412 Hoy at Society. 



this Society. On the 13th of March 1845, after delivering his usual 

 lecture at King's College, apparently in perfect health, he attended 

 the Council Meeting of this Society, and shortly after making some 

 observation upon the business of the meeting, was seized with sym- 

 ptoms indicating an attack of apoplexy. Several medical men who 

 were present hastened to his relief, and he was immediately bled ; 

 not the slightest benefit, however, attended this measure, and in five 

 minutes he was a corpse. The shock occasioned by this melancholy 

 event, may be easier imagined than described, and cast a wide- 

 spread gloom over the extensive circle" of his friends and acquaint- 

 ance. As a mark of respect to his memory, the Noble President 

 postponed the ordinary meeting of the Society, which was to have 

 been held that evening. His remains were interred at Norwood, 

 Surrey, where during the last ten years of his life he had resided. 



Mr. Daniell survived his wife eleven years, and left a family of 

 two sons and five daughters to deplore his loss. High as were his 

 scientific attainments, he possessed others of a still loftier and more 

 enduring character ; to the sterling qualities of a vigorous under- 

 standing, and a kind and benevolent heart, he united the humble 

 and unobtrusive piety of a sincere christian. 



Mr. George Bassevi, an architect of distinguished reputation. 

 Jaques Dominique Cassini, Compte du Thury, was elected a 

 Foreign Member of this Society in 1789, and at the time of his 

 death had attained the extraordinary age of 97 years : he was the 

 fourth in direct descent of a family which, during a period of nearly 

 two centuries, has been singularly illustrious in the history of the 

 sciences, and more particularly of astronomy. His great grand- 

 father, Jaques Dominique Cassini, one of the greatest astronomers 

 of his age, was born in 1625, and was invited by Louis XIV. 

 from Italy to France, to preside over the magnificent Observatory 

 of Paris, which was built under his directions : his first successor in 

 the direction of this establishment was his son Jean Jaques, an 

 astronomer not less eminent than himself; the second his grandson, 

 more commonly designated as Cassini de Thury, so well known by 

 his great Geodetical Survey and Map of France ; and the third his 

 great grandson, the subject of the present notice, who was displaced 

 from it by the troubles of the Revolution, which involved him, at 

 least for a time, in the common proscription of the aristocracy of 

 France. The shock of these sad events seems to have diverted his 

 mind from scientific pursuits, for we find his name connected with 

 no research in astronomy or geodesy during the last half-century. 



The Comte de Cassini completed the celebrated map of France 

 which had been begun by his father. He published an account of 

 voyages which he made in 1768 and 1769, for the trial of the 

 marine chronometers of Le Roy, and a memoir " Sur l'influence de 

 l'equinoxe du printemps et du solstice d'ete sur les declinaisons et 

 les variations de l'aiguille aimantee :" he superintended and pub- 

 lished an account of the observations which were made in 1789, by 

 a commission appointed for that purpose, for the junction of the 

 Observatories of Paris and Greenwich, with a special reference to 



