in future years; but to this the Author felt much objection.
Finally, the Council of the Royal Society, in the exercise of a wise discretion, and in a very liberal spirit, decided to devote a sum of three hundred pounds towards the cost of illustration, and proposed to the Author that he should publish, in extenso, his Report as a distinct and independent work.
In pursuance of this, the Author arranged with Messrs. Chapman and Hall for publication in the form in which the work now appears, the Publishers having undertaken to defray the entire expense over and above the grant made by the Royal Society. Liberal as the amount of that was, it was not nearly sufficient for its object, owing to the great expenditure involved in the production of volumes illustrated as these are. The Author can but hope that the spirit with which the Publishers have thus shown themselves ready substantially to aid in promoting science, may not be to them profitless.
It was midsummer last, before all these preliminaries admitted of the work being placed in the hands of the printer, and the illustrations in those of Mr. V. Brooks for lithographing. Practically, the whole was ready for publication early this year. For trade reasons the Publishers requested that it might be postponed to the present time, to which the Author, though conscious of the long delay that circumstances had already imposed, readily assented.
