Prizes which the Society has at its disposal, were awarded as follows:

The Keith Prize was awarded to Professor Tait, for his paper on a "First Approximation to a Thermo-Electric Diagram."

The Makdougall Brisbane Prize was awarded to Professor Lister, for his paper "On the Germ Theory of Putrefaction and Fermentation."

The Neill Prize was awarded to Mr Charles William Peach, for his "Contributions to Scotch Geology and Zoology."

Gentlemen, an important part of our work as a Society is to publish in a volume of Transactions the most deserving of the papers read at our meetings. A copy of these Transactions is, as you know, obtained gratis by every member. Copies also, to the extent of considerably above a hundred, go to foreign libraries, foreign universities, and foreign societies. Many of these papers are necessarily not of so popular a character as to pay, by the sale of them, the cost of printing. But these papers, though not interesting to the general community, may be of the highest importance for the advancement of science. Fortunately our Society is sufficiently wealthy to be able to defray the expense, not only of printing, but of a large gratuitous circulation. believe that it is a knowledge of this fact which obtains for our Society so large a membership, and so satisfactory a revenue.

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With regard to our membership, we have now 358 Ordinary Fellows. I observe from the address which I had the honour of giving five years ago, that the number then was 326, so that there has been in the interval an increase of 32 members.

The number of members whom we have lost by death is, I am sorry to say, larger than usual, being altogether 14. The following are the names alphabetically arranged:

1. Foreign Honorary Fellow-Le Comte de Remusat.

2. British Honorary Fellows. -Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. of Kinnordy; Sir William Edmund Logan, LL.D.; Sir Charles Wheatstone, D.C.L.

3. Ordinary Fellows.-Rev. Dr D. Aitken; John Auld, Esq.; Professor Hughes Bennett, Edinburgh University; Rev. Professor Crawford, Edinburgh University; Colonel Seton Guthrie, Thurso; Sir William Jardine of Applegarth, Bart.; Professor William Macdonald, St Andrews' University; the Hon. Lord Mackenzie; Edward Meldrum, Esq., Dechmont; the Venerable Archdeacon Sinclair.

I propose to give an obituary notice of several in this list, with regard to whom I have succeeded in obtaining information, chiefly through the good offices of our Secretary, Professor Balfour.

CHARLES, COMTE DE REMUSAT, a distinguished French politician, philosopher, and man of letters, was born at Paris on the 14th of March 1797. His father held various public offices under the first Empire. His mother was an intimate friend of the Empress Josephine. The young Remusat, after a brilliant course at the Lycée Napoleon, betook himself at first to the study of law, but he soon turned to literature, and wrote as a journalist in newspapers and reviews from 1818 till 1830. In company with Guizot, Cousin, and Jouffroy, he was on the staff of the "Globe," a periodical founded by Dubois in 1824, which struggled against the growing absolutism of the Restoration. He continued afterwards, in concert with Guizot, to support doctrinaire constitutionalism, and in philosophy he was on the whole of the school of Cousin. His name appears in the list of journalists who protested against the ordinances which brought about the Revolution of July. In 1830, he was chosen deputy by Toulouse, and soon followed the leadership of Thiers in the Chamber. 1838, he was for a short time Under-Secretary of State in the ministry of Count Mole, and in 1840 he was Minister of the Interior, under Thiers. After the Revolution of 1848, he continued a member of the Constituent Assembly, and supported the party of order. During the whole period of the second Empire, he withdrew

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from political life, and devoted himself to literary and philosophical labours, sceptical of the possibility of an Imperial government restoring liberal institutions. The Revolution of 1870 brought the Count de Remusat back to public life, as Minister of Foreign Affairs under M. Thiers, with whom he fell in May 1873, and with whom he agreed in regarding the Republic as, if not the political ideal, at least the best practical solution of the difficulties of France. He died at Paris on the 6th of June 1875.

The Count de Remusat was a copious, solid, and eloquent writer. Besides his large contributions to the periodical press, especially the "Revue des Deux Mondes," he was the author of many valuable works. One of his earliest essays was connected with his legal studies, and appeared in 1820 ("Sur la procedure en Matière Criminelle"), followed by other tracts on the responsibility of ministers of State, the liberty of the press, and the law of elections. His most brilliant and productive period as a writer was after 1840. Among his other works are the following:

As may be inferred from the subjects of his studies, M. de Remusat was deeply interested in England. Probably no eminent Frenchman of his time understood English institutions and national character so well. The practical philosophers and statesmen of this country, and their readiness to accept the teaching of experience and to recognise the tendencies of the age, in a spirit. of wise compromise, were all in harmony with his temper; which always inclined to moderation, and was averse to fanaticism, whether political or speculative, religious or anti-religious. In philosophy, he belonged to the school opposed to Materialism.

In M. de Remusat we have lost one of the most eminent of the

French politicians and thoughtful men of letters of the nineteenth century, and the philosophy of mind has lost one of its ablest expositors, though he may not have ranked among its discoverers and leaders.

CHARLES LYELL was born at Kinnordy, in Forfarshire, on 14th November 1797, and died in London 22d February 1875. He was on our list of British Honorary Fellows. His early education was obtained at Midhurst, in Sussex. He went thereafter to Oxford, and there obtained his A.M. degree in 1821. Whilst at Oxford he had the advantage of attending Dr Buckland's lectures, then Professor of Geology. On leaving the university, he studied for the English bar; but finding this line of life not likely to be congenial, and having the means of living without the aid of a profession, he betook himself to geology. The seed sown by Dr Buckland had been dropped into soil fitted to its germination and rapid develop

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Probably Lyell's first paper was an account of a Formation of Freshwater Limestone in Forfarshire," his native county. This was very soon followed by many other papers, written at places visited by him in Hampshire and Dorsetshire. These were read before the Geological Society of London, of which he had become member. In the year 1824 he had shown such knowledge of geology, that he was elected one of the Honorary Secretaries of the Society.

In 1827 he contributed to the "Quarterly" a review of Mr Poulett Scrope's "Geology of Central France."

Shortly afterwards, he published his "Principles of Geology," the work in which he first showed his distrust of old geological maxims, and started his own original conceptions. Most geologists before his day had attempted to explain many things by assuming that the natural agencies of bygone times had been much more powerful than now. On the other hand, Lyell maintained that the natural agencies now on our planet were capable of producing all the effects observed, if only sufficient time was allowed for their operation.

These new views attracted great attention. The demand for the book in which they were explained was so great, that it went