Royal Society. 133 



chemical and other discoveries, by awarding to him, as a Fellow, 

 that Medal which, from natural feelings of delicacy, they could not 

 have oifered to their President. 



In the following year a similar tribute of gratitude and respect was 

 paid to Dr. Wollaston, who had so long honoured the Royal Society 

 by his services and his scientific contributions, and who, towards 

 the close of his life, had augmented its means of usefulness by his 

 liberality. 



The fame of these two illustrious men is established upon too firm 

 a basis to require or receive additional strength or permanence from 

 any honours which we can pay to their memories ; but there are 

 some who were connected with them by the tenderest ties of kin- 

 dred and affection, who are in part the depositories and inheritors of 

 their honours : these may cherish the possession of such monuments, 

 as recording the reverence and respect of their contemporaries and 

 fellow-labourers. To their hands, therefore, we commit them, as our 

 last public offering to their memories. Illi habeant secum, serventque 

 sepulchro. 



The two other Medals for the corresponding years were awarded 

 to two distinguished foreign Astronomers. The first, to Professor 

 Struve, of Dorpat, who is so justly celebrated for his numerous and 

 valuable observations of double stars, — a department of astronomy 

 which is daily acquiring an increase of interest and importance, from 

 the new and extensive views which it is beginning to open to us of 

 the constitution of the remoter parts of the universe, and of the laws 

 which seem to govern some at least of the periodical changes which 

 they are undergoing. The second, to Professor Encke, of Berlin, 

 the greatest of modern astronomical calculators, who first determined 

 and predicted the motion of the comet which is justly signalized by 

 his name, with an accuracy approaching to that which before be- 

 longed to the ephemerides of the planets only ; and who still more has 

 subjected the discrepancies between its tabulated and observed places 

 to so accurate an analysis as to make them the foundation of the most 

 novel and unexpected speculations respecting the existence of a re- 

 sisting medium, which is capable of sensibly affecting the motions of 

 those extraordinary bodies which obey the laws of gravity, at the same 

 time that they seem to present few or none of those characters with 

 which our notions of matter and substance are commonly associated. 



The Medals for the years 1829 and 1830 were adjudged to Sir 

 Charles Bell, to Professor Mitscherlich of Berlin, to Sir David 

 Brewster, and to M. Balard of Montpellier. 



To the first, for his elaborate exjieriments and discoveries relating 

 to the nervous system, which place him in the highest rank of the 

 physiologists and anatomists, not merely of this country, but of 

 Europe. 



To the second, for his theory of isomorphism, one of those great 

 generalizations in the sciences of chemistry and crystallography 

 which are reserved for men of large and extensive views, and v inch 

 may be considered as constituting a great epoch in their history. 



To the third, for his discoveries relating to the polarization of 



