Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/278

 246 HISTORY OF THE [1880-1920 Fellows will not fall off, particularly as ladies have now at last been admitted. If this review of the history of the Society had been written six or seven years earlier, we should have been able to look with confidence to the future, expecting the steady financial prosperity, which we have hitherto enjoyed, to continue. But the cost of printing has increased enormously during the last few years, and it does not seem at all likely that it will ever be materially reduced. Still, there is no cause for immediate anxiety. In the past, generous benefactors have occasionally by bequest increased the funds of the Society. Thus, during the last forty years we have received : The McClean bequest of 2000, free of legacy duty, from Frank McClean, LL.D., F.R.S., in 1905. The Farrar bequest of 100, free of legacy duty, from the Rev. A. S. Farrar, D.D., in 1906. The Gill bequest of 250, free of legacy duty, from Sir David Gill, F.R.S., in 1919, to be devoted to the completion of some great piece of work. It was spent on printing Professor Sampson's Theory of Jupiter's great satellites (Memoirs, 63). It is surely permitted to hope that the Society will also in future, from time to time, see its funded property increased by similar donations, which will be the more acceptable, the less trammelled by conditions they are.* As regards printing, all scientific Societies in the world seem to be affected in the same way as we are, and many of them are probably worse off, having much less invested capital. In conclusion, let us glance at what the Society has accom- plished during the hundred years it has been in existence, and ask whether this can compare favourably with what the founders of the Society declared to be their objects. In the Address circulated before the first public meeting the original members summarised the means by which they proposed to advance Astronomy as follows : Collecting, reducing, and publishing useful observations and tables ; setting on foot a minute and systematic examination of the heavens ; establishing com- munications with foreign observers, circulating notices of remark- able phenomena about to happen and of discoveries ; proposing prize-questions and bestowing rewards on successful research. donation of 2500 from the Hon. Sir Charles Parsons, K.C.B., as a Memorial to his father, William, third Earl of Rosse, the maker of the great telescope. The Society also, about the same time, received a number of smaller donations, amounting in all to nearly 1400, thanks to the energy of the Treasurer, Colonel Grove-Hills. See also the Preface as to his bequest of a Library.
 * Since this was written, the Society has, in 1922 April, received a liberal