THERE is one scientific institution in London more venerable and more famous even than the British Museum. This, of course, is the Royal Society, a world-famous body, whose charter dates from 1662, but whose actual sessions began at Gresham College some twenty years earlier. One can best gain a present-day idea of this famous institution by attending one of its weekly meetings in Burlington House, Piccadilly--a great, castle-like structure, which serves also as the abode of the Royal Chemical Society and the Royal Academy of Arts. The formality of an invitation from a fellow is required, but this is easily secured by any scientific visitor who may desire to attend the meeting. The programme of the meeting each week appears in that other great British institution, the _Times_, on Tuesdays. The weekly meeting itself is held on Thursday afternoon at half-past four. As one enters the door leading off the great court of Burlington House a liveried attendant motions one to the rack where great-coat and hat may be left, and without further ceremony one steps into the reception-room unannounced. It is a middle-sized, almost square room, pillared and formal in itself, and almost without furniture, save for a long temporary table on one side, over which cups of tea are being handed out to the guests, who cluster there to receive it, and then scatter about the room to sip it at their leisure. We had come to hear a lecture and had expected to be ushered into an auditorium; but we had quite forgotten that this is the hour when all England takes its tea, the _élite_ of the scientific world, seemingly, quite as much as the devotees of another kind of society. Indeed, had we come unawares into this room we should never have suspected that we had about us other than an ordinary group of cultured people gathered at a conventional "tea," except, indeed, that suspicion might be aroused by the great preponderance of men--there being only three or four women present--and by the fact that here and there a guest appears in unconventional dress--a short coat or even a velvet working-jacket. For the rest there is the same gathering into clusters of three or four, the same inarticulate clatter of many voices that mark the most commonplace of gatherings.