1864.] 487 [Chase. 



Mr. Osborne exhibited a portfolio of reproductions of en- 

 gravings, pen-and-ink drawings, maps, &c., of great excel- 

 lence, and some of them of rare beauty, fully justifying, in 

 the opinion of the members present, his views of the merits 

 and utility of the process. 



President Smith exhibited a piece of lignite from the 

 Dutch Gap Canal, just excavated by the troops of General 

 Butler, to facilitate the operations carried on against Rich- 

 mond. 



The stated business of the meeting being called for, it was, 

 on motion of Prof. Cresson, resolved, that the subject of the 

 claim signed " Torricelli" was worthy of the Magellanic 

 Premium. 



The members were then required by the terms of the Fund 

 to declare whether they had considered the subject, so as to 

 entitle them to vote ; whereupon the members so making 

 declaration voted, by ballot. The ballot-boxes were then 

 scrutinized by the presiding officer, who announced that the 

 vote was unanimous, and in favor of bestowing the premium 

 upon the claimant. 



The sealed package was then opened by the President, and 

 the name of Mr. Pliny Earle Chase was read. 



Philadelphia, October 1, 1864. 



Dr. George B. Wood, 



President of the American Philosophical Society. 



Dear Sir : I offer, for a Magellanic Premium, the discovery of 

 certain new relations between the solar- and lunar-diurnal variations 

 of magnetic force and of barometric pressure. 



The experiments upon mechanical polarity, which were exhibited 

 to the Philosophical Society at its meeting of April 1, 1864, and the 

 series of communications to the Philosophical and Royal Societies, 

 of which those experiments formed a part, have shown that the sim- 

 ple aerial and aethereal currents which are produced by the combi- 

 nation of solar and lunar action with rotation, are sufficient to polar- 

 ize the atmosphere, and through its specific magnetism to impart a 

 directive polar energy to a magnetized needle. 



