THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. We have only to turn over the pages of its Transactions to discern how much this society has done for the progress of humanity. It was incorporated in 1662, and has interested itself in all the great scientific movements and discoveries that have since been made. It published Newton's "Principia;" it promoted Halley's voyage, the first scientific expedition undertaken by any government; it made experiments on the transfusion of blood, and accepted Harvey's discovery of the circulation. The encouragement it gave to inoculation led Queen Caroline to beg six condemned criminals for experiment, and then to submit her own children to that operation. Through its encouragement Bradley accomplished his great discovery, the aberration of the fixed stars, and that of the nutation of the earth's axis; to these two discoveries, Delambre says, we owe the exactness of modern astronomy. It promoted the improvement of the thermometer, the measure of temperature, and in Harrison's watch, the chronometer, the measure of time. Through it the Gregorian Calendar was introduced into England, in 1752, against a violent religious opposition. Some of its Fellows were pursued through the streets by an ignorant and infuriated mob, who believed it had robbed them of eleven days of their lives; it was found necessary to conceal the name of Father Walmesley, a learned Jesuit, who had taken deep interest in the matter; and, Bradley happening to die during the commotion, it was declared that he had suffered a judgment from Heaven for his crime!