146 Royal Society. 



science, have been taken from us during the last year, there is one 

 name remaining which I cannot notice without feelings of the most 

 painful embarrassment. To what class shall I, or can I refer it ; 

 to the living or to the dead? Though my fears tend too strongly 

 to make me decide upon the choice of the latter, yet I would lain 

 indulge in the hope which is still afforded by the uncertainty, 

 mournful though it be, which hangs over the fate of the gallant and 

 adventurous Captain Ross. The object of his voyage, as is well 

 known to you, was the solution of a nautical problem of the greatest 

 interest and difficulty, — the discovery of a north-west passage. It is 

 a problem which more than any other excited and baffled the adven- 

 turous spirit of our most daring seamen of the age of Elizabeth ; and 

 when subsequently resumed, chiefly upon the authority of the in- 

 genious speculations of Daines Barrington, a distinguished Member 

 of this Society, and of others of later date, the first attempt of Cap- 

 tain Ross himself and the memorable voyage of Parry, as well as the 

 journey of Franklin, have shown how visionary were all hopes of its 

 successful solution for the purposes of commerce, however interest- 

 ing it might be for those of science. It was the failure of the 

 first voyage of Captain Ross, and the apparent censure which he 

 conceived rested upon him, in consequence of the greater success of 

 the attempt of his immediate successor in this enterprise, which op- 

 pressed his high and manly spirit, and made him seek, with the 

 greatest possible earnestness, for an opportunity of vindicating his 

 professional character. With the assistance of some of his friends he 

 planned another voyage, and nearly three years ago he proceeded 

 to put it into execution. It is to dispel the mystery attendant upon 

 that voyage, of which no tidings have been yet received, and to re- 

 lieve the misery under which the friends and relations of Captain 

 Ross and his gallant crew are lingering, that a vessel is now pre- 

 paring, under the command of an able and experienced officer, to 

 pursue the track which he probably followed. I have consented, at 

 the request of the Royal Geographical Society, to be placed at the 

 head of the Committee which has been formed for the aid and 

 furtherance of this benevolent plan, and I confidently hope that the 

 funds which are necessary to complete this undertaking will not be 

 found wanting. 



The name of nearly every distinguished foreigner who has been 

 lost to science during the last year has appeared upon the Foreign 

 List of the Royal Society, and I cannot help considering it as a cir- 

 cumstance which does honour to the Royal Society, that it should 

 thus have associated with it whoever is most eminent in the great 

 aristocracy of European science. It is my wish, Gentlemen, and I 

 feel assured that it is yours also, that the Royal Society should em- 

 brace the name of every distinguished man of science in the British 

 dominions. At the last Anniversary it was my pleasing duty to pre- 

 sent the Copley Medal to Professor Airy, — a name which would do 

 honour to any Society, but which does not yet appear in the list of 

 our Members : and I lament that I am not allowed to commemorate 

 the name of that very distinguished philosopher, Sir John Leslie, 



