Royal Society. g] 



coverer of the planet Ceres. These gentlemen, said the President, 

 died according to the ordinary course of nature in old age, having 

 enjoyed a glory which in no respect disturbed their repose? Among 

 the home members, he dwelt at some length on the loss of Mr. Taylor 

 Combe and Sir Stamford RaflBes ; the last of whom he eulogized as 

 a most disinterested and liberal contributor to the Natural History 

 of this country. " Occupying high situations," said the president, 

 "in our empire in the East, he employed his talents and his exten- 

 sive resources, not in the exercise of power or the accumulation of 

 wealth, but in endeavouring to benefit and to improve the condition 

 of the natives, to fix liberal institutions, and to establish a perma- 

 nent commercial intercourse between the colonies in which he pre- 

 sided and the mother country; which, while it brought new trea- 

 sures to Europe, tended to civilize and to improve the condition of 

 the inhabitants of some of the most important islands of the East. 

 Neither misfortune nor pecuniary losses damped the ardour of his' 

 mind in the pursuit of knowledge. Having lost one splendid col- 

 lection by fire, he instantly commenced the formation of another ; 

 and having brought this to Europe, he made it not private, but 

 public property, and placed it entirely at the disposition of a new 

 Association for the promotion of zoology, of which he had been 

 chosen president by acclamation. Many of the Fellows of this 

 Society can bear testimony to his enlightened understanding, acute 

 judgement, and accurate and multifarious information ; and all of 

 them must, I am sure, regret the premature loss of a man who had 

 done so much, and from whom so much more was to be expected, 

 and who was so truly estimable in all the relations of life." 



After stating the foundation of the Royal Medals, which had 

 been announced to the Society at their anniversary dinner last 

 year by the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the 

 Home Department ; and which, said the President, having been 

 offered in the true spirit of Royal munificence, had been completed 

 with an exalted liberality worthy of the august patron of the Royal 

 Society— being intended to promote the objects and progress of 

 science, by awakening honourable competition among the philoso- 

 phers of all countries ; he proceeded to state, that the council had 

 awarded the first prize to Mr. John Dalton, of Manchester, for the 

 development of the chemical theory of definite proportions, usually 

 called the Atomic Theory, and for his various other labours in 

 chemical and physical science. He mentioned the names of Dr. 

 Bryan Higgins, Mr. William Higgins, and Richter, as having con- 

 tributed something towards the foundations of this part of science; 

 but, he said, as far as can be ascertained, Mr. Dalton was not 

 acquainted with any of their publications ; and whoever considers 

 the original tone prevailing in all his views and speculations, will 

 hardly accuse him of wilful plagiarism. But, let the merit of dis- 

 covery be bestowed wherever it is due, and Mr. Dalton will be still 

 pre-eminent in the History of the Tlieory of Definite Proportions. 

 He first laid down clearly and numerically the doctrine of multiples, 

 and endeavoured to express by simjilc numbers the weigiits of the 

 bodies behevcd to be elementary. The first views, from their bold- 

 ness 



