Reviews, and Notices respecting New Books. 1 29 



the statement of Dr. Dalton, long since published ; for he 

 mentions that the red oxide, left after the action of dilute 

 acetic acid upon common red-lead, consists of an atom of 

 oxygen, and three atoms of yellow oxide, which are of course 

 equivalent to four atoms of oxygen, and three of metal. 



XXVIII. Reviews, and Notices respecting New Books. 



Report of the First and Second Meetings of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science ; at York in 1831, and at Oxford 

 in 1 832 ; including its Proceedings, Recommendations, and Trans- 

 actions. London, 1833, 8vo, pp. 624-; with an engraved Geolo- 

 gical Section through Europe. 



[Continued from vol. ii. p. 464.] 



IN concluding our account of Prof. Airy's Report on the progress 

 of Astronomy, we have to remark that he has omitted to notice 

 certain important observations of Saturn, of recent date, the state- 

 ment of which would have formed part of his sixth section. We do 

 this in the spirit of endeavouring to render still more complete, so 

 far as our reading enables us, his meritorious labours, and not at all 

 in that of complaining of a single omission, in a series of details pro- 

 bably more copious and more comprehensive than any similar col- 

 lection. The observations to which we allude are those made in 

 1828 by MM. Schwabe and Harding, repeated with doubtful result 

 by Sir J. South and Sir J. Herschel, but subsequently confirmed by 

 Struve, (all recorded in the Monthly Notices of the Astronomical 

 Society,) which have shown that the rings are not absolutely con- 

 centric with the body of Saturn, and the theoretical importance' of 

 which (subsequently, however, to the printing of Prof. Airy's Report) 

 has been pointed out and explained by Sir John Herschel*. 



Professor Airy's Report is followed by a short " Report on the 

 Tides" by Mr. Lubbock : It commences with a brief sketch of the 

 successive improvements which the theory of the tides has under- 

 gone, from the time when the details left open by Newton were taken 

 up by Bernoulli, Euler, and Maclaurin, to the prize question on the 

 general problem proposed last year by the Academy of Sciences at 

 Petersburgh. This is followed by some historical and critical remarks 



* See Phil. Mag. and Annals, N.S., vol. iv. pp. 62, 136; and Sir John 

 Herschel's volume on Astronomy in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, p. 284. It 

 occurs to us that it would be at once interesting and useful, as much diffe- 

 rence of opinion still exists in the scientific world, on the precise character 

 of the relative value possessed by observation and experiment, and by mathe- 

 matical investigation, respectively, if some competent authority would reply 

 explicitly to the following question : — Had the oscillation of the centre of 

 gravity of the rings round that of the body of Saturn been demonstrated theo- 

 retically before it had been observed ? or has the observation of the fact (pre- 

 viously unsuspected) produced an improvement in the theory i 1 The fact 

 was no sooner established than the necessity of it became evident } but had 

 it been predicted by mathematical theory, or not? 



Third Series. Vol. 3. No. 14. Aug. 1833. S 



