[ *77 3 

 XXVIII. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



FRENCH NATIONAL INSTITUTE, 



HE Inftitute, in the public fitting of July 4, propofed 

 the following questions as the fubjecT: or prizes : 



bl lowing quefti 



PRIZE QUESTIONS. 



Mathematics.— -To determine the means, as far as poffible, 

 for leSTening the lee-way of a {hip of war when failing on an 

 oblique courfe, by combining together the manner mod fa* 

 vourable for that purpofe, the form of the keel, the draught 

 of water, the pofition of the main beam, and Stability. 



In the year 1793 tne Academy of Sciences propofed this as 

 the fubjeci of a prize for 1795 ; it was fupprefled before any 

 paper was received in anfwer to it : but the Clafs of the Ma- 

 thematical and Phyfical Sciences, being defirous to fulfil the 

 engagement contracted by the Academy, and considering, 

 beSides, that this Subject is of great importance for the navy, 

 have thought they could not do better than to propofe it again. 



The Clafs are too fenfible of the difficulty attending this 

 problem to require or to hope for a folution from theory 

 alone, but, without prefcribing rules in that refpect, they 

 invite learned navigators to treat the queStion principally by 

 means of observations, deduced either from their own expe- 

 rience or taken from thole journals in which the commanders 

 of veflels give an account, at the conclusion of a campaign 

 or the end of a voyage, of the circumftances which have oc- 

 curred in regard to the rate of failing of their refpective mips. 



The prize will be a gold medal of the value of a chilio- 

 gramme, and will be decreed in the public fitting of Mefli- 

 dor 5, an. 11 (July 4, 1803). The anfwers will be received 

 till the lit of Germinal, an. II, (March 32, 1803,) and not 

 beyond that period. 



Phyjics. — The Clafs of the Phyfical and Mathematical Sci- 

 ences of the Inititute, charged with propofing, for the year 9, 

 the fubject of a prize, think it their duty to adopt a queltion 

 the folution of which mult, accelerate trie progrefs of an in- 

 teresting part of natural hiftory. The Science of organized 

 bodies confifts, in a particular manner, in a knowledge of 

 their organization, which is distinguished into internal and 

 external. The external figns, called characters, the firfl Stu- 

 died and the firSt known, are of ule to indicate the internal 

 organization^ from which they are derived, and which always 

 ought to have an influence on their existence. Thefe two 

 parts of the fcience intimately connected, tend mutually to 

 1 Vol. X. M throw 



