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XIII. Notices respecting New Books. 



Six Lectures on Astronomy delivered at the Meetings of the Friends 

 of the Ipswich Museum. By George Biddell Airy. Astronomer 

 Royal. London : Simpkin and Marshall. 8vo. pp. 247. 



WE wish to call attention to this work, on account of its intrinsic 

 merits, and the circumstances under which it was produced. 

 About four years ago, some of the leading inhabitants of Ipswich, 

 feeling a deep interest in the welfare of the working classes, and 

 believing that the cultivation of the intellect would tend greatly to 

 promote their physical and moral improvement, resolved to establish 

 an institution for this especial object. A museum was formed con- 

 taining books, scientific instruments, specimens of the fine arts, 

 natural history, geology, &c., to which admittance twice a week, free 

 of charge, has been granted to all. From time to time, as oppor- 

 tunity served, intelligible and untechnical lectures in various branches 

 of science have been delivered, which have been very numerously 

 attended. To show the quality of the instruction afforded, it is suf- 

 ficient to say that the Astronomer Royal, Professors Sedgwick, 

 Henslow, Owen, E. Forbes, Ansted, Playfair, &c. have been the 

 lecturers. The museum has been most handsomely supported by 

 the inhabitants of the town and the neighbouring nobility and gentry, 

 and is now very rich in several departments. It is not the least 

 pleasing characteristic of this admirable institution, that it has been 

 founded and supported by a union of persons of different ranks, 

 politics and religion, who seem to have felt no difficulty in discover- 

 ing a wide neutral space in which all good citizens may agree. 

 Members of the Society of Friends have been most zealous in this 

 good work ; indeed it is, we believe, to JVTr. George Ransome, one 

 of the honorary secretaries, that a very large portion of the merit is 

 due; but two successive Bishops of Norwich have presided at the 

 harmonious anniversary meetings, and the names we have just cited 

 as coadjutors show that nothing narrow or exclusive has entered 

 into the management. It is equally agreeable to state, that the 

 general good conduct of the j)ersons for whom this institution was 

 mainly formed has fully equalled the expectations of their well- 

 wishers. At Ipswich, as in most places where the experiment has 

 been fairly and judiciously tried, confidence in the people has been 

 met on their side by a strong sense of self-respect and responsibility. 



To assist this excellent institution, the Astronomer Royal, who 

 had long been intimately connected with some of its principal pro- 

 moters, offered to deliver a course of lectures on astronomy, which 

 was gladly accepted. The nature of the lectures was announced in 

 the following words : — 



** To point out simple methods of coarsely observing the funda- 

 mental phaenomena of astronomy — to describe some of the methods 

 of an astronomical observatory — to indicate the degrees and kinds of 

 evidence of the different parts of the received astronomical system— 



