300 Royal Astronomical Society. 



were introduced the two important principles of dry condensation, 

 and the metallic piston. From this date, till his death in 1823, Dr. 

 Cartwright occasionally contributed to our pages. His experiments 

 on salt as a manure and as a remedy against mildew, and his inven- 

 tion of a locomotive carriage, are all described in the First Series of 

 this Magazine (see vols, xxiii. liii. and lvi.). 



We think that we observe in the Essay on Manures in the Appendix, 

 already mentioned, the germs of many of those inductions respecting 

 the action of manures in general, and their relations to the growth 

 of plants, which now occupy so considerable a share of the public 

 attention, and which, both from the dazzling generality and from 

 the explicitness with which they have been recently brought forward, 

 have not in all cases been referred to their true authors ; which, re- 

 garded as new, are in reality due to some of those masters in science, 

 and some of those insulated experimenters like Dr. Cartwright, who 

 preceded the present age, and whom neither acceptance nor rejection, 

 neither praise nor depreciation, can now affect. 



The Memoir before us is written in a perspicuous though simple 

 and unpretending style. Dr. Cartwright's merits and history might 

 well have been treated in a more elaborate manner and have occu- 

 pied a larger volume ; but possibly both the mode and the extent 

 adopted by the author may be more likely to obtain adequate per- 

 usal and consideration. The theme offers much for reflection, and 

 itself urges upon the attention of the reader the importance to the 

 actual well-being and future prospects of society, of encouraging by 

 every legitimate means those who devote themselves to the invention 

 and discovery, the improvement and the practical elaboration of 

 processes of art and manufacture. The grateful regard of individuals 

 and entire classes, of governments and nations, is alike claimed by 

 such men as Dr. Cartwright ; but, to make it most effectual in pro- 

 moting the common good, it should be accorded during their lifetime ; 

 it should prove the stimulus to the fresh and continued exertion of 

 those faculties the exercise of which had originally called it forth, 

 the constantly accruing reward of the self-denial and the innume- 

 rable trials and privations which even the most successful speculator 

 or inventor must inevitably endure. 



XLVI. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. 

 [Continued from vol. xxiii. p. 475.] 

 Nov. 10, r TPHE following communications were read : — 



1843. -* I. Description of a small Observatory constructed at 

 Poona in the year 1842, accompanied by observations of Eclipses, &c. 

 of Jupiter's Satellites. By Lieut. W. S. Jacob, R.N. For these 

 we refer to vol. vi. No. 1 of the Monthly Notices of the Society. 



II. The following communications concerning the Great Comet 

 of 1843*:— 



[* Preceding communications on the comet have been noticed in vol. 

 xxiii. p. 472, &c] 



