] 3 1 Royal Society. 



light, the most important laws of which he determined ; forming one 

 of those great series of experimental investigations relating to the 

 properties of light and the optical properties of crystals which are 

 unrivalled, since the time of Newton, for their variety, their delicacy, 

 and perhaps also for their theoretical importance. 



To the last, for a singularly successful and well developed example 

 of chemical analysis, which terminated in the discovery of a new, and 

 hitherto undecompounded body, Bromine. 



I now come to the consideration of the Medals upon the Founda- 

 tion of His present Majesty ; and it is the King's pleasure that the 

 President and Council of the Royal Society should be considered as 

 his official advisers, in the award of an honour which emanates imme- 

 diately from himself. His Majesty has also been graciously pleased 

 to prescribe the general Rules and Principles which shall regulate 

 their distribution hereafter. The King has therefore commanded 

 that they shall be adjudged annually, and that the award shall be 

 announced on the day of the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal 

 Society; that the Memoirs which shall be entitled to receive them, 

 whether composed by Foreigners or by Englishmen, shall be com- 

 municated to the Royal Society; and that the general subject matter 

 of such Memoirs shall be prescribed and announced by the Council 

 at least three years preceding the day of their award : and also, that 

 for the present and the two following years, the principle of their 

 distribution shall be the same as that which has hitherto been adopted, 

 with the additional condition, that the succession of branches of sci- 

 ence which shall be selected as entitled to these rewards, shall be the 

 same as that which shall be hereafter followed when the cycle of 

 their regular distribution begins. 



The selection of the subjects which should compose this cycle was 

 left to the Council of the Royal Society, who have made such a 

 choice as seemed to them best calculated to comprehend every de- 

 partment of science and to prevent the jealousies which might arise 

 from the recurrence of similar subjects in immediate or too close 

 succession : the subjects themselves and their periodical order (de- 

 termined by lot) are as follow : — 



1. Astronomy. 



2. Physiology, including the Natural History of Organized Beings. 



3. Geology and Mineralogy. 



4. Physics. 



5. Mathematics. 



6. Chemistry. 



In conformity with these Regulations, which form the existing 

 law for the distribution of the Royal Medals, they have been awarded 

 for the current year to Professor dk Candolle, of Geneva, for his 

 numerous and valuable researches and investigations in Vegetable 

 Physiology, as detailed in his Work, entitled " Physiologie Vegetale," 

 published in the year 1832; and to Sir John Frederick William 

 Herschel, for his Paper " On the Investigation of the Orbits of Re- 

 volving Double Stars," inserted in the Fifth Volume of the Memoirs 

 of the Royal Astronomical Society. 



