ON THE FORM OF BEES' CELLS. 355 



Lord Brougham's own remark is that the deviation between 

 Koenig and Maraldi had always been ascribed either to an error 

 of measurement or to an inaccuracy in the construction of the 

 cells. It is certainly not so ascribed by Maclaurin, who remarks 

 it could only have arisen from Koenig's not having carried his 

 computation far enough. Throughout Lord Brougham's elabo- 

 rate discourse on the matter, one circumstance is omitted, namely, 

 Maraldi's statement that the angles, according to his measure- 

 ments, were 110 and 70. 



Either the habit of an advocate's mind, for Lord Brougham 

 may be regarded as counsel for the bees, or his not having 

 read Maraldi's paper, must have been the cause of this omission. 

 Nor has he mentioned the advantage which Maraldi conceived 

 to result from the angles being what they are: namely, that 

 only two plane angles occur throughout the structure. He 

 quotes at second-hand the opinion of Boscovich that tfee angles 

 could not be measured with the supposed degree of precision. 



I have not seen what Boscovich says, but have no doubt 

 that Lord Brougham has misunderstood him : for he makes 

 Boscovich' s opinion to be, that Maraldi merely deduced his 

 result by assuming that the dihedral angles are all equal to 

 120, that is, he makes Boscovich accuse Maraldi of dishonesty, 

 whereas, in reality, he probably only repeated what Maraldi 

 in effect says : that he deduced the precise angles from assuming 

 that the angles in the trapezium were precisely equal to those 

 of the rhomboid, his measurements giving the same value to 

 both, namely, as I have already said, 110 and 70. 



The matter has been so long confused that it is worth while 

 to quote Maraldi's own words. 



* Chaque base d' Alveole est forinee par troisrhombes presqte 

 toujours e*gaux et semblables, qui suivant les mesures que 

 nous avons prises, ont les deux angles obtus chacun de 110 



degres et par consequent les deux aigus chacun de 70 degres.' 

 #%##%# 



' Ces six memes cotes des trois rhombes sont autant de bases 

 sur lesquelles les Abeilles elevent des plans qui forment les six 

 cotes de chaque Alveole. Chacun de ces c6tes est un trapeze 

 qui a un angle aigu de 70 degres, 1'autre obtus de 110 degre*s, 

 et les deux angles du trapeze qui sont du cote* de 1'ouverture, 

 sont droits. II faut remarquer ici que Tangle aigu du trapeze 



232 



