EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 



the autographs of Hooke, Boyle, Evelyn, Wilkins, Wren, 

 and many others. 



Plate V. represents a page of the Charter Book in the 

 year of Queen Victoria's coronation, 1838. Within an 

 illuminated border, specially prepared for Her signature, 

 Queen Victoria has signed her name as Patron of the 

 Society. Below are the autographs of Prince Albert, of 

 Frederic William, King of Prussia, Frederick Augustus, 

 King of Saxony, the Emperor of Brazil, King Edward VII. 

 when Prince of Wales, and Alfred Duke of Connaught. 



In 1671, Sir Isaac Newton, who afterwards held the 

 office of President for the long period of twenty-four years 

 (1705-1727), submitted to the Society an original reflecting 

 telescope made with his own hands. (Plate VIII.) 



This telescope appears to have been the first reflecting 

 telescope actually constructed and directed to the heavens. 

 Some six or seven years previously, Mr. James Gregory, in a 

 book entitled Optica Promota, published in London in 1663, 

 explained the theory of the kind of relecting telescope 

 which still bears his name. As Gregory, according to his 

 own statement, possessed no mechanical dexterity, he 

 employed Messrs. Rives & Cox to grind a concave speculum 

 of six feet radius, and also a small one. These were never 

 finished, and even the tube of the telescope was not made. 



Newton, having found that the angle of reflection for 

 rays of all colours was equal to their angle of incidence, 

 at once understood that by reflection the glaring imper- 

 fections of lenses due to the different refrangibilities of the 



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