S54 Royal Society, 



tol, Liverpool and Leith, to suspect that its progress along the coasts 

 of Europe and Great Britain was retarded according to some regular 

 law. His subsequent discussion, however, of the simultaneous ob- 

 servations made in June, 1835, with an especial view to this in- 

 equality, showed that the differences of diurnal inequality were go- 

 verned by local causes, and consequently negatived altogether the 

 hypothesis of its progressive propagation according to a law distinct 

 from that of the other inequalities of the tides. 



The preceding abstract of Mr. Whewell's Researches on the Tides 

 is necessarily very brief and imperfect, and little calculated to con- 

 vey to the minds of those who have not read his very extensive series 

 of memoirs an adequate notion of the amount of labour and of 

 thought which the discussion of such extensive series of observa- 

 tions must have required. 



The importance of the results which have been obtained by him 

 and Mr. Lubbock, may be best estimated by the rapid advancement 

 which has been made in our knowledge of the laws which regulate 

 the movements of the tides during the last six years, and which is 

 entirely owing to their joint labours. Theory, though little culti- 

 vated and little known, was then in advance of observation : tide 

 tables were constructed by unpublished rules, which formed a pro- 

 fitable possession to those to whom the secret was known : and the 

 distinctive characters of the tides in the different ports of this king- 

 dom, that of Liverpool perhaps excepted, were confined to the expe- 

 rience and tact of those who were accustomed to use them ; but how 

 different is the case at present I The rules for the construction of tide 

 tables are not only public property, but are based upon the most ex- 

 tensive observations : laws, whose existence was hardly suspected, 

 are now distinctly laid down : the progress of the waves in the most 

 frequented parts of the ocean is beginning to be accurately deve- 

 loped : theory, which was formerly in advance of observation, 

 though greatly improved in those parts of it which do not involve 

 the hydrodynamical laws of the ocean, is now greatly behind it ; 

 and such a basis of facts has been laid down as may enable the 

 mathematician to commence such a series of investigations, as may 

 terminate in enabling another Laplace to give to the theory of the 

 tides a form which may rival, in the certainty of its predictions, the 

 almost perfect theories of physical astronomy*. 



The following were then elected as Officers and of Council : 

 President. — His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, K.G. 

 Treasurer. — Francis Baily, Esq. Secretaries. — Peter Mark Roget, 

 M.D. ; Samuel Hunter Christie, Esq., M.A. Foreign Secretary. — 

 William Henry Smyth, Capt. R.N. Other Members of the Council. — 

 John Bostock, M.D. ; The Earl of Burlington ; John George Chil- 

 dren, Esq.; John Frederick Daniell, Esq.; Sir Philip Grey Eger- 

 ton, Bart. ; Davies Gilbert, Esq., D.C.L. ; Charles Konig, Esq. ; 

 The Marquis of Northampton ; Rev.George Peacock, M.A. ; William 

 Hasledine Pepys, Esq. ; Stephen Peter Rigaud, Esq., M.A. ; John 



♦ Abstracts of Mr. Wliewell's papers on the tides will be found in Lond. 

 andEdinb. Phil. Mag., vol. iii. p. 216; vol. iv. p. 223; vol. vii. p. 136; 

 vol. viii. p. 147,430, 547 J vol. ix p. 528; vol. x. p. 317, 380; vol. xi. p. 195. 



