101 
what he calls the aconic function of a hexagon, at a future 
. meeting of the Academy. The equation itself was exhibited 
en ee ee eee ee 
i - nl al 
~ ~~, 
by him to some scientific friends so long ago as the August 
and September of 1849; and also at the Meeting of the 
British Association, at Edinburgh, in 1850. 
> 
AprRIL 14Tn, 1851. 
THOMAS ROMNEY ROBINSON, D.D., Presivent, 
in the Chair. 
Joun Barxer, M.B., and William Kelly, M.D., were 
elected Members of the Academy. 
George Petrie, LL. D., presented a specimen of a vitrified 
font in the County of Derry. 
The President delivered an inaugural Address. 
Ir was RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY,—That the President be 
| requested to allow his Address to be printed in the Proceedings. 
The President’s Address was as follows: 
GENTLEMEN,—It is my first duty to express my grateful ac- 
knowledgment of the honour which you have conferred on me; 
an honour high in the estimation of mankind, highest in mine. 
Other titles are attained most frequently by the accidents of posi- 
tion or birth; are even sometimes acquired by means which are 
positively degrading: they are occasionally the prizes of successful 
intrigue ; sometimes even the reward of crime. They are, there- 
fore, no accurate exponents of an individual’s superiority in that 
which constitutes the real nobility of man; their value is conven- 
tional, rated highest by the meanest minds, and negative, an actual 
dishonour, unless they be accompanied by the more sterling deco- 
rations of wisdom and virtue. But it is far otherwise with this. In 
naming me your chief, you have given me the first rank in a Soci- 
ety where all are noble; a Society whose franchise is based on per- 
sonal excellence, on moral worth, on intellectual superiority; whose 
