250 THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. IV. 



summer of this year Arago and Gay-Lussac visited him 

 at Worthing. Young then learned what Fresnel was 

 doing on the diffraction of light, and they saw what 

 Young had published in his lectures in 1807. 



In 1816 he proposed to the editor of the 'Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica ' to write for him. He says : ' I would also 

 suggest (in addition to sound) alphabet, annuities, at- 

 traction, capillary action, cohesion, colour, dew, Egypt, 

 eye, forms, friction, halo, hieroglyphics, hydraulics, mo- 

 tion, resistance, ship, strength, tides, and waves. Any- 

 thing of a medical nature which you might think de- 

 sirable would of course be doubly so to me. Nor should 

 I be difficult with respect to any other subject that might 

 occur to you. L' alti non temo, e 1' umili non sdegno.' 

 He contributed sixty-three articles ; forty-six were 

 biographical. This year he published his ' Translation 

 of the Hieroglyphics ' with a correspondence with De 

 Sacy and Akerblad. 



In 1818 he wrote the article ' Egypt ' for the En- 

 cyclopaedia. ' It was pronounced to be the greatest 

 effort of scholarship and ingenuity of which modern 

 literature could boast ; yet it was only a popular and 

 superficial sketch of the vast mass of materials which 

 his diligence had collected and his genius had inter- 

 preted.' 



He was this year appointed superintendent of the 

 ' Nautical Almanac ' and secretary of the Board of 

 Longitude, which was established to relieve the Astro- 

 nomer Eoyal from all scientific questions regarding the 

 interests of navigation. He immediately set himself to 

 correct all the errors of the Almanac that endangered 



