Abstract
A STUDY of the history of those societies whose interests are in the main scientific and literary would form a task pleasant enough and, in all conscience, comprehensive enough for a student of the development of scientific thought. Even if we restricted ourselves to a study of our own national societies, the field would be sufficiently wide to tax the energies of a single worker. A start has been made. Weld (the works of Sprat, Birch and Thomson can scarcely be termed histories) has traced the origins and the varied fortunes of the Royal Society from the struggling days when its unlucky secretaries were threatened with “Books of Fishes” in lieu of sterling payments, to the more settled generations just preceding our own; we wait and hope for a worthy successor to Bence Jones's account of the Royal Institution; Dr. Howarth has told us the fascinating story of the growth of the British Association; and, under his editorial guidance, the Association has published a history of London's contributions to science which contains a valuable but necessarily brief account of the principal London scientific societies.
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FERGUSON, A. Societies and Centenaries. Nature 134, 592–593 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134592a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134592a0