OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 235 



He made some remarks upon the orbit of the comet of 

 1843, considered as a straight line directed through the sun's 

 centre. 



Three hundred and thirty-fourth meeting, 



July 2, 1850. — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



The Corresponding Secretary communicated letters of ac- 

 ceptance from Professor Elias Fries of Sweden, and M. Mace- 

 doine Melloni of Naples, recently elected Foreign Members. 

 The latter gentleman states that he has sent to the Academy 

 the first volume of his work, " Sur la Coloration Calorifique," 

 in which he has demonstrated, as he believes, the identity of 

 light and heat. 



The Corresponding Secretary also communicated letters 

 from the Secretary of the Royal Institution, the Secretary of 

 the Linnaean Society, the Librarian of the British Museum, 

 and the President of the Academy of Breslau, acknowledging 

 the receipt of various publications of the Academy ; and two 

 letters from Petty Vaughan, Esq., recently deceased. 



Professor Peirce stated, that Mr. Schubert had discovered 

 that Spica is a double star, one of the component parts of 

 which is invisible. This conclusion was deduced by Mr. 

 Schubert from observations made from 1764 to 1847 inclusive, 

 and was said by Professor Peirce to rest on much stronger 

 grounds than the similar conclusions of Bessel in regard to 

 certain other stars. Spica has an irregular motion in right 

 ascension, and it revolves in fifty years at the distance of one 

 second and a half from the common centre of gravity of the 

 two. This discovery Professor Peirce considered a most re- 

 markable step in the progress of stellar astronomy. 



Mr. S. C. Walker exhibited to the Academy a drawing il- 

 lustrative of the results of experiments made by him on the 

 4th of February last, to determine the velocity of electricity, 



