114 



body, and who are qualified, by intellect and education, to take an 

 enlarged yet not exaggerated view of the importance of a central 

 society. I know that many other, and indeed more appropriate 

 outlets exist, for the publication of curious, isolated, or semi-iso- 

 lated facts : but it is not so much Temarkdible /acts, as remarkable 

 views, that I wish to see communicated to us, and through us to 

 the world ; although such views ought, of course, to be illustrated 

 and confirmed by facts. 



It seems possible, that in each of the three great divisions of 

 science already enumerated, our Transactions may be enriched in 

 future, through a judicious system of rewards, (of the kinds to 

 which I lately alluded,) intended to encourage contributions of a 

 more elaborate kind than usual, from strangers as well as from 

 members of our body. It has appeared, for example, to some 

 members of your Council, and to me, that for each of those three 

 divisions of science a triennial prize might be given ; these three 

 triennial prizes succeeding each other in such rotation, for mathe- 

 matics, physics, and physiology, that a prize should be awarded 

 every year, on some one principal class of scientific subjects, for 

 the best essay which had been communicated for publication, on 

 any subject of that class, whether by a member or by a stranger, 

 during the three preceding years. A plan of this sort has been 

 lately tried, and (it would seem) with advantage, in the distri- 

 bution of the Royal Medals entrusted by the late King* to the Royal 

 Society of London ; and the principle is not unsanctioned by you, 

 that a greater range of investigation may sometimes be allowed to 

 the authors of prize-essays, than the terms of an ordinary prize- 

 question would allow. So that it only remains for your Council to 

 consider and report to you, as they are likely soon to do, to what 

 extent this principle may advantageously be pushed, and by what 

 regulations it may conveniently be carried into effect. In saying 

 this, I do not presume to pronounce that it is expedient to give up 

 entirely the system of proposing occasionally prize-questions, of a 

 much more definite kind than those to which I have been referring 



• And continued by her present Majesty : whose gracious intention of becoming 

 Patroness of the Royal Irish Academy has been made known since the delivery of 

 this Address.— AVe hy President. 



