Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/16

xii to time acquire. The other objects were to accumulate gradually a Library of the best Books on Geography, a selection of the best Voyages and Travels, and a complete collection of Maps and Charts, as well as such documents and materials as may convey the best information to persons intending to visit foreign countries. Also, to procure specimens of such instruments as experience has shown to be most useful, and best adapted to the compendious stock of a traveller; to prepare brief instructions for such as are setting out on their travels; to render pecuniary assistance to such travellers as may require it; to correspond with similar Societies abroad, and open communication with all the Philosophical and Literary Societies with which Geography is connected.

The terms on which the grant of the first of the Royal Premiums would be conferred, were settled by resolutions passed at a Council Meeting held on 15th January, 1831; but as the conditions on which the rewards for the two first years were to be awarded, and on which they would be given in subsequent years, have never yet been fully complied with, the Council avail themselves of this Annual Report to bring under notice the originally published requirements, as still fully applicable :—

“To the author of the best memoir, accompanied by sufficient plans and views, which shall describe in detail any important and unpublished discovery made by the candidate in any branch of Geography, provided that the same be considered worthy of this distinction.”

The Council consider as coming within the meaning of this proposition,—

“A detailed account of any excavation or research made by the candidate, the result of which is the establishment of any lost site of antiquity, and the recovery of any object sufficiently important to History, Science, or the Arts.”

Also, that His Majesty’s Premium wall be given “to the author of the best work transmitted to the Society of the following nature:”—

“A Travellers’ Manual, containing a clear and concise enunciation of the objects to which a Geographer’s attention should be especially directed; a statement of the readiest means by which the desired information in each branch may be obtained; a list of the best instruments for determining positions, measuring elevations and distances, observing magnetic phenomena, ascertaining tem-