Vie*w of Mr, WhewelPs Researches on the Tides. 351 



galvanic action. Two principal objects are accomplished by this 

 arrangement of the constituent parts of the battery ; first, the re- 

 moval out of the circuit of the oxide of zinc, the deposit of which 

 gradually reduces, and at length suspends, the action of the ordinary 

 battery ; and secondly, the absorption of the hydrogen evolved upon 

 the surface of the copper, without the precipitation of any substance 

 tending to counteract the voltaic action of that surface. 



The advantages likely to arise to science from the invention of 

 the constant voltaic battery are numerous and important. Mr. Da- 

 niell has shown how it may be made to supply a measure of chemical 

 affinity, and has applied it with effect in the investigation of the in- 

 fluence of changes of temperature on voltaic action. The construc- 

 tion of a constant battery of large dimensions, which he has recently 

 completed, has already opened new views of the possible application 

 to economical purposes of the powers of voltaic electricity, an agent, 

 of which the influence appears to be so energetic and so widely dif- 

 fused throughout nature. 



The Council have adjudged one of the Royal Medals, in con- 

 formity with the announcement made in 1834, to Mr. Whewell, for 

 his series of Researches on the subject of the Tides, which have been 

 published in our Transactions during the last three years. 



Mr. Whewell's researches have been chiefly directed to the three 

 following points : first, the motion of the tide-wave at different points 

 of the ocean ; secondly, the comparison of the observed laws at cer- 

 tain places with the theory ; and lastly, the laws of the diurnal in- 

 equality of the tide. 



It is to Mr. Lubbock that we are indebted for the first accurate 

 comparison of the theory of the tides as given by Bernoulli in his 

 treatise Du flux et reflux de la mer, with the results of observation 

 as deduced from a period of nineteen years in the port of London. 

 In this memoir, which was published in our Transactions for 1831, 

 there was given a most elaborate discussion by Mr. Dessiou, under 

 Mr. Lubbock's directions, of more than 13,000 observations, and 

 the results were of great importance, not merely as furnishing the 

 materials and the general rules for the construction of tide tables, but 

 also for the general accordance which they exhibited with the equi- 

 librium theory of Bernoulli, particularly with respect to the semimen- 

 strual inequality. This agreement was the more important, as af- 

 fording the indication of the real existence of a physical connection 

 between the theory and observation, and as consequently justifying 

 such a further examination of its consequences as might lead to the 

 discovery or suggestion of such modifications of it as would lead to 

 its general accordance with the laws of all the facts observed. 



In a subsequent discussion of the tides of Liverpool, published in 

 our Transactions in 1835 and 1836, Mr. Lubbock showed, as had 

 partly indeed been suggested by Mr. Whewell in his papers on the 

 empirical laws of the tides of London and Liverpool, that by refer- 

 ring the tide, not to the lunar transit immediately preceding, but 

 to an anterior lunar transit, one, two, or more days before, the 

 formulae furnished by the equilibrium theory would be brought into 



