46(3 APPENDIX. 



" And now, in the absence of Dr. Draper, unable at this inclement 

 season to execute a fatiguing journey, it gives me pleasure to recognize 

 you, Mr. Quincy, as his worthy and competent representative. 



" I pray you, in receiving these two medals on his behalf, in accordance 

 with the terms of the original trust, to assure him, on the part of the 

 Academy, of the high satisfaction taken by all its Fellows in doing 

 honor to those who, like him, take a prominent rank in the advance of 

 science throughout the world." 



Mr. Quincy, on receiving the medals, said : 



" MR. PRESIDENT, In the name and on the behalf of Dr. Draper, I 

 have the honor to receive the Rumford medals in gold and silver which 

 the Academy has been pleased to award to him, and I will have them safe- 

 ly conveyed to him to-morrow, together with the assurances of the sat- 

 isfaction of the Academy in this action which you wish me to com- 

 municate to him. In common with yourself, sir, and all the Fellows 

 present, I regret that that eminent person is unable to attend this meet- 

 ing and receive the medals himself. And, personally, I regret the ab- 

 sence of Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, who had promised to perform this grate- 

 ful service for his friend, and who would have been able to make a more 

 suitable reply to the able discourse with which you have accompanied the 

 presentation of the medals, and to have done more justice to the claims 

 of Dr. Draper to this distinction, than I can pretend to do. Dr. Gibbs 

 having also been unavoidably prevented from being present this evening, 

 I have now the honor to read a communication from Dr. Draper to the 

 Academy, in acknowledgment of this testimony to his services to science." 



Mr. Quincy then read the following letter : 



" To THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : Your favor- 

 able appreciation of my researches on radiations, expressed to-day by the 

 award of the Rumford medals the highest testimonial of approbation 

 that American science has to bestow on those who have devoted them- 

 selves to the enlargement of knowledge is to me a most acceptable re- 

 turn for the attention I have given to that subject through a period of 

 more than forty years, and I deeply regret that through ill-health I am 

 unable to receive it in person. 



" Sir David Bre water, to whom science is under so many obligations 

 for the discoveries he made, once said to me that the solar spectrum is a 

 world in itself, and that the study of it will never be completed. His 

 remark is perfectly just. 



" But the spectrum is only a single manifestation of that infinite ether 

 which makes known to us the presence of the universe, and in which 

 whatever exists if I may be permitted to say so lives and moves and 

 has its being. 



