'i56 Royal Society. 



vation of nearly one-tenth of an inch for 17 degrees of declination. 

 The inequality has a contrary sign to the inequality of the same ar- 

 gument in the tides of the ocean. 



April 1. — The following letter, addressed to the President, was 

 read : — 



" -i, Trafalgar Square, London, March 25th, 1841. 



" My Lord, — I have the honour of transmitting to Your Lordship 

 for presentation to the Royal Society, an original portrait of Sir 

 Isaac Neivton by Vanderbank, a Dutch painter of some note in that age. 



" This picture has now been many years in my possession, and the 

 tenure by which I have kept it (as a collateral descendant of so 

 illustrious a man) was too flattering not to have been a source of 

 great personal gratification. 



" But I consider such a portrait to belong of right to the scientific 

 world in general, and more especially to that eminently distinguished 

 Society of whicli Newton was once the head, and which is now so 

 abl}'^ presided over by Your Lordship. 



" I have, therefore, to request Your Lordship will do me the 

 honour to present this original portrait of Sir Isaac Newton to the 

 Royal Society in my humble name. 



" Accident having destroyed some of the papers of my family, I 

 am unable of myself to trace the entire history of this portrait, but I 

 believe more than one member of the Royal Society is competent to 

 do so, and it is well knoM'n to collectors ; and a small mezzotinto 

 engraving of it was publislied about forty years ago. It was painted 

 the year before Newton died, and came into the family of the cele- 

 brated Lord Stanhope, who left it by his will to my grandfather, 

 the late Dr. Charles Hutton, a distinguished member of the Royal 

 Society, expressly on the well-authenticated account of that eminent 

 mathematician having been remotely descended from Sir Isaac New- 

 ton, in the following way, as I find on a family manuscript ; viz. 

 ' that the mother of the well-known James Hutton and the mother 

 of Dr. Charles Hutton were sisters ; and the grandmother of James 

 Hutton and the mother of Sir Isaac Newton were also sisters.' 



" I have ever considered this very distant connexion with so great 

 a man should not be an inducement to lead me into an}' but casual 

 mention of the circumstance, that I might avoid the imputation of 

 a vain boast ; nor would it have been brought forward now, except 

 to explain the cause by which this portrait came into the possession 

 of an individual who is happy in relinquishing it to grace the Hall 

 of Meeting of the Royal Society. 



" I have the honour to subscribe myself, 

 " Your Lordship's very obedient humble Servant, 



" Charles Vignolles." 

 " The Right Honourable the Marquess of Northampton, 

 S(C. ^c. 8iC. 

 President of the Royal Society." 



The following papers were read, viz. — 



1. "A Meteorological Journal for 1840, kept at Allenheads, 



