THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 9761, 25 June 1892, Page 6

THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

Tho fellowship of the Royal Society of London, to which Professor Hutton has just been elected, ia the highest distinction of tho kind which can be conferred for scientific work. The Royal Society, which dates from the time of Charles 11., ia the Premier Scientific Society in the British Empire, if not, indeed, in the world. Fellowship in it is not gained, like membership in most Societies, by merely passing an election and paying a fee, but is granted solely on account of work in some department of science. The number of fellows ia limited, fifteen being elected by the Council every year from the candidates submitted to it from all parts of the British Empire. Candidatas do not send in their names for election, but are nominated by those who think them worthy of the honour, sometimes without their own knowledge. It is said that on an average sixty names are submitted to the Council every year. Only four gentlemen in New Zealand, besides Professor Hutton, are Fellows of tho Royal Society. These are Sir James Hector, Sir Walter Bailor, the Rev W. Colenso and Professor Parker. Professor Hutton was proposed for the fellowship by Professor Liversedge, of Sydney University, who cent to the Council a list of the former's publications on scientific subjects. This list shows that the published writings of Professor Hutton number about one hundred and fifty. They begin with a review of Darwin’s “ Origin of Species,” in The Geologist of so long ago as 1861. Most of the publications on the list were issued since tho writer came to Now Zealand in 1866. They include descriptive catalogues, particularly of the fishes and mollusca of New Zealand, geological reports and papers, chiefly on geology and natural history, in the .Quarterly Journal of tho Geological Society of London, the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, the Transactions of the Royal Society of Tasmania, the Reports of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, the Transactions of the Now Zealand Institute, and various scientific journals and magazines including the Journal ds Conchyliologie of Paris.