OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 305 



Foui'liundrecl and sixty-nintli meeting. 



September 13, 1859, — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The Corresponding Secretary read a letter from M. Liou- 

 ville, of Paris, in acknowledgment of the notice of his election 

 as a Foreign Honorary Member. Also various letters relating 

 to the exchanges of the Academy. 



Professor Peirce made a communication upon some of the 

 laws of Astronomical Cosmology. 



Professor Horsford gave an account of the so-called sap- 

 sand found in maple sugar, which he had ascertained to be a 

 neutral tartrate of lime. 



Dr. B. A. Gould, Jr. laid before the Academy a circular 

 from a committee of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, addressed to the friends of Astronomy, 

 being an appeal in behalf of a new attempt to determine the 

 solar parallax. 



Dr. Beck mentioned, that while on his late tour in Europe, 

 being in search of manuscripts of the Satyricon of Petronius 

 Arbiter, he found, in the Bibliotheca Ricardiana at Florence, 

 and the Bibliotheca Vaticana at Rome, two small manu- 

 scripts of grammatical or bibliographical contents, which he 

 believes have not yet been published. Both manuscripts 

 bear the name Petronius Arbiter, the Vatican manuscript 

 with the addition, " de antiquis dictionibus." The relation of 

 this fragment to A. Gellius, Nonius, and other authors of this 

 class, and the question whether the author has borrowed from 

 them or from common sources, are of some interest. The 

 fragment, although not of great importance, is of sufficient 

 interest to justify its publication. Dr. Beck hopes to be able, 

 from the two manuscripts and other means, to construct, 

 with one or two exceptions, a reliable text, which he intends 

 to append to the result of his inquiries concerning, the text 

 and manuscripts of the Satyricon^ which he is now engaged 

 in preparing. 



VOL. IV. 39 



