Astronomical Society. 295 



from the Committee appointed to examine the telescope, whose 

 object-glass was formed of the glass presented to the Society 

 by the late M. Guinand. The object-glass being finished and 

 approved bv the Committee (whose report will be seen in the 

 last volume"^ of the Memoirs) it was thought advisable that it 

 should be offered for sale to any of the members of the So- 

 ciety that might be disposed to bid for it : and that the pro- 

 ceeds, after the payment of expenses for working the glass, 

 should be transmitted to the family of M. Guinand, for their 

 use and benefit. This has been done : and the object-glass 

 is now in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Pearson, the Trea- 

 surer of this Society. 



With respect to the finances of the Society, it will appear 

 from the report of the Auditors, which has been read, that 

 there have been elected 1 1 new Members, and 3 Associates 

 since the last anniversary : and that the Society now consists 

 of 212 Members and 32 Associates: — in all, 24<4'. At the same 

 time it will be seen that considerable expenses have been in- 

 curred in printing the last volume of the Memoirs : which, 

 however, contains a considerable quantity of matter that must 

 be intei'esting both to the theoretical and practical astronomer. 

 Amongst the losses by death, which the Society has sustained 

 in the year just past, the Council have to regret those of three 

 of its distinguished Associates : MM. Bode, Fraunhofer, and 

 Piazzi. The first has been long known not only as the able 

 cond uctor of the Ephemeris published annually at Berlin, (a work 

 which for many years tended more than any other to promote 

 the advancement of astronomy, by the circulation of important 

 and useful information on various branches of the science,) 

 but also as the author of several valuable works conducive to 

 the same end; amongst which his Catalogue of 17,240 stars 

 (reduced from the observations of various astronomers), and 

 his Charts of the same, may be considered as the most important. 

 He died at the advanced age of 80 years. 



M. Fraunhofei" has long been celebrated as a distinguished 

 optician, and as an artist of the first class. Few of the spe- 

 cimens however of his superior talent have reached this country: 

 but on the continent, where they are more numerous, their 

 value is highly appreciated. Though not an Astronomer him- 

 self, he has the strongest of claims to the respect and gratitude of 

 Astronomers, in furnishing them with means of discovery, in 

 which tlie most exquisite skill in point of practical execution was 

 directed by the utmost refinementof theoretical knowledge. He 

 was in the highest sense of the word, an optician, an original 

 discoverer in the most abstruse and delicate departments of his 



science, 



