1825,] 
[49 ] 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
—a—— 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
HE meetings were resumed after the 
long vacation, on Thursday 181h No- 
vember. Capt. Douglas Chas. Claver- 
ing was admitted; and R. Penn, Esq. 
was elected a Fellow of the Society. Dr. 
Babington, Sir T. S. Raffles, and Messrs. 
Baily, MacLeary, and Herschel, were 
elected auditors. 
Thursday, Nov. 25.—The Cronian lec- 
ture was read by Sir Everard Home, Bart., 
in which he announced his discovery of 
nerves in the foetal and maternal placenta. 
A paper was also communicated by him 
on the changes the ovum of the Frog under- 
goes during the formation of the Tadpole. 
An elaborate paper was communicated 
by W. Whewell, Esq., F.R.S., on a general 
method of calcwating the Angles made by 
any planes of crystals, and the laws according 
to which they are formed. This paper, as 
might be expected from Mr. Whewell, is 
profound in mathematical illustzation. 
The Anniversary Meeting of the Society 
was held as usual’ on. St. Andrew's Day, 
Nov. 30, :—The illustrious President, an- 
nounced the following additions made to 
the number of members of the Society 
since the last Anniversary :—John Bailey, 
esq. ; Anthony Mervin Storey, esq. ; 
Mr. Michael Faraday; Charles Scuda- 
more, M.D.; Thomas Amyott, esq. ; 
William Wavell, mM. p.; Rey. Edw. Malt- 
by, D.D.; John Jebb, Lord Bishop of 
Limerick ; Capt. Philip Parker King, z.n. 
Major-General Sir John Malcolm, c. c. B. ; 
Horatio, Earl of Orford; Woodbine Par- 
ish, esq. ; Sir Francis Shuckburgh, bart. ; 
Edmund Henry Lushington, esq. ; Rev. 
Edmund Goodenough, v.p. ; John Gage, 
esq.; Charles Mackintosh, esq.; Rey, 
William Vernon; Lieut. Henry Foster, 
R.N.; Capt. Douglas Charles Clavering, 
rR. N.: Rey. Baden Powell, M. a. ; Major 
Charles Hamilton Smith; William Scores- 
by, jun., esq. He also enumerated the 
Fellows of the Royal Society deceased dur- 
ing the year: —Carsten Anker, esq. ; James 
Peter Auriol, esq. ; George Lord Byron; 
Thomas Chevalier, esq.; William Fal- 
coner, M. D.; Mr. Wilson Lowry ; Francis 
Maseres, Baron ; Sir Thomas Plumer, knt.; 
Sir Thomas Reid, bart.; Rev. Thomas 
Rennel, b..p. ; John Walker, esq. ; 
On reading over this list, the President 
observed that the only contributor and ac- 
tive member of the Society, he was called 
upon to notice, was Baron Maseres, who 
might be considered as belonging to the 
old mathematical school of Britain, who 
devoted much of his leisure, and a portion 
of his fortune, to the pursuit and encourage- 
ment of the higher departments of algebra 
and geometry; and shewed his disinter- 
ested attachment to science by his own 
_ publications, and by the liberality with 
which he encouraged those of others, 
Montuty Mac. No. 406, 
He died in extreme old age, haying almost 
outlived his facilties. He then proceeded to 
announce the award of the medal on Sir 
Godfrey Copley’s donation, which the 
«Council has bestowed on the Rey. Dr. 
Brinkley, President of the Royal. Trish 
Academy, for his various communications 
to the Royal Society. 
In paying some high compliments to 
Dr. Brickley’s profound mathematical 
knowledge, his accuracy, acuteness, minute 
spirit of observation, &c.—the president 
observed that, by awarding the medal last 
year to Mr. Pond, and this to Dr. B. 
while those learned astronomers were at 
issue upon the two great points, the affir- 
mation or denial of a sensible parallax of 
some of the fixed stars, and the like affirma- 
tion and denial of a southern motion of a 
considerable part of the sidereal system, 
the council of the Royal Society did not 
mean to give any opinion on these obscure 
and difficult questions. 
The learned president gave a history of 
the progress of sidereal astronomy, and 
particularly of the inquiries made respect- 
ing parallax, or the differences of the angles 
made by fixed stars with the two extremi- 
ties of the earth’s orbit.—He detailed the 
opinions or observations and experiments 
of Galileo, Flamsteed, Hooke, Bradley, 
Mitchell, Herschel, Cassini, La Caille and 
Piazzi. He stated that Dr. Brinkley’s 
latest and most refined result on the paral-- 
lax of a Lyre (the star in which he has 
most invariably observed the phenomenon) 
of one second and a few hundredth parts, 
is not opposed to Dr. Bradley’s view of 
the subject, or to the photometrical con- 
siderations of Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Gauss. 
And he stated that with respect to the 
southern motion, Dr. Brinkley’s opinion 
was supported by that of other astrono- 
mers. ‘The fixed stars are in the system of 
the heavens, what land-marks, or the extre- 
mities of base lines, are to measures upon 
the earth; and the correctness and use of 
our calculations depend upon the supposi- 
tion of the permanency of their arrange- 
ments. Andhe added that whilst such phi- 
losophers exist as, Dr. Brinkley, at Dublin ; 
M. Bessel, at Konigsberg: Dr. Schuma- 
cher, at Altona; Arago, at Paris; Olbers, 
at Bremen; and Gauss and Hardinge, at 
Gottingen; it was impossible that any 
great problem in the science could long re- 
main unsolved. In illustrating the impor- 
tance of an impartial encouragement of the 
cultivation of that science in every part of 
the world, he gave the fact, that the return 
of the Comet within a period of four years, 
calculated by Encke, would not have: been 
verified, but for the observatory established 
by the liberality of Sir Thomas Brisbane in 
New South Wales. He-coneluded with 
an eloquent appeal on the demanstrated | 
utilities of Astronomy ; and its effects, in 
H enlightening 
