48 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



This difficulty, as Dr. Sharpey had kindly suggested, could 

 be overcome by the latter society arranging that papers pre- 

 sented to it might be read on evenings when the former one 

 did not meet. He also expressed the deep sense of obligation 

 felt by the Council and Fellows of the Linnean Society for 

 the efforts made on their behalf by the Royal Society. 



At the Anniversary Meeting on April 27th, Dr. W. A. Miller 

 was elected Treasurer in the place of Dr. J. D. Hooker, 

 and two alterations, of which the Committee had given 

 notice on Jan. I5th, were proposed and carried : (i) that 

 one black ball in five instead of one in three should exclude 

 a candidate ; and (2) that the Committee should consist 

 of seven members instead of four, three instead of two 

 retiring annually. 



Mr. J. C. Adams was elected into the vacancy made by 

 the resignation of Mr. Green. 



PROFESSOR JOHN COUCH ADAMS, the discoverer of Neptune, was 

 born on January 5th, 1819, at Lidcot, near Launceston. A farmer's 

 son, he began at an early age to study astronomy, and showed 

 exceptional mathematical talent. Entering St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, he was senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman in 

 1843. While still an undergraduate, he resolved on trying to 

 discover the cause of the perturbations in the orbit of Uranus, and 

 took the result of his calculations to the Greenwich Observatory 

 in October, 1845. The story of the official delays, which prevented 

 him from obtaining the full credit for his discovery of Neptune, is 

 too well known to need repetition. Elected Lowndean Professor 

 of Astronomy in 1858, he became Director of the Observatory 

 three years later, and spent his whole life at Cambridge, dying on 

 Jan. 2ist, 1892. Of him it was truly said that in few men were 

 the moral and intellectual qualities more evenly balanced. His 

 work on the secular acceleration of the moon's motion and on the 

 Leonid meteors was hardly less notable than his discovery of Neptune. 

 He was elected F.R.S. in 1849, having been awarded the Copley 

 Medal in the previous year, and received not a few other distinctions, 

 British and foreign. 



On May I4th, Mr. Homer announced that the Geological 

 Society had applied to the Government for accommodation 

 at Burlington House, and Mr. Hardwick had put forward 

 a plan (to which he believed the Government was favourable) 

 for the erection of a building, at a cost of about 3500, 



