Royal Society, 6 1 



serves, especially by M. Struve, director of the Observatory 

 at Dorpat. Having obtained the use of a powerful refracting 

 telescope, this indefatigable astronomer has, in the short space 

 of four years, alone and unassisted, produced this work, — A 

 Catalogue of Double and Multiple Stars, to the amount of 

 3063 stars, " Catalogus Novus Stellarum Duplicium et Multi- 

 plicium" — all laid down with an accuracy commensurate to 

 the great labour and attention bestowed on them. The Royal 

 Society have not hesitated in marking with their highest ap- 

 probation such labour, such attention, and such ability, dis- 

 played by an individual who has thus established strong claims 

 for gratitude on the astronomical world, and from a continued 

 exertion of whose energies much more may with confidence 

 be expected. 



On delivering the Copley Medal to Dr. William Prout. 



The science of chemistry, like that of astronomy, may 

 reckon its different periods and distinct elevations. The de- 

 composition of neutral salts; the discovery of gases; the de- 

 composition of water ; the application of voltaic energies, by 

 the skilful hands of our late President ; the atomic theory, 

 with definite proportions. But nature is inexhaustible, and 

 much more remains to be done. Although the ultimate ele- 

 ments of animal and vegetable substances are known to be 

 few; yet their proximate elements, produced by unions of the 

 former in different proportions and in different manners, con- 

 tinue indefinite. Besides the amylaceous, the saccharine, and 

 twenty other principles widely diffused through the vegetable 

 kingdom, there remain the essential oils and specific secretions; 

 each resolvable into the few ultimate elements, and so readily 

 changing the Proteus-like appearance of their proximate forms, 

 as to baffle all but the most delicate and refined attempts to 

 investigate their real properties and discriminating qualities, 

 — qualities induced through the agency of life, and perhaps 

 involving substances not subservient to the laws of gravity 

 and inertia; the essential attributes of ordinary matter. 



Much progress has indeed been made in separating parti- 

 cular substances from their combinations with others, to the 

 great improvement of pharmacy and medicine. 



But the Royal Society have viewed with peculiar satisfaction 

 a new and accurate mode of analysis described by Dr. Prout, 

 and founded on the most evident and simple principles ; pro- 

 mising not merely to disentangle any one particular combina- 

 tion, but to afford an insight into all the products created by 

 living chemistry. They have hastened, therefore, to stamp 

 with the highest mark of their approbation, as well the mode 



of 



