230 Royal Institution of Great Britain. 



clination of the axis of the transit instrument, with accompanying 

 tables. 



A letter was read from Dr. Lee, requesting the Society to accept 

 of the two-feet meridian circle, divided on gold, by Troughton, for 

 the late Rev. Lewis Evans. 



A letter was also read from Dr. Wollaston, presenting to the 

 President and Council of the Society his fine triple object-glass 

 achromatic telescope, made by the late Mr. Peter Dollond, in the 

 year 1771, and which he had himself adjusted agreeably to the me- 

 thod laid down by him in the Philosophical Transactions for 1822. 



FRIDAY EVENING PROCEEDINGS AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 



Jan. 23. — Mr. Brande gave an account of the supply of water to 

 the metropolis by the various companies established for that pur- 

 pose. He gave a particular account of the districts supplied by 

 each company; of the quantity of water given to each householder ; 

 of the advantages of the mode of supplying adopted in London ; of 

 its effects as a cleanser of the town ; and then entered into experi- 

 mental details upon the required purity and salubrity of the water, 

 and the methods which have at various times been proposed and 

 adopted for the correction of water not possessing these properties. 



The library-table was supplied with a variety of interesting mat- 

 ter according to custom. 



Jan. 30 Mr. Burnett gave some observations, original and se- 

 lect, on vegetable metamorphosis. The most useful and interesting 

 part of this subject related to those applications of art to nature, by 

 which the wants of man could be more abundantly supplied than 

 in the natural state ; and amongst these the conversion of leaf buds 

 into flower buds, and the nature of the ordinary vegetables used at 

 tables, very different indeed from their nature in the wild state, were 

 pointed out, and philosophically considered. 



The beautiful appearances of colour produced upon steel-plates, 

 by Signer Nobili, were also exhibited and generally explained. 

 These appearances are the effects produced by the poles of the 

 Voltaic pile, which, as M. Nobili states, under certain circumstances 

 occasion the precipitation of matter from solutions according to 

 very peculiar laws. 



Feb. 6. — Mr. Green read a paper On the study of ancient coins 

 in connection with history ; in which he traced the progress of the 

 manufacture of coin, and proposed a new method of arranging 

 coins in illustration of the history of ancient times. 



Feb. 13. — Mr, Faraday entered into a statement of Mr. Brown's 

 discovery of the existence of active molecules in organic and inor- 

 ganic matter ; and in addition to the matter contained in the paper 

 published in our Magazine, vol. iv. p. 161, related several new ob- 

 servations; stated more minutely the manner in which the influence 

 of known and ordinary causes had been as much as possible ex- 

 cluded, and corrected the erroneous opinions which had gone forth 



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