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Royal Society   /rˈɔɪəl səsˈaɪəti/   Listen
Royal Society

noun
1.
An honorary English society (formalized in 1660 and given a royal charter by Charles II in 1662) through which the British government has supported science.  Synonym: Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.






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"Royal Society" Quotes from Famous Books



... "A comparative view," etc. (1785).—Arthur Young, I. 123. "I should pity the man who expected, without other advantages of a very different nature, to be well received in a brilliant circle in London, because he was a fellow of the Royal Society. But this would not be the case with a member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, he is sure of a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... not be far off. It came on the 18th of December 1784. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on December 20th. Burke and Windham, with Colman the dramatist and Sir Joseph Bankes the President of the Royal Society, were among the {109} pall-bearers, and the mourners included Reynolds and Paoli. Seldom has the death of a man of letters created such a sense of loss either in the public at large or among his friends. Murphy, ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... son who wrote the preface: "There needs no Rhetoricating Floscules to set it off. The Authour, as is well known, having been a Person of Eminency for his Learning, and of Exquisite Curiosity in his Researches. Even that Incomparable Sir Kenelme Digbie Knight, Fellow of the Royal Society and Chancellour to the Queen Mother, (Et omen in Nomine) His name does sufficiently Auspicate the Work." The sale of the book is not recorded. It is supposed that the Lady Middlesex, so many of whose recipes had been used, ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... of his coat, and the rest of his body encased in the upper part of a property dragon; whilst little round Wilkinson was vainly endeavouring to squeeze himself into a wooden waterspout. Had he succeeded he might have applied for the reward offered by the Royal Society for a method of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various

... and Seasonable Reprehension of Naked Breasts and Shoulders." Sir William Petty's "Observations of the City of London." John Ogilvy's "London Surveyed." R. Burton's "Historical Remarks." Dr. Birch's "History of the Royal Society of London." "A Century of Inventions." Wild's "History of the Royal Society." "The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society." Richardson's "Life of Milton." Philip's "Life of Milton." Johnson's "Lives of the Poets." Aubrey's "Collections for the Life of Milton." Langbaine's "Lives ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... science received a lasting impetus by the wise initiation of a much-abused man, Charles II., who founded the Royal Society of London, and also the Royal Observatory of Greeenwich, where he established Flamsteed as first Astronomer Royal, especially for lunar and stellar observations likely to be useful for navigation. At the same time the French Academy and the Paris Observatory ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... permanent light pictures in 1814, and he and Daguerre went into partnership in this matter, in 1829. Fox Talbot was the first to invent a negative photograph, and he read a paper on "Photogenic Drawings" before the Royal Society, on 31 Jan., this year; and that scientific investigation of the new wonder excited the attention, even of amateurs, is shown by a letter in the Times of ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... the Royal Society by Count de Salis, being a version into a language as little attended to in this country, as it may appear curious to those who take pleasure in philological inquiries; I embrace this opportunity to communicate to you, ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.

... grasshopper does not rub his back legs together to produce stridulation, or, to put it quite shortly, he does not rub his back legs together at all. I hope I have made this point quite clear. If not, a more detailed treatment will be found in the Paper which I read to the Royal Society ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various

... you please," said the boy with dignity, though almost bursting with suppressed excitement. "I'm man-servant to Colonel John Brentwood, Esquire, M.P., F.R.Z.Q.T., Feller of the Royal Society—an' good society, an' every other society. Salary not yet fixed; lodgin', washin', ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... of the whaler Scoresby, who laid it before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which I have the honour to be an honorary member. You see that when it rains the waves are not very high, even under the influence of a violent wind, and when the weather is dry the sea is more agitated, even when ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... him "A Journey to London," after the method of Dr. Martin Lister, who had published "A Journey to Paris." And in 1700 he satirised the Royal Society—at least, Sir Hans Sloane, their president—in two ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... and, until 1675, Secretary to the Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations. Meanwhile he carried on his medical work and must have obtained some reputation in it; for he is honorably mentioned by Sydenham, in his Method of Curing Fevers (1676), and had been elected to the Royal Society in 1668. But his real genius lay in ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... German doctor named Breyn communicated with the Royal Society on the subject of the "Vegetable lamb," emphatically stating the story to be nothing more or less than a fable. He very naively remarked that "the work and productions of nature should be discovered, not invented," and he threw doubts as to whether those ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... to take care he looked at the sign-posts, or we might have been at York by this time. And in London, what do you think was all my gentleman cared to go and see? Why, he must needs go to some correspondents of his who are Fellows of the Royal Society. I took it for granted they must be friends of his Majesty or of the Prince of Wales at the least, and would have had him wait for his new gown and cassock; but la! it was only a set of old doctors and philosophers, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... awarded him the highest honours in their gift. In 1873 the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours voted him honorary member, a recognition which gave him great pleasure at the time. At different dates he was elected to various societies—Geological, Zoological, Architectural, Horticultural, Historical, Anthropological, Metaphysical; and to the Athenaeum and ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... be mistaken, his sentiments touching ecclesiastical polity and public worship. He found only one see unprovided with a Bishop. Seth Ward, who had during many years had charge of the diocese of Salisbury, and who had been honourably distinguished as one of the founders of the Royal Society, having long survived his faculties, died while the country was agitated by the elections for the Convention, without knowing that great events, of which not the least important had passed under his own roof, had saved his Church and his country from ruin. The choice of a successor was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fire-eaters was Robert Powell, whose public career extended over a period of nearly sixty years, and who was patronized by the English peerage. It was mainly through the instrumentality of Sir Hans Sloane that, in 1751, the Royal Society presented Powell a purse of gold and a large ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... before. That was Parry’s first voyage, from which he returned to be received with triumph by his countrymen. He was advanced to the rank of Commander in November, 1820, and made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He had shown in what direction to proceed with further search, and at the age of thirty had established for himself a place of lasting honour in the ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... spite of the fact that it goes almost as a matter of course to every casual Prince, is a highly desirable recognition of public services. Beyond this there are certain British distinctions that might very advantageously be paralleled in America, the Fellowship of the Royal Society, for example, and that really very fine honour, as yet untainted by the class of men who tout for baronetcies and peerages, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... grave mathematical look(7) Made believe he had written a wonderful book, And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! So they chose him right in; a good joke ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... in which Handel was so keenly interested had been founded in 1738 to assist impoverished musicians and their families; it still carries on its honourable work under the title of the Royal Society ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent

... which belong to the higher parts of mathematics. It has accordingly been resolved by some mathematicians, particularly by the ingenious Maclaurin, by a fluctionary calculation which is to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London. He has determined precisely the angle required, and he found, by the most exact mensuration the subject would admit, that it is the very angle in which the three planes at the bottom of the cell of a honey comb do ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... conveyed by that part of the nerves springing from the one root, and sensation by the other. The subject occupied the mind of Sir Charles Bell for a period of forty years, when, in 1840, he laid his last paper before the Royal Society. As in the cases of Harvey and Jenner, when he had lived down the ridicule and opposition with which his views were first received, and their truth came to be recognised, numerous claims for priority in making the discovery were set up at home and abroad. Like them, too, he lost ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... is as curious and miscellaneous as his interest in everything else. He was indeed President of the Royal Society of his time, and he is immensely delighted with Boyle and his new discoveries concerning colours and hydrostatics. Yet so rare a dilettante is he, in this as in other things, that we find this President of the Royal Society bringing in a man to teach him the ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... employment in this arid-looking corner of organic life, may look at a "Memoir on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Filamentous, Fruticulose, and Foliaceous Lichens," by Dr William Lauder Lindsay, in the 22d volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.] ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... The Royal Society and The Christian Aid Societies, presided over by a Rev. Mr. Whitely, enjoy a bad pre-eminence in this respect. The year before my release the latter stated at the annual meeting that six thousand discharged prisoners had passed through his ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... reign the Royal Society was established for purposes of scientific research. In an age when thousands of well-informed people still cherished a lingering belief that lead might be changed into gold; that some medicine might be discovered which would cure every disease, (including old age, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... but an electric spark. It seems hardly necessary to add that his theories were ridiculed by the most intelligent scientists of his time, and scoffed at even by the countrymen of Newton and Davy, the members of the Royal Society of England. Franklin was a provincial American, and had, in other fields than electricity, troubled the ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... belongs, supplying food, clothing, materials for houses, utensils of various kinds, rope and oil; and some of its products, particularly the two last, form important articles of commerce. An old writer, in a curious discourse on palm trees, read before the Royal Society, in 1688, says, "The coco nut palm is alone sufficient to build, rig, and freight a ship with bread, wine, water, oil, vinegar, sugar, and other commodities. I have sailed (he adds) in vessels where the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... be liberated by his ally, the cook, with a kitchen knife. Edward calls it his "garden coat," and swears he only wears it on dirty jobs, to save his new mackintosh, but nevertheless he is sincerely attached to the rag, and once attempted to travel to London to a Royal Society beano in it, and was only frustrated in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various

... Lyndhurst, Ellenborough, Denman, Plunkett, Erskine, Wetherell,—all men of the first class. In medicine and surgery were Abernethy, Cooper, Holland. In the Church were Parr, Clarke, Hampden, Scott, Sumner, Hall, Arnold, Irving, Chalmers, Heber, Whately, Newman. Sir Humphry Davy was presiding at the Royal Society, and Sir Thomas Lawrence at the Royal Academy. Herschel was discovering planets. Bell was lecturing at the new London University, and Dugald Stewart in the University of Edinburgh. Captain Ross was exploring the Northern Seas, and Lander the wilds of Africa. Lancaster was founding ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... recognised by Dr. W. C. Wells in 1813 and by Mr. Patrick Matthew in 1831, but he had no knowledge of these anticipations when he published the first edition of The Origin of Species. Wells, whose "Essay on Dew" is still remembered, read in 1813 before the Royal Society a short paper entitled "An Account of a White Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro" (published in 1818). In this communication, as Darwin said, "he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... Cook.—But in the year 1770 a series of important discoveries was indirectly brought about. The Royal Society of London, calculating that the planet Venus would cross the disc of the sun in 1769, persuaded the English Government to send out an expedition to the Pacific Ocean for the purpose of making observations which would enable astronomers to ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... himself was a well-known astronomer and mathematician. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Mathematical Society. He had been knighted for his contributions in higher mathematics only two years before he had come to live in the United States. ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... made familiar with the working of Brennan's gyroscope by Mr. Cleveland Moffett's article in the issue of December, 1907. The occasion of that article was the exhibition of Brennan's model mono-rail car before the Royal Society and in the grounds of his residence at Gillingham. For a clear understanding of the first full-sized car, it may be well to recapitulate a few of the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... France or "that" (whatever "that" may be) is going to; nor the Queen of England daring, for her life, to ask the tiniest Englishman to do a single thing he doesn't like;—nor any salvation, either of Queen or Realm, being any more possible to God, unless under the direction of the Royal Society: then, note the estimate of height and depth in poetry, swept in an instant, "high lyric to low rational." Pindar to Pope (knowing Pope's height, too, all the while, no man better); then, the poetic power of France—resumed ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... recent sources see Howitt in "Organisation of Australian Tribes" (Transactions of Royal Society of Victoria, 1889), and Spencer and Gillen, Natives of Central Australia. In Central Australia there is a marked difference in the ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... was not certain what mischiefs might ensue to the Spaniards from a northern passage to their American dominions. M. de Belluga, a Spanish gentleman and officer, of a liberal and a philosophical turn of mind, and who was a member of the Royal Society of London, endeavoured to prevail upon the count of Florida Blanca, and M. d'Almodavar, to grant an order of protection to the Resolution and Discovery; and he flattered himself, that the ministers of the king of Spain would be prevailed upon to prefer the cause of science ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... of Edinburgh thought he had converted iron into rhodium, and carbon or paracyanogen into silicon. His paper upon this subject was published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and contained internal evidence, without a repetition of his experiments, that he was totally unacquainted with the principles of chemical analysis. But his experiments have been carefully repeated by qualified persons, and they have completely proved his ignorance: his rhodium is ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... discovered at Herculaneum in 1754. A full account of the discovery was drawn up at once by Signor Paderni, keeper of the Herculaneum Museum, and addressed to Thomas Hollis, Esq., by whom it was submitted to the Royal Society. I will extract, from this and subsequent letters, the passages that bear ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... Finger-Prints, 1892; Decipherments of Blurred Finger-Prints (supplementary chapters to former work), 1893; Finger-Print Directories, 1895; Introduction to Life of W. Cotton Oswell, 1900; Index to Achievements of Near Kinsfolk of some of the Fellows of the Royal Society, 1904; Eugenics: its Definition, Scope, and Aims (Sociological Society Papers, vols. I. and II.), 1905; Noteworthy Families (Modern Science); And many papers in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Journals of the Geographical Society and the Anthropological ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... Regent's Place, Harper's Hill, to which (Aug. 17, 1775) he brought his second wife. He afterwards removed to Heathfield, where the workshop in which he occupied his latest years still remains, as on the day of his death. In 1785, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; in 1806, the University of Glasgow conferred the degree of LL.D. upon him, and in 1808 he was elected a member of the National Institute of France. One of the latest inventions of James Watt was a machine for the mechanical copying of sculpture ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may. Marcel can be of much more use to you than Aristotle. I would, upon my word, much rather that you had Lord Bolingbroke's style and eloquence in speaking and writing, than all the learning of the Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... Auchinleck, Boswell begged him, in talking with his father, 'to avoid three topicks as to which they differed very widely; whiggism, presbyterianism, and—Sir John Pringle.' Boswell's Hebrides, Nov 2, 1773. See also ib. Aug 24. 'Pringle was President of the Royal Society—"who sat in Newton's chair, And wonder'd how the devil he got there."' J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 165. He was one of Franklin's friends (Franklin's Memoirs iii. III), and so was likely to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Irish academy, it would have had the honour to be noticed all over England as a bull. The honour to be noticed, we say, in imitation of the exquisitely polite expression of a correspondent of the English Royal Society, who talks of "the earthquake that had the honour to be noticed by ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... Members of the Royal Society of Canada,—When we met last year, and formally inaugurated a society for the encouragement of literature and science in Canada, an experiment was tried. As with all experiments, its possible success was questioned by some who feared that the elements ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... beloved among a wide circle of friends and the esteem of those in his profession was shown when in 1884 they chose him for president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. To the general public, however, he remained unknown in spite of the fact that "His lights were in all parts of the ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... had the misfortune to be too much in advance of his age. He excited the wonder of his contemporaries, who, however, were unable to follow him to the heights at which his daring intellect was accustomed to soar. His most important ideas lay, therefore, buried and forgotten in the folios of the Royal Society, until a new generation gradually and painfully made the same discoveries, and proved the exactness of his assertions and the truth of ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... seven years, the 'Beasts' Ball, a pre-war popular annual event in aid of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is to be held at the Guildhall, on Wednesday, November 10. Tickets can be obtained from Mrs. Bushe-Fox and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various

... the Royal Society awarded him the Copley medal for his discovery that lightning was ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... natural philosopher, and member of the Royal Society, who died in 1691. The citation is from A Disquisition about the Final Causes ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... reading Washington Irving's not very satisfactory Life of Washington.—Sir Jos. Hooker, Pres., Royal Society, England. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... was possessed of great perseverance will be obvious from the difficulties he encountered and overcame in perfecting his valuable invention. He was, however, like many persons of strong original character, eccentric in his habits and reserved in his manner. The Royal Society wished to enrol him as a member in acknowledgment of the high merit of his discovery of cast-steel, as well as because of his skill in practical chemistry; but as this would have drawn him in some measure from his seclusion, and was also, as he imagined, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... published by the Royal Society on the Eruption of Krakatoa—drawn up by several authors (1885)—and the work on the same subject by Chev. Verbeek, and published by the Government of the Netherlands (1886). In these works all the phenomena connected with the extraordinary eruptions of ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull

... 4th, 1737, Sir Hans Sloane communicated to the Royal Society a letter which a gentleman had received from Job, the African, whom MR. OGLETHORPE released from slavery, and the African Company sent home to his own country, in one of their ships, about twelve months ago. In this letter he very gratefully acknowledges the favor he received ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... said Mr. Smith, as Mr. Heard broke in with some vehemence. "And this chap's going to 'ave the Royal Society's medal for it, or I'll ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... take this opportunity of publicly expressing my obligations to the Right Hon. President of the Royal Society; and of thus adding my voice to the many who, in the pursuit of science, have found in him a friend and patron. Such he proved in the commencement of my voyage, and in the whole course of its duration; in the distresses which tyranny heaped upon those of accident; and after they ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. The present respectable President of the Royal Society was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration, BOSWELL. Boswell again quotes this passage (which is found in Johnson's Works, ix. 145), ante, iii. 173. The President was Sir Joseph ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... from having all the body except the head and face, and the soles and palms, covered with hard dark-colored excrescences of a horny nature. The first of these was Edward Lambert, born in Suffolk in 1718, and exhibited before the Royal Society when fourteen years of age. The other children of his parents were naturally formed; and Edward, aside from this peculiarity, was good looking and enjoyed good health. He afterward had six children, ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... the young gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their heads possessing this remarkable property; when he concluded that if the Royal Society would turn their attention to the circumstance, and endeavour to find in the resources of science a means of preventing such untoward revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as benefactors to mankind. These opinions being ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... love of retirement so manifest in in later life mastered all his instincts even when a boy. If he had been of poor and obscure parentage, it would not seem so strange that one who for nearly fifty years was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and for a lengthened period a member of the Institute of France, and an object of European interest to men of science, had no one to record the incidents of his early life. But he lost his mother ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... objects and ideals that Scott's first expedition, known officially as the British Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904, but more familiarly as 'The Discovery Expedition,' from the name of the ship which carried it, was organized by the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society, backed by the active support of the British Government. The executive officers and crew were Royal Navy almost without exception, whilst the scientific purposes of the expedition were served in addition by five scientists. These ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... thanks to the proprietors of The Times for allowing me to use some of the letters which I wrote for that paper whilst I was in India last winter, and also to the Royal Society of Arts for permission to reproduce the main portions of a lecture delivered by me last year on Hinduism as the first of the Memorial Lectures instituted in honour of the late Sir George Birdwood, to whom I owe ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... result of the ascendancy of the intellect was seen in scientific investigation. The Royal Society was founded in 1662 to study natural phenomena and to penetrate into the hidden ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... of certain larvae, and pupae, which undergo changes of colour when exposed to differently coloured surroundings. This subject has been carefully investigated by Mr. E.B. Poulton, who has communicated the results of his experiments to the Royal Society.[65] It had been noticed that some species of larvae which fed on several different plants had colours more or less corresponding to the particular plant the individual fed on. Numerous cases are given in Professor Meldola's article on "Variable ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... are so numerous and varied, that machine-sawing would scarcely be applicable. Yet attempts are from time to time made to construct such machines. Mr Cochran has invented one; and it is said that at the Earl of Rosse's first soiree as president of the Royal Society, a model of this timber-cutting machine was exhibited; that Prince Albert cut a miniature timber with it; and that he thus began an apprenticeship to the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various

... the origin of ambergris, was revived again about twenty-five years ago, and published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, as a new discovery. The only difference in the modern account of the matter is, that the ambergris originates within the alimentary canal of the whale, in consequence, probably, of some disease; and that the lumps which are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... Darrell family; 'Inquiry into the Origin of Legends Connected with Dragons;' 'Hours amongst Monumental Brasses,' and other ingenious lucubrations above the taste of the vulgar; some of them were even read at the Royal Society of Antiquaries. They cost much to print and publish. But I have heard my father, who was his bailiff, say that he was a pleasant man, and was fond of reciting old scraps of poetry, which he did with great energy; indeed, Mr. Darrell ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... respect to improvement, still remained little better than a wilderness, and the vast expence it had cost the mother country might perhaps have been laid out to greater advantage in other parts of the continent. In the government of that colony John Ellis, a Fellow of the Royal Society, succeeded Captain John Reynolds. The rich swamps on the sides of the rivers lay uncultivated; and the planters had not yet found their way into the interior parts of the country, where the lands not only exceeded those in the maritime ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... who cares, even slightly, about Ireland. He was one of the chief founders of the Philosophical Association in Dublin, which was the parent both of the present Dublin Society and of the Royal Irish Academy. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a friend of John Locke, with whom he constantly corresponded. Both his letters, and those of his brother, Dr. Thomas Molyneux, show the most vivid and constant interest in everything connected with the natural history of Ireland. Now it is a moving bog, which has ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... In fact (as the reader may have observed), I like all these old travellers, not so much for what they actually say, as for their implicit outlook upon life. This Pacicchelli was a fellow of our Royal Society, and his accounts of England are worth reading; here, in Calabria (being a non-southerner) his "Familiar Letters" and "Memoirs of Travel" act as a wholesome corrective. Which of the local historians would have dared to ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... the Navy Office had some considerable share. He stood well by his business in the appalling plague of 1666. He was loved and respected by some of the best and wisest men in England. He was President of the Royal Society; and when he came to die, people said of his conduct in that solemn hour - thinking it needless to say more - that it was answerable to the greatness of his life. Thus he walked in dignity, guards of soldiers sometimes attending him in his walks, subalterns bowing before his periwig; and when ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... been secretary to the Earl of Carlisle, he became tutor to the King's natural son, Henry Fitzroy, afterwards Duke of Grafton, and subsequently instructor in English to Prince George of Denmark. He was also one of the earliest Fellows of the Royal Society. He died at Chelsea in May 1703. In 1669 he published anonymously Angliae Notitia, or the Present State of England with Divers Reflection upon the Ancient State therefor, a work no doubt suggested by and apparently modelled on the well-known ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... waterworks, all the public buildings; he will have to destroy the railroads, the telegraphs, the post-office. For all these belong to Communism."[1057] It would be as logical to say, "He who opposes Socialism will have to destroy the Royal Society, and all clubs, for all these are social institutions." The Social-Democratic Federation says about Communism: "Has there not always been the aggregation of wealth in the hands of a few in all stages of human society?—Certainly ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... these colours were made by weight, and were painted on discs of paper, which were afterwards treated in the manner described in my paper "On Colour as perceived by the Eye," in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XXI. Part 2. The visible effect of the colour is estimated in terms of the standard-coloured papers:—vermilion (V), ultramarine (U), and emerald-green (E). The accuracy of the results, and their significance, can be best understood by referring to the paper before mentioned. ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... nearly half the number subscribed for, came to England. The title-page was printed both in German and English, the latter reading as follows: "The Creation: an Oratorio composed by Joseph Haydn, Doctor of Musik, and member of the Royal Society of Musik, in Sweden, in actuel (sic) service of His Highness the Prince of Esterhazy, Vienna, 1800." Clementi had just set up a musical establishment in London, and on August 22, 1800, we find Haydn writing to his publishers to complain that he was in some danger of losing ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... the problem to have been at that moment solved—an intellectual want relieved which had haunted me for at least fifteen years before." Mr. Appolo, a distinguished scientific inventor, stated in the Proceedings of the Royal Society that it was his habit to get the bearings and facts of a case during the day and go to bed, and wake the next morning with the problem solved. If the problem was a difficult one he always passed a restless night. Examples might be multiplied. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... of the life of Columbus was published and proved its merit, Irving was honored in a way he had little expected in his more idle days. The Royal Society of Literature bestowed upon him one of two fifty-guinea[] gold medals awarded annually, and the University of Oxford ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... seventeenth century the opposition to this method of omnivorous credulity (which even to-day, in spite of all our "progress," flourishes among both the rich and the poor) crystallised in the purpose of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge—whose motto was, and is "Nullius in verba" (that is, "We swear by no man's words"), and whose original first rule, to be observed at its meetings, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... psychic experiences, which he related to the London Spiritualist Alliance on May 7, in the salon of the Royal Society of British Artists, cover a very wide field, and they date ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji

... Skenes." And here is the record itself: "January 17th.—James Ballantyne this morning, good honest fellow, with a visage as black as the crook. He hopes no salvation; has, indeed, taken measures to stop. It is hard, after having fought such a battle. I have apologized for not attending the Royal Society Club, who have a gaudeamus on this day, and seemed to count much on my being the praeses. My old acquaintance Miss Elizabeth Clerk, sister of Willie, died suddenly. I cannot choose but wish it had been Sir W. S., and yet the feeling ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... his drooping iron-grey moustache. "That's all right," he said. "This is not a meeting of the Royal Society. Here, in my own club, I claim the right of every free-born citizen to condemn the weather—or anything else—in any language I choose. Great Scott, Fairfield! You don't expect me to wear my mantle all the time. I should explode if I didn't have a ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... that several persons perswade themselves, that these Philosophical Transactions are publish't by the Royal Society, notwithstanding many circumstances, to be met with in the already publish't ones, {214} that import the contrary; The Writer thereof hath thought fit, expresly here to declare, that that perswasion, if there be any such indeed, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... to write a good deal from his own experience with paddle, sail, and steam. Of course there are many excellent articles, some of considerable length, in the Transactions of several learned societies, like the Royal Society of Canada, the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, the Nova Scotia Historical Society, the Ontario Historical Society, and so on. There are also a certain number of pamphlets and official bluebooks—like those of the ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... occupy an immense region in the central and southern portions of New South Wales. For their eastern and northern boundaries the reader is referred to the map accompanying my paper to the American Philosophical Society in 1898.[1] The western boundary is shown on the map with my article to the Royal Society of New South Wales the same year.[2] Their southern limit is represented on the map attached to a paper I transmitted to the Anthropological Society at Washington in 1898.[3] The maps referred to were prepared primarily to mark out the ...
— The Wiradyuri and Other Languages of New South Wales • Robert Hamilton Mathews

... which I need only mention the names of Descartes, who died in 1650, and Gassendi, who died in 1655. And then there was also the new methodological approach, that critical empiricism whose most vocal exponent was Francis Bacon, which led directly to the founding of the Royal Society in 1660 and its subsequent incorporation. These phases of seventeenth-century thought and activity I do not ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer

... not be surprised, then, at the calmness with which the doctor received the applause that welcomed him in the Royal Society. He was above all such trifles, having no pride, and less vanity. He looked upon the proposition addressed to him by Sir Francis M—— as the simplest thing in the world, and scarcely noticed the immense effect ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... will add the letter of the Honourable Robert Boyle to Governor Endicot. The Hon. Robert Boyle was not only distinguished as the first philosopher of his age, but as the founder of the Royal Society and the President of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England—the Society which supported John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians of New England—for the Massachusetts Bay Government neither ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... mass—the pendulum. Even in the seventeenth century, old Graunt was shocked when some irreverent babbler spoke of one of its honourable race by the rude epithet of 'a swing-swang;' and he penned an indignant protest on the subject to the Royal Society. Since that time the pendulum has done much more to merit the reverence of the world. Plain and simple as its outward bearing is, it really holds a high and dignified position in the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... even by his lucid statements and eloquent advocacy. James Hall and Leonard Horner, two faithful disciples of Hutton, who had joined the infant Geological Society, forsook it early, the former leaving it on account of the quarrel with the Royal Society, the latter retaining his fellowship and interest, but going to live at Edinburgh. Greenough, 'The Objector General,' as he was called, was left, fanatically opposing any attempt to stem the current that had set ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd

... Regime, and to set man face to face with the facts of the universe. From England, towards the end of the seventeenth century, it was promulgated by such men as Newton, Boyle, Sydenham, Ray, and the first founders of our Royal Society. ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... is one of which you may find the whole details in the "Philosophical Transactions" for the year 1813, in a paper communicated by Colonel Humphrey to the President of the Royal Society,—"On a new Variety in the Breed of Sheep," giving an account of a very remarkable breed of sheep, which at one time was well known in the northern states of America, and which went by the name of the Ancon or the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... Licinius appearing and the Noise increasing, I was resolved to give this late long Vacation to the Good of my Country; and I have at length, by the Assistance of an ingenious Artist, (who works to the Royal Society) almost compleated my Design, and shall be ready in a short Time to furnish the Publick with what Number of these Instruments they please, either to lodge at Coffee-houses, or carry for their own private ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... Green, Red, and Yellow. The Reasoning faculty set once afloat, will be carried on, and that with ease, especially, when the productions thereof meet, as they do here, with so greedy an Entertainment at home and abroad. I am confident, that the ROYAL SOCIETY, lately constituted by his MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY for improving Natural knowledge, will Judge it their interest to exhort our Author to the prosecution of this Argument, considering, how much it is their design and business to accumulate a good ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... tribe, when at war with the Mohawks, concealed their provisions in the cavities of the rocks in the upper part of these falls. The Indians, who hid their provisions in these holes, and affirmed "that God had cut them out for that purpose," understood their origin and use better than the Royal Society, who in their Transactions, in the last century, speaking of these very holes, declare that "they seem plainly to be artificial." Similar "pot-holes" may be seen at the Stone Flume on this river, on the Ottaway, at Bellows' Falls on the Connecticut, and ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... born in 1765, and received the degree of Master of Arts from Pembroke College at the age of twenty-one. A year later he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society, upon the recommendation of his instructors, as being "a gentleman well versed in the various branches of Natural Philosophy, and particularly in Chemistry and Mineralogy." As a student, he was devoted to the study of ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... Fellow of the Royal Society, which gives him the chance of conversing with a lord, and the right of entering a lord's (the president's) house, which is turned into sandwich-shop four times a-year for his reception; this, being the nearest approach he makes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... that his reasons for this theory will not always bear examination. More recently a similar theory has been seriously put forward in various quarters. Sir William Ramsay tentatively suggested such a theory (Nature, vol. xxv, p. 187) in analogy with light and sound. Haycraft (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1883-87, and Brain, 1887-88), largely starting from Mendelieff's law of periodicity, similarly sought to bring smell into line with the higher senses, arguing that molecules with the same vibration have the same smell. Rutherford ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... a trouvaille of Roman coins. "Among the rest was an earthen pott of the colour of a Crucible, and of the shape of a prentice's Christmas Box, with a slit in it, containing about a quart, which was near full of money. This pot I gave to the Repository of the Royal Society at Gresham College." ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... the Bagford Collection which, formed by John Bagford (1651-1716), passed successively through the hands of James West (president of the Royal Society), Major Pearson, the Duke of Roxburghe and Mr. B. H. Bright, until in 1845 it and the more extensive Roxburghe Collection became the property ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... before the Royal Society in 1684, showing how to communicate at great distances. In this discourse he asserts the possibility of conveying intelligence from one place to another at a distance of 120 miles as rapidly as a man can write what he would have sent. He takes to his aid the then recent ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various

... indebted to Festing as the chief instrument in the formation of the Royal Society of Musicians, which he may be said to have founded in the year 1738. This society derived its origin from the following curious circumstance. Festing being one day seated at the window of the Orange Coffee House, then at the corner of the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... like to know, that less than forty years after Bacon's death a society called The Royal Society was founded. This is a Society which interests itself in scientific study and research, and is the oldest of its kind in Great Britain. It was Bacon's fancy of Solomon's House which led men to found this Society. Bacon was the great man whose "true imagination"* ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... from Captain Scott's Winter Quarters at Cape Evans Facing p. 126 Mount Terror and its Glaciers 126 The Royal Society Mountains of Victoria Land—Telephoto Study from Cape Evans 284 Mount Erebus and Glaciers to the ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... Dr. W.C. Wells read before the Royal Society "An Account of a White Female, part of whose skin resembles that of a Negro"; but his paper was not published until his famous "Two Essays upon Dew and Single Vision" appeared in 1818. In this paper he distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... practical, the theoretical—blue-stockings and women of fashion, the old and the young, all crowded—eagerly crowded—the lecture-room." At the beginning of the year 1805 his salary was raised to 400 pounds a year. In May of that year the Royal Society awarded to him the Copley Medal. Within the next two years he was elected Secretary of the Royal Society. Since 1800 he had been advancing knowledge by experiments with galvanism. The Royal Institution raised a special fund to place at his disposal a more powerful galvanic battery than ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... paper read before the Royal Society, November 20, 1890, by Professors Liveing and Dewar, on finely divided metallic dust thrown off the surface of various electrodes, in vacuum tubes, they find not only that dust, however fine, suspended in a gas will not act like gaseous ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... this problem before the Royal Society, at Burlington House, on 17th May 1905, and also at the Royal Institution in the following month, in the more general form:—"A New Problem on Superposition: a demonstration that an equilateral triangle can be cut into four pieces that may be reassembled ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... to the scientific men to whom they are addressed, are put aside and forgotten. Some of our geological collections taken in the Pacific were, however, more fortunate. We were indebted for their preservation to the generous activity of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of London, who, amidst the political agitations of Europe, unceasingly laboured to strengthen the bonds of union between scientific men ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... metropolis, organising schools, establishing convents, and building cathedrals, he could find time to move philanthropic resolutions at middle-class meetings, attend learned associations, and even occasionally send a paper to the Royal Society. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... and young Herschel, a man of great abilities,[Footnote: Afterwards Sir John Herschel, the famous astronomer and philosopher.] to whom Sir Humphry Davy paid an elegant compliment the other day in a speech as President to the Royal Society. "His father must rejoice in such a son, who secures to ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... something upon the absurd purposes of the Literary Fund, with its despicable ostentation of patronage, and to build a sort of National Academy in the air, in the hope that Canning might one day lay its foundation in a more solid manner. [Footnote: Canning had his own opinion on the subject. When the Royal Society of Literature was about to be established, an application was made to him to join the committee. He refused, for reasons "partly general, partly personal." He added, "I am really of opinion, with Dr. Johnson, that the multitudinous ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... of the Sarracenia family are only macerating vessels, those of Nepenthes—the pitchers of the Indian Archipelago, familiar in conservatories—seem to be stomachs. The investigations of the President of the Royal Society, Dr. Hooker, although incomplete, wellnigh demonstrate that these not only allure insects by a sweet secretion at the rim and upon the lid of the cup, but also that their capture, or the presence of other partly soluble ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... the English chemist, Robert Boyle, effected a successful synthesis of both. The son of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, he was born at Lismore in 1626, lived in literary retirement at Oxford from 1654, and later in Cambridge, and died, 1692, in London, president of the Royal Society. His principal work, The Sceptical Chemist (Works, vol. i. p. 290 seq.), appeared in 1661, the tract, De Ipsa Natura, in 1682.[1] By his introduction of the atomic conception he founded an epoch in chemistry, which, now for the first, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... doors, and working toys, before the Christian era. It may be urged that this advance was the outcome of that new and more systematic handling of knowledge initiated by Lord Bacon and sustained by the Royal Society; but this does not appear to have been the case, though no doubt the new habits of mind that spread outward from that centre played their part. The men whose names are cardinal in the history of this development invented, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... discoveries in physics and geometry. Wilkins, a clergyman, who had married Cromwell's sister, and was afterwards bishop of Chester, promoted these philosophical conversations. Immediately after the restoration, these men procured a patent, and having enlarged their number, were denominated the Royal Society. But this patent was all they obtained from the king. Though Charles was a lover of the sciences, particularly chemistry and mechanics, he animated them by his example alone not by his bounty. His craving courtiers and mistresses, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... to the Duke of York, and brother to Lord Viscount Brounker, president of the royal society. Lord Clarendon imputes to him the cause of the great sea-fight, in 1665, not being so well improved as it might have been, and adds, "nor did the duke come to hear of it till some years after, when Mr. Brounker's ill course of life, and his abominable nature, had rendered him so odious, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... is the beautiful "mirror" galvanometer of Lord Kelvin, Ex-President of the Royal Society, which we illustrate in figure 52, where C is a coil of wire with a small magnetic needle suspended in its heart, and D is a steel magnet supported over it. The needle (M figure 53) is made of watch spring ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... cap. You'll be interviewed by all the scientific folk in the kingdom, and I shouldn't wonder if you are not summoned to appear, and give evidence, before a select committee of the Royal Society. Four points out! Why, man, you're immortalised. I call ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... that suggested the "Adventures of Peter Wilkins." It is unfair, however, to mention him in connection with that single one of his works which announces an extravagant purpose. He was really a scientific man, and already in the time of Cromwell (about 1656) had projected that Royal Society of London which was afterwards realized and presided over by Isaac Barrow and Isaac Newton. He was also a learned man, but still with a veil of romance about him, as may be seen in his most elaborate work— "The Essay towards a Philosophic or ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... release from penal servitude are, if they desire it, assisted to obtain employment by Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies. The way in which assistance is rendered by the Royal Society, Charing Cross, which may be considered as a type of most of these societies, ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... presence of the sorrowing relatives and of a large concourse of admirers, both local and from a distance. There were also present many representatives of distinguished scientific societies, including Dr. John Evans, F.R.S., Treasurer of the Royal Society, and President of ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... long an honored instructor and Fellow of Harvard College, and Minister of the First Church, at Cambridge. He was celebrated here and in England, for his learning, and endeared to all men by his virtues. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Jeremiah Dummer, as well qualified to pronounce such an opinion as any man of his time, places him as a preacher above all his contemporaries, in either ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham



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