284 
Dr. Suerman,* to which allusion has been made, they seem (as has 
been said) to confirm as closely as could be expected, under the differing 
circumstances of the experiments, the results of Dr. Apjohn ; of whose 
labours, indeed, that eminent foreigner has spoken in the most hand- 
some terms, and in favour of whom he has freely waived, upon this 
subject, all contest for priority. But even if among the many per- 
sons who now are cultivating science in many distant countries, and 
whose results are sometimes long in coming to the knowledge of 
each other, it should be found that some one has anticipated our 
countryman and brother academician in the publication or invention 
of the method which I have endeavoured briefly to describe to you, or 
if, on the other hand, his own future reflections and experiments, or 
those of any other person, shall indicate hereafter the necessity of any 
new improvement, your Council still will have no cause to regret that 
they have adjudged the present distinction t#a paper which contains 
so much of independent thought, and so much of positive merit. 
[The President then delivered the Medal to Doctor Apjohn, 
addressing him as follows.] 
Doctor Apjohn, 
In the name of the Royal Irish Academy, I present to you this 
Medal, for your investigations respecting the specific heats of the 
gases; hoping that it will be received and valued by you, as attesting 
our sense of the services which you have already rendered to that 
important and delicate department of physical research ; and that it 
will also be to you a stimulus and an encouragement to pursue the 
same inquiry further still, so as to improve still more the results al- 
ready obtained, and to establish other new ones ; and thus to connect, 
more and more closely, your name and our Transactions with the 
history ofthis part of Science. 
the known number 0,267 the quotient is the specific heat of the gas compared with 
that of an equal volume of atmospheric air: and the sensible inequality of the 
specific heats so found, for different simple gases, is the chief physical conclusion 
of the paper. 
* It is proper to remember that Dr. Suerman published his Dissertation without 
having seen the last and most correct results of Dr. Apjohn, contained in the 
present prize Essay. This remark applies particularly to the specific heat of 
hydrogen. 
