92 



March IGth, 1848. (Stated Meeting). 



REV. HUMPHREY LLOYD, D. D., President, 

 in the Chair. 



The following Report from the Council was read by the 

 Secretary : 



The Council are happy to be able to announce that the second 

 part of the twenty-first volume of the Transactions of the Academy 

 is now ready, and will be delivered to Members in a few days. 



It contains some very valuable papers, in each of the three de- 

 partments of the Academy's objects : amongst which it may suffice 

 to particularize, in the department of Science, Mr. Haughton's very 

 beautiful Essay on the Equilibrium and Motion of solid and fluid 

 Bodies ; and Sir "William Hamilton's theory of Quaternions. This 

 theory is as yet in its infancy, but there is every reason to believe 

 that it will ultimately become a recognised branch of Mathematics. 

 If so, the Academy will share with its illustrious author in the 

 honour of having produced the greatest improvement in pure ana- 

 lysis that has been made since the time of Des Cartes. The applica- 

 tion of this Calculus to the theory of the Moon has already been 

 found to introduce great simplifications into the laborious and com- 

 plicated investigations necessary in the ordinary method of co-ordi- 

 nates ; and has solved the Newtonian problem of the disturbance of 

 the moon by the sun, to the extent of the third dimension of the 

 distance. In its application to the system of the world, the well- 

 known principles of the conservation of the vis viva, and of areas, 

 and other laws of planetary motions in their most general form, are 

 amongst the earliest and most elementary of its results. 



Another important feature of the volume will be found to be 

 the papers in the department of Polite Literature, by Dr. Hincks 

 and Dr. Wall, upon the Hieroglyphic or ancient Egyptian alphabet, 

 and upon the three kinds of Persepolitan Writing. These subjects, 

 it is well known, have already engaged the attention of the most 

 eminent scholars of Europe, and it is hoped that the additional 

 light thrown on them in the present volume of the Transactions 



