3 1 Royal Society. 



The names of Wollaston and of Young and of Davy must occur 

 to every one. 



I should have shrunk, under any circumstances, from the un- 

 equal task of endeavouring to explain, to illustrate, or to appreciate 

 tlie works of individuals so preeminent ; fortunately for me, the 

 duty is not required. Each of these distinguished persons has al- 

 ready obtained a biographer who will not fail to employ his utmost 

 exertions in discussing topics which I could but sliglitly touch. A 

 recital of the titles merely of their various works would occupy a 

 large portion of the time usually employed on these occasions. 



WOLLASTO N. 



Dr. William Hyde Wollaston, having passed through the regular 

 gradations of English education, and obtained a Fellowship at Cam- 

 bridge, devoted some few of his earliest years to the ordinary 

 practice of medicine. But confident in his own abilities, buoyant 

 on the hereditary talents of his family, and urged by that ardent 

 desire for investigating physical truths, for interrogating Nature, 

 and recording her responses, which those alone who have felt are 

 duly qualified to appreciate, Dr. Wollaston withdrew himself from 

 medical practice and from the country; repaired to London, and 

 there employed the whole powers of his mind in those pursuits which 

 have since raised him to the eminence he has so justly obtained. 



His first communication to the Society arose out of the profes- 

 sion he had left — An Examination of Gouty Concretions and of 

 Calculi. In this analysis, with the acumen that distinguished him 

 through life. Dr. Wollaston detected essential discriminations of 

 species which had been previously confounded, and the importance 

 of the research hjuv well be expressed in his own words : — 



" If in any case a chemical knowledge of the effects of diseases 

 will assist us in the cure of them, in none does it seem more likely 

 to be of service than in the removal of the several concretions that 

 are found in various parts of the body." 



Medical investigations were, however, soon abandoned for the 

 great departments of Metallurgy, Electro- Chemistry, Optics, 

 Crystallography, Astronomy. 



In the first, two new metals, Palladium and Rhodium, were dis- 

 covered among the ores of platinum, about the time that platinum 

 itself was rendered malleable in large masses, and thereby adapted to 

 the uses and wants of the philosophical world. The two metals, with 

 all the processes requisite for their extraction, and all their known 

 properties of combinatitm, solution, precipitation, &-c., as matters 

 of scientific discovery, were forthwith communicated to our Trans- 

 actions; but the manipulations used in consolidating platinum, not 

 involving any general principle, he dee.ned, and rightly deemed, a 

 species of private property, imposing no other duty on the possessor 

 than to furnish an ample and steady supply adequate to the de- 

 mand. This he most satisfactorily afforded ; and finally he made 

 known to the public, through our Society, the art of manufacturing 

 this metal ; thereby giving to science that which might have been 

 fairly retained as a family inheritance. 



The 



