lx REPORT—1862. 
between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, their discovery being facilitated by 
the use of charts. The last announced, which is No. 74 of the Series, was 
discovered on the morning of Sept. 1 of this year, by M. Luther of Bilk, near 
Diisseldorf, whose diligence has been rewarded by the discovery of a large 
number of others of the same group. 
The present year has been signalized by the unexpected appearance of a 
comet of unusual brightness, which, although its tail was far from being as 
conspicuous as those of the comets of 1858 and 1861, exhibited about its 
nucleus phenomena of a distinct and remarkable character, the records of 
which may possibly at some future time aid in the discovery of the nature of 
that mysterious action by which the gaseous portion of these erratic bodies 
is so strangely affected. 
On an application made by the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society, 
Government has granted £1000 for the establishment, during a limited period, 
under the superintendence of Captain Jacob, of an Observatory at a consi- 
derable altitude above the level of the sea, in the neighbourhood of Bombay. 
The interesting results of the ascent by Professor Piazzi Smyth a few years 
since of the Peak of Teneriffe, for the purpose of making astronomical and 
physical observations, suggested to the President and Council of the Society 
the desirableness of taking this step. 
In Cuemisrry, the greatest advance which has been made during the past 
year is probably the formation of compounds of Carbon and Hydrogen by the 
direct union of those elements. M. Berthelot has succeeded in producing 
some of the simpler compounds of carbon and hydrogen by the action of carbon 
intensely heated by electricity or hydrogen gas; and from the simpler com- 
pounds thus formed he is able to produce, by a succession of steps, compounds 
more and more complex, until he bids fair to produce from inorganic sources 
all the compounds of carbon and hydrogen which have hitherto been only 
known as products of organic origin. Mr. Maxwell Simpson has also added 
to his former researches a step in the same direction, producing some organic 
products by a synthetical process. But these important researches will be 
fully laid before you in the lecture on Organic Chemistry which Dr. Odling 
has kindly promised for Monday evening next. 
Dr. Hofmann has continued his indefatigable researches on Poly-ammo- 
nias, as well as on the colouring matters produced from coal-tar. M. Schle- 
sing proposes a mode of preparing chlorine by a continuous process, which 
may perhaps become important in a manufacturing point of view. In this 
process nitric acid is made to play the same kind of part that it does in the 
manufacture of sulphuric acid, the oxides of nitrogen acting together with 
oxides of manganese as carriers of oxygen from the atmosphere to the hydro- 
chloric acid. 
The methods of dialysis announced last year by the Master of the Mint, 
and of spectrum analysis are now in everybody’s hands, and haye already pro- 
duced many interesting results. 
In Crvit or Mucuantcat Enetnerrtne there is nothing very new. 
The remarkable series of experiments carried on at Shoeburyness and else- 
where have developed many most interesting facts and laws in relation to 
the properties of iron, and its resistance to projectiles at high velocities, 
which will doubtless be fully laid before you at some future period; but in 
the present imperfect state of the investigation, and in consideration of the 
purpose of that investigation, prudential reasons forbid the complete publi- 
cation of the facts. My able predecessor in this Chair, who has taken so pro- 
minent a part in these experiments, has given an account of some of the 
