Royal Society. 375 



Children, and no alterations were made except for the correction of 

 errors obviously arising from inaccurate transcription. The Council 

 have also directed a general Index to be made of the contents of the 

 Transactions from the year 1821 to 1830 inclusive. 



Documents relating to the periods and heights of the Tides having 

 been furnished to the Society, at the request of the Council, by favour 

 of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, who have obligingly 

 ordered these returns to be made from the principal sea-ports of En- 

 gland, a Committee has been appointed for the purpose of examining 

 and digesting them, and for printing such of the observations or 

 results as they may deem useful. 



The Committee for conducting the Meteorological Observations 

 have been anxious to arrange a plan for insuring their accuracy, and 

 increasing their utility. They find that standard instruments are 

 much wanted for furnishing correct data in this department of science. 

 This deficiency they are endeavouring to supply; and have in par- 

 ticular been promised the kind assistance of Mr. Daniell and Dr. 

 Prout in superintending the construction of a standard barometer of 

 superior accuracy, on the indications of which they expect that the 

 utmost reliance may be placed. 



The telescope, which the Council, with the advice of a Committee, 

 had requested Mr. Barlow to construct as an experiment, on the 

 principles stated by him in his paper in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, is now completed, and will soon be ready for trial. 



The Council have awarded one of the Copley Medals to Mr. 

 Faraday, for his discovery of Magneto-Electricity, as explained by 

 him in his Experimental Researches in Electricity, published in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for the present year. 



Oersted's important discovery of the influence of voltaic electricity 

 on a magnetic needle, was rapidly succeeded by a series of minor 

 ones, all tending to establish the existence of an intimate connexion 

 between magnetism and electricity. The evidence, however, of that 

 connexion, resting, as it did, on the mutual influence of magnets 

 and wires in which electric currents passed, and in the development 

 or induction of magnetism by electricity, was positive on one side 

 only j to render it conclusive, it remained to be shown that elec- 

 tricity could be excited by magnetism : and this, by a series of ex- 

 periments as simple as they are beautiful, founded on a train of 

 correct reasoning, Mr. Faraday has happily accomplished. 



Although the Council consider that the discovery of magneto-elec- 

 tricity fully entitles its author to the Copley Medal, they by no means 

 limit the value of the papers in which it is detailed to this discovery, 

 however important. Even the preliminary facts, as they fully esta- 

 blish volta-electric induction, had they at the time led no further, 

 would have been of the greatest value j but they were in hands in 

 which they could not long remain barren, and the expectation they 

 held out of important results was soon realized. Beyond the 

 details of the discovery, the author rapidly but clearly establishes 

 the laws according to which electric currents are excited by a magnet. 

 He satisfactorily applies these laws to the explanation of »a very in- 

 teresting class of phenomena previously observed, namely, the reci- 



