Astronomical Society. 387 



merited the present notice, had every observation perished in its 

 conveyance home — that your Council have thought Sir Thomas Mac- 

 dougal Brisbane deserving the distinction of a medal of this Society, 

 which, as he is unable personally to attend this meeting, I will now 

 deliver to his proxy, Mr. South. 



Mr. South, — We request you to transmit to Sir Thomas Brisbane 

 this medal, accompanied with the strongest expressions of our admi- 

 ration of the patriotic and princely support he has given to Astro- 

 nomy, in regions so remote. It will be a source of honest pride to 

 him while he lives, to reflect that the first brilliant trait of Australian 

 history marks the aera of his government, and that his name will be 

 identified with the future glories of that colony in ages yet to come, 

 as the founder of her science. It is a distinction truly worthy of a 

 British governor. The colonial acquisitions of other countries have 

 been but too frequently wrested from unoffending inhabitants, and 

 the first pages of their history blackened by ferocious conquests and 

 tyrannical violence. The treasures of gold and silver they have 

 yielded — the fruits of rapine — have proved the bane of those who 

 gathered them j and in return, ignorance and bigotry have been the 

 boons bestowed on them by their parent nations. Here, however, 

 is a brighter prospect. Our first triumphs in those fair climes have 

 been the peaceful ones of science ; and the treasures they have trans- 

 mitted to us, are imperishable records of useful knowledge, speedily 

 to be returned with interest, to the improvement of their condition 

 and their elevation in the scale of nations. 



{The President then resumed his address to the Members, as fol- 

 lows : — ) 



I have now to call your attention, Gentlemen, to the award of an- 

 other Medal, to Mr. Dunlop, who accompanied Sir Thomas Brisbane 

 in capacity of his assistant, and who, since the middle of the year 

 1823, when his companion Mr. Rumker left the observatory, re- 

 mained in the sole charge of the instruments ; and up to the period 

 of the departure of his principal from the colony, continued an unin- 

 terrupted series of observations with a care and diligence seldom 

 equalled, and never surpassed. In such cases it is not only the head 

 which plans, but the hand which faithfully and promptly executes, 

 that claims our applause. The most liberal provision of instrumental 

 means would have been comparatively unavailing, had the spirit of 

 him 1 who supplied them, been seconded by any ordinary zeal on the 

 part of his assistants. The records of this Society already alluded 

 to, bear sufficient testimony to the merits of Mr. Rumker, and to 

 our sense of them. In Mr. Dunlop were combined qualities render- 

 ing him of all others, the very individual fitted for the duties imposed 

 on him — zealous, active, ready — but above all (and the combina- 

 tion is not an ordinary one), industrious and methodical. In the vast 

 mass of observations made and registered by him, all is equable and 

 smooth, as if the observations had all been made at a sitting : 



" Servatur ad imum 



Qualis ab incepto processerit" — 



3 D 2 no 



