Receipts and Payments of the Royal Society between December 1, 1867, and November 30, 1868. Salaries, Wages, and Pension Instruments for India and freight 335 0 0 Printing Transactions and Proceedings, Paper, Binding, The Scientific Catalogue Books for the Library and Binding General Expenses (as per Table subjoined) 355 0 4 14 10 400 2 19 0 2 19 0 220 4286 11 5 479 16 1 12 2 3 1 16 2 493 14 6 £4780 5 11 Estates and Property of the Royal Society, including Trust Funds. Estate at Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire (55 A. 2 R. 2 P.), £126 per annum. Estate at Acton, Middlesex (34 A. 2 R. 274 P.), £109 per annum. Fee Farm near Lewes, Sussex, rent £19 4s. per annum. One-fifth of the clear rent of an estate at Lambeth Hill, from the College of Physicians, £3 per annum. £14,000 Reduced 3 per Cent. Annuities. £29,569 15s. 7d. Consolidated Bank Annuities. £513 9s. 8d. New 24 per Cent. Stock-Bakerian and Copley Medal Fund. Scientific Relief Fund. £6052 17 8 £6052 17 8 Cr. Investments up to July 1865, New 3 per Cent. Annuities. £379 7 0 Statement of Income and Expenditure (apart from Trust Funds) during the Year ending November 30, 1868. £8. d. 1049 4 0 160 0 0 Sale of Transactions, Proceedings, &c. 371 0 1 Printing Transactions, Part II. 1867, and Part I. 1868 409 Cost of Instruments, repaid 284 18 6 Chemical Society, Tea Expenses £18 0 0 32 0 0 Linnean Society. Tea Expenses.. 14 0 0 Geographical Society, Gas at Evening Meetings 848 11 16 8 Cambridge Local Examination Committee, Gas 3 12 0 Fittings, Cleaning, and Repairs. 45 4 4 Sundry Petty Receipts 12 12 6 Miscellaneous Expenses 37 10 6 Coal, Lighting, &c. 130 7 3 Income available for the Year ending Nov. 30, 1868. Expenditure in the Year ending Nov. 30, 1868 4004 3 4 Tea Expenses 54 14 11 3899 11 7 Fire Insurance.. 28 11 6 Taxes 10 11 3 Excess of Income over Expenditure in the Year ending Nov. 30. 1868 The following Table shows the progress and present state of the Society with respect to the number of Fellows : December 10, 1868. Dr. WILLIAM ALLEN MILLER, Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. It was announced from the Chair that the President had appointed the following Members of Council to be Vice-Presidents : The Treasurer. Dr. Carpenter. Mr. Gassiot. Mr. Prestwich. Capt. Richards. : Pursuant to notice given at the last Meeting, General Sabine proposed and Sir Roderick Murchison seconded the Right Honourable Lord Houghton for election and immediate ballot. The ballot having been taken, Lord Houghton was declared duly elected. The following communications were read: I. "On the Phenomena of Light, Heat, and Sound accompanying the fall of Meteorites." By W. RITTER V. HAIDINGER, For. Mem. R.S. &c. Received October 6, 1868. A particular incident caused me to return to some portions of my earlier studies in regard to meteors and meteorites. It was the fall of a meteorite at Kakowa on the 19th of May 1858 that first induced me to bestow some more attention on this department of physical science. A report on the subject I laid before our Imperial Academy of Vienna on the 7th of January, 1859. On the same day also I gave the first list of the meteorites forming the meteorite collection in our Imperial Mineralogical Museum. A series of reports on meteorites followed, as well as a number of catalogues of meteorites, in accordance with the growing riches of the collection, embracing from 137 to 236 numbers of localities preserved up to the date of July 1, 1867. But the studies relating to the recent fall of Ausson on the 9th of December 1858, and the ancient fall of the meteoric iron of Hraschina, near Agram, on the 26th of May 1751, others on the Cape meteorites of 1838, on those of Shalka, 1850, Allahabad, 1822, Quenggouk (Pegu), 1857, Assam, found 1846, Segowlee, 1853, St. Denis-Westrem, 1855, Nebraska, found 1356, but particularly some studies relating to meteorites of Stannern, 1858, and of that most remarkable meteoric iron from Tula, discovered in 1856 by Auerbach, all of them within the period of 1851 to 1860, and then the fall of New Concord, 1860, and of Parnallee, 1857, had forcibly called upon me to draw up, as it were, a general rule of the nature and succession of events which probably might have taken place in the history of their existence, though in each particular case only fragments of that history came to our notice. VOL. XVII. N A general survey of this kind I had the honour to lay before our Imperial Academy on the 14th of March 1861, "On the nature of Meteorites, relating to their composition and the phenomena of their fall"*. I felt, it is true, that I had rather too boldly ventured to transgress the limits of my former studies; but at the same time, led on by the high interest connected with the subject, I wished to gain some more publicity for it. As to England, I was most kindly and effectively patronized by that energetic promoter of meteoritic science my most honoured friend Mr. R. P. Greg. He laid a notice of mine before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held that year at Manchester, and accompanied it with several considerations of his own †; then, also, he kindly had the pages of the Philosophical Magazine opened for me, and presented me with an edition of separate copies of a memoir on the subject—nearly a translation, by my honoured friend Count A. F. Marschall, of my original communication to our Academy ‡. At the Meeting of German naturalists and physicians at Speyer, my honoured friend Dr. Otto Buchner kindly called the attention of the friends of this department of natural science to my memoir, which had been favourably mentioned in the reports. A note of mine, containing the leading views of my papers, was likewise laid by my honoured friend M. Elie de Beaumont before the Paris Académie des Sciences in their Meeting of September 9th, 1861, while I also sent a French translation by my excellent friend Count Marschall, together with a copy of my original memoir §. Since that time, up to this day, I had frequently, in several communications on meteoritic subjects, had an opportunity to refer to these leading papers, and to support the views which they contained. Therefore I had every reason to be astonished when I read, in a recent work on meteorites by M. Stanislas Meunier||, the following assertion :-" We may observe that a great number of particular phenomena occurring in the fall of meteorites have hitherto remained without explanation. Thus the reason of the ex * "Ueber die Natur der Meteoriten in ihrer Zusammensetzung und Erscheinung," Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, der Mathem.-naturw. Classe, 1861, Band xliii. Abth. ii. S. 389-425. +"An attempt to account for the Physical Condition and the Fall of Meteorites upon our Planet, by W. Haidinger, Hon. Memb. R.S.L. & E. &c.," Report, 1861, Transactions of the Sections, p. 15. "Some Considerations on M. Haidinger's Communication on the Origin and Fall of Aërolites, by R. P. Greg, F.G.S.," ibid. p. 13. Considerations on the Phenomena attending the Fall of Meteorites on the Earth, by W. Haidinger, For. Memb. R.S.L. & E.; and Philosophical Magazine for November and December 1861. § "De la nature des bolides et de leur mode de formation. Lettre de M. Haidinger," Comptes Rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des Sciences etc. t. liii. Juillet-Décembre 1861, pp. 456–461. Etude, descriptive, théorique, et expérimentale sur les Météorites, par M. Stanislas Meunier. Paris, 1857, p. 18. |