224 Royal Astronomical Society. 



exertion all their faculties, intellectual and corporeal. It is no slight 

 and desultory exercise of those faculties which will enable any man 

 to carry into effect so much thoughtful combination, and to avail 

 himself with so much consecutiveness of their results when produced. 

 And however we may and must acknowledge that such a com-se of 

 action is really calculated to confer a very high degree of enjoyment 

 and happiness, we ought not to feel the less gratefully towards those 

 who, by their personal example, press forward the advent of that 

 higher phase of civilization which some fancy they see not indistinctly 

 dawning around them ; a civilization founded on the general and 

 practical recognition of the superiority of the pleasures of mind over 

 those of sense ; a civilization which may dispense with luxury and 

 splendour, but not with the continual and rapid progress of know- 

 ledge in science and excellence in art. 



1 think I should hradly be doing full justice to my subject or to 

 the grounds taken by the Council in the award, if I were to conclude 

 what I have to say otherwise than in the pointed and em[)hatic words 

 of a report officially embodying the prominent features of the case. 

 ♦' 7'he simple facts," says that document, " are, that Mr. Lassell cast 

 his own mirror, polished it by machinery of his own contrivance, 

 mounted it equatorially in his own fiishion, and placed it in an 

 observatory of his own engineering : that with this instrument he 

 discovered the satellite of Neptune, the eighth satellite of Saturn, 

 and re-observed the satellites of Uranus. A private man, of no 

 large means, in a bad climate" (nothing, 1 understand, can be much 

 worse), "and with little leisure, he has anticipated, or rivalled, by 

 the work of his own hands, the contrivance of his own brain and the 

 outlay of his own pocket, the magnificent refractors with which the 

 Emperor of Russia and the citizens of Boston have endowed the 

 observatories of Pulkowa and the Western Cambridge." 



The President then, delivering the medal to Mr. Lassell, addressed 

 him in the following terms : — 



And now, Mr. Lassell, all that remains for me is to place the 

 medal in your hands, aD,tl to congratulate you on your success and 

 on the noble prospect of future discovery which lies before you, 

 now that, free from the preliminary labour of construction, your 

 whole attention can be devoted to using the powerful means you 

 have created. In the examination of the nebulae, in the measure- 

 ment of the closest double stars, and the discovery of others which 

 have hitherto defied separation — in the physical examination of the 

 planets and comets of our own system, there is a wide field open and 

 the sure promise of an ample harvest ; and I can only add that we 

 all heartily wish you health and long life to reap it. 



The Meeting then proceeded to the election of the Council for the 

 ensuing year, when the following Fellows were elected, viz. — 



President,— G. B. Airy, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., Ast. Koy. 



Vice-Presidents. — J. C. Adams, Esq.,M.A.; Edward Riddle, Esq.; 

 Rev. Richard Sheepshanks, M.A., F.R.S. ; Lieut. William Stratford, 

 R.N., F.R.S. 



Treasurer, — George Bishop, Esq. 



