NOTE 



The statutes of the Academy authorize the Corresponding and Re- 

 cording Secretaries " to publish in an octavo form such of the pro- 

 ceedings of the Academy as may seem to them calculated to advance 

 the interests of science." As the matter to be published in this volume 

 consisted in part of papers referred by votes of the Academy to the 

 Committee on Publications, the duty of publication seemed to have 

 devolved in part upon that committee. This volume has accordingly 

 been published by the Corresponding and Recording Secretaries and 

 the chairman of the Committee on Publications. 



The abstracts of remarks made at the meetings of the Academy, 

 which are printed in small type, or included within quotation-marks, 

 have not been copied from the records of the Academy's proceedings, 

 but furnished, at the request of the Recording Secretary, by the Fel- 

 lows respectively by whom the remarks were made. The following 

 abstracts should also have been included within quotation-marks : — 

 Professor Horsford's, pp. 238, 239, and pp. 295, 296 ; Professor 

 Peirce's, pp. 256, 257 ; Mr. Alger's, pp. 263, 264 ; Mr. Desor's, p. 

 282 ; and Dr. W. F. Channing's, pp. 282, 283. 



An Index to Volume I. follows the Index to Volume II. ; but it is 

 printed so that it can be easily separated from this volume and bound 

 up with the volume to which it belongs. 



May 24, 1852. 



