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.