By T. S. Maskelyne. 131 
of the four vols. of observations which he has published, that if by any great 
revolution the works of all other astronomers were lost, and this collection pre- 
served, it would contain sufficient materials to raise again nearly entire the 
edifice of modern astronomy, which cannot be said of any other collection.” 
Up to Dr. Maskelyne’s time the observations made at the Royal 
Observatory were considered the private property of the observers, 
and had never been published; it was he who saw the great im- 
portance of their annual publication, and who, together with the 
P.R.S., induced the Royal Society to undertake it, giving rise to 
Delambre’s remark “ Et c’est par la qu ’il a merité d’étre pendant 
40 ans le chef et comme le regulateur des astronomes.” 
His communications to the Royal Society are numerous, as will 
be seen by the list of his works appended to this notice of his life. 
He was presented by the Council of the Royal Society with the 
gold Copley Medal, for his work in 1774 of ‘“ weighing the world 
from the flanks of Schehallien,”’! a mountain in Perthshire, “by 
which the mean density of the earth was computed and its central 
attraction according to the Newtonian theory first demonstrated.” 
“The apparent difference of latitude between two stations on 
opposite sides of the mountain being compared with the real 
difference of latitude obtained by triangulation.” 
7 
Besides the Copley Medal he received :— 
A gold medal, from the Elector of Hanover. 
A gold medal, from Stanislaus, King of Poland. 
A medal of the Abbé Poczubut (Astronomer to the King of 
Poland) in token of his friendship, in 1777. 
A bronze medal from Catherine of Russia, together with a 
diploma? making him foreign member of the Imperial 
Academy of Science of St. Petersburg, 1776. 
A silver medal from the Institut National des Sciences et des 
Arts at Paris, twelfth year of the French Republic. 
