212 lioi/al Society, 



The Council have awarded a Copley Medal to Baron Berzelius for 

 his application of the Doctrine of Definite Proportions in Deter- 

 mining the Constitution of Minerals. To the labours of this distin- 

 guished chemist^ science is indebted for many of the facts by which the 

 Laws of Definite Union were established. As early as 1807, soon after 

 Dalton and Gay-Lussac had made known their views on this vital 

 branch of modern chemistry, Berzelius commenced an elaborate ex- 

 amination on the proportions in which the elements of compound 

 bodies are united, beginning with the salts, and subsequently extend- 

 ing his researches to all other departments of his science, as well to 

 the products of organized existences as to those of the mineral 

 world. The first part of the inquiry appeared in a series of essays in 

 the Afhandlingar i Fysik, Kemi, och Mineralogie, t. ili. iv. v. and 

 vi., as also in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences of Stock- 

 holm, for the year 1813. Since that period he has almost constantly 

 been more or less occupied with researches bearing on, or illustrative 

 of, the same subject. His numerous analyses of minerals enabled 

 him at once to elucidate their nature through the light derived from 

 the laws of definite combination, and at the same time to supply in 

 the composition of minerals a splendid confirmation of the universa- 

 lity of those laws. It is for this branch of his inquiry that the Copley 

 has been awarded. 



A Copley Medal is also awarded to Francis Kiernan, Esq., for his 

 discoveries relative to the Structure of the Liver, as detailed in his 

 paper communicated to the Royal Society, and published in the Phi- 

 losophical Transactions for 1833. 



Before the researches of Mr. Kiernan, the liver was supposed to 

 consist of two dissimilar substances, composed of bro-vn pirenchy- 

 matous granules, contained in a yellow substratum. The relation 

 of the vessels and excretory ducts to these supposed dissimilar sub- 

 stances was not known j nor, although ihe organ was considered 

 to be a conglomerate gland, were the glandules of which it was con- 

 jectured to be composed, defined in magnitude, shape, or disposition. 

 Mr. Kiernan's discoveries show that in place of two textures there 

 exists but one j and that the difference of colour results from the 

 accidental congestion of one or other of the systems of vessels, which 

 are found in the liver. Mr. Kiernan has further satisfactorily de- 

 monstrated the size and limits of the integral glandules of which 

 the liver consists. He has traced the relation to these glandules of 

 the different orders of vessels, which are distributed through the organ, 

 and has explained the mechanism of biliary secretion. He has 

 shown that all the blood employed in secreting bile is venous ; and 

 that the origins of the biliary ducts differ in an important respect 

 from the origins of the ducts of all other glands : inasmuch as they 

 form a series, not of coiled or branching tubes, but of anastomosing 

 vessels, constituting a tubular network. 



Mr. Kiernan's researches display great industry and ingenuity ; 

 when foiled by the difficulties which had foiled preceding anatomists, he 

 applied a principle that had not been thought of before to facilitate 

 the investigation of structure. Hitherto, however eminent the En- 



