PROCEEDINGS. 



Eight hundred and forty-third Meeting. 



May 26, 1891. — Annual Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The death of D. Ceeilio Pujazon, Director of the San Fer- 

 nando Observatory, was announced ; also, the death of Carl 

 Wilhelm von Naegeli, of Munich, and of Carl Johann Maxi- 

 mowicz, of St. Petersburg, Foreign Honorary Members. 



The Corresponding Secretary read the annual report of 

 the Council. 



The Treasurer and the Librarian presented their annual 

 reports. 



The following report was presented : — 



Report of the Rumford Committee. 



The Committee have held various meetings during the year with 

 reference to the selection of a suitable candidate for the Rumford 

 Medals. They respectfully submit that, in their opinion, the work of 

 Professor E. C. Pickering on the photometry of the stars, and his 

 work upon Stellar Spectra, fully justify the award to him of the Rum- 

 ford Medals. By his invention of the meridian photometer he has 

 succeeded in bringing order out of the chaos of photometric measure- 

 ments hitherto made, by referring the photometric measures of all 

 other stars to that of the Pole-star, and thus furnishing an estimate 

 of the change of brightness of the stars with reference to the standard 

 Pole-star. Estimates of the brightness of this star are also made, so 

 that the photometry of the stars has been put upon a basis never 

 before attained. 



In his work upon the Draper memorial, Professor Pickering, adopt- 

 ing the method of Frauenhofer, and greatly enlarging the prisms and 

 objectives employed by the latter, has succeeded in obtaining Stellar 



