150 Royal Astronomical Society. 



bers of the Committee will favour this Society with his views and 

 proposals on this subject, in order that it may have the opportunity 

 and benefit of a free discussion, prior to the adoption of so important 

 an alteration. 



" From amongst the several distinguished names that were pro- 

 posed for the Medal this year, the Council have selected that of 

 M. Plana, for his elaborate treatise entitled ' Theorie du Mouvement 

 de la Lune : ' and they trust that this award will meet the approba- 

 tion of the meeting. The medal will be delivered in the usual man- 

 ner at the close of the meeting ; and the President will, in his ad- 

 dress, explain the grounds on which the Council have formed their 

 decision." 



The President (Sir J. F. W. Herschel, Bart.) afterwards addressed 

 ^ the Meeting on the subject of the award of the Medal, as follows : — 



Gentlemen, — The Report of the Council to which we have just 

 listened (with the painful exception of the losses the Society has 

 sustained in the persons of those respected and lamented members 

 who have been so ably commemorated in that Report) is one calcu- 

 lated to afford most lively satisfaction ; and it is so full and complete 

 on every point as to have left me nothing to say, except on that one 

 subject on which, by ancient usage, it has been considered right for 

 the Chairman of this meeting to add a few words of explanation — I 

 mean the award of the Medal for the year. 



The award of our medal for this year, gentlemen, to Signor Plana 

 is an act, as it may at first sight appear, of somewhat tardy justice. 

 Those great works on the lunar theory (for which that award is 

 made), and on the perturbations of the planets, especially of Jupiter 

 and Saturn, have now been so long before the public, that it may 

 almost appear as if, in the dearth of matter of sufficient interest of 

 later date, your Council had been ransacking the annals of modern 

 astronomy to find something on which they might rely in a kind of 

 inglorious safety for a justification of their award. 



This would be a very erroneous view, indeed, to take of this sub- 

 ject. So far from experiencing a lack of matter to choose from 

 — so far from a deficiency of interest in the subjects which have 

 shared the consideration of the Council in coming to the conclusion 

 they have done — there have been, in fact, on probably no occasion, 

 such powerful countervailing claims — and so far from seeking, in 

 this award, a merely safe and justifiable course — it has required no 

 common share of boldness and decision in your judges to put aside 

 those claims, in favour of M. Plana's — of that boldness I mean which 

 is based on justice and a long-sighted view of public utility. 



Before I proceed, therefore, to state the reasons which have 

 weighed with the Council to take the step they have done, it will 

 be right for me to mention, at least in general terms, two of the 

 subjects which have chiefly divided their attention on the occasion ; 

 and this I am fortunately enabled to do, infinitely better than I 

 could pretend to do it on ray own knowledge and reading, by the 

 aid of most excellent reports on those subjects laid before the 

 Council by Professor Airy and Mr. Main — the one on the subject of 



