acclamation. The Conference finding itself unable to accept any of the systems of classification proposed, requested the Royal Society to form a committee which should consider this and other matters which were left undecided by the Conference. The Council are already taking steps to perform the duties thus entrusted to them by the Conference.
The delegates of the Society reported that the whole proceedings of the Conference wrere carried on with remarkable good feeling, and even unanimity, and that the confidence felt and expressed by the various delegates in the fitness of the Royal Society to complete the work begun by the Conference was most gratifying.
In connection with the fact that the proposed International Catalogue is to be in part arranged according to subject matter, it may be stated that the Council, acting upon a resolution of the International Catalogue Committee, have taken steps towards the practice of appending subject indices to the papers published by the Society, and have recommended the’same practice to other Societies.
The work connected with the Society's own Catalogue is progressing. Vol. XI, the last of the decade 1874-83, has been published, and the preparation of the Supplement, which has been found necessary for this and preceding decades, is being pushed on.
For the Subject Index to the Catalogue, slips have been prepared, and the Catalogue Committee will soon have to advise the Council as to the system of classification to be adopted.
The Gfrant of £1000 in aid of publications, which My Lords of the Treasury promised last summer to place upon the Estimates of this year, has been sanctioned by Parliament, and a moiety of it has already been paid to the Society. The Council have already felt the great advantage of having this money at their disposal, and have framed Regulations for its administration which they trust will be found to work satisfactorily.
The Council have made some small changes (which have been approved by My Lords of the Treasury) in the Regulations for the administration of the Government Grant of £4000 in aid of Scientific Inquiries, directed chiefly towards more effectually securing that Grants made should be expended for the purpose for which they were given, and that objects of permanent interest obtained by Grants should be properly disposed of. The only two Grants made this year which call for special mention are that of £1000 to the Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee of the Royal and Royal Astronomical Societies, for observations of the Solar Eclipse of August, and that of £800 for boring a coral reef in the Pacific Ocean, administered by the Committee appointed by the Royal Society, both drawn from the Reserve Fund.
The Expedition to bore the Coral Reef received valuable assistance
