220 Roijal Society. 



gent regulation wa.« at one time in contemplation, which would have 

 affected your privileges. Had not that proposition been abandoned, 

 1 should have felt it my duty to urge strongly on the Council the 

 propriety of bringing the whole question before the Society at large, 

 and I have little doubt that that course would have been readily 

 adopted. As, however, the limitation of the number fifteen applies 

 alone to the number to be recommended by the Council, leaving to 

 j'ou the power to elect more candidates, should you think fit to do 

 so, there seemed to me to be no necessity for calling you together 

 in a Special General Meeting. 



Having stated to you my doubts as to the expediency of the limi- 

 tation of the number of Candidates recommended by the Council, it 

 is right to add that those doubts do not at all extend to the change 

 in the manner of our election. I am convinced that considerable 

 advantage must accrue from its being attended with greater solem- 

 nity, and from the participation of a larger number of our Fellows 

 in its exercise. This change has also the further recommendation, 

 that the reading of our papers will not be perpetually interrupted 

 by the circulation of the ballot-box. 



I now come to the most grateful part of my address — that of the 

 presentation of the Royal and Copley Medals. The two subjects 

 proposed for the former this year were the sciences of Chemistry 

 and Mathematics. As in the latter there was no paper coming 

 within the Royal regulations to which we could properly give the 

 medal, we were obliged by the same regulations to turn to the sub- 

 jects of Physics and Geology. We have, in consequence, awarded 

 the Medal in Physics to Mr. Grove, for the jiaper which constituted 

 the subject of the Bakerian Lecture ; and to Mr. Fownes, for papers 

 which, as Mr. Grove's, appear in the Philosophical Transactions. 



The Copley Medal was presented to Sir John Herschel for his 

 long, and arduous, and valuable labours in the service of astronomy 

 at a very distant part of our globe. 



Among the deceased Members are the following ; — 



Hugh, 'Phird Duke of Northumberland. 



Nicholas Carlisle. 



William Dealtry, D.D. 



The Right Hon. Sir Edward Htde East. 



Mr. Macvey Napier was born in the year 1777, and descended 

 from an ancient family in the West of Scotland. After successful 

 studies in the two Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, he be- 

 came a member of the Society of Writers to the Signet. His talents 

 would probably have led him to great success in the legal profes- 

 sion, had not his taste for literary and philosophical pursuits led 

 him to other avocations. He was, however, the object of so much re- 

 spect and regard, that he was at an early age elected by the Society to 

 the honourable office of their librarian ; an office for which he seems 

 to have been admirably qualilied. At a later period, they selected 

 him from many able competitors to deliver lectures on Conveyancing. 

 The University of Edinburgh subsequently evinced their sense of 

 the merits of these lectures by converting the lectureship into a 



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