ai 
President Fraley next introduced Dr. Isaac Roberts, who 
addressed the Society as follows: 
IT am delegated by the Royat Astronomical Society of England to 
convey to you their hearty good wishes on this anniversary of your 
Society, and hope that your career in the future will be even more 
prosperous than in the past. 
I have brought with me a few specimens of the work that has been 
done in England, so that those present at the meeting may have an 
opportunity of judging somewhat of the way in which we work there. 
The subject involves a series of photographs, and the most convenient 
place for exhibiting them happens to be at the back of this room ; it is 
therefore probable that the audience will desire to turn their backs on 
you, Mr. President, for a while, so that they may see on the photo- 
graphs the references which I may have to make, and, with your 
permission, I shall have to be within reach of the photographs so 
that I may point them out. 
My remarks may be entitled, ‘‘ Illustrations of Progress Made 
During Recent Years in Astronomical Science.’’ Iam rather at a 
disadvantage in not knowing to what extent the field of astronomical 
science has been exhibited to you at the meetings which have pre- 
ceded this one, and I therefore feel the risk that I incur of repeating 
much of what may have been already laid before you in form and 
substance better than I can submit it. I shall, therefore, assume 
that reference to the progress made in astronomical science between 
the time of the foundation of this Society and about the year 1850 
may by me be omitted. 
The selection of the year 1850 as the time for the commencement 
of my narrative will be appreciated, because it was in that year that 
your illustrious countryman, George P. Bond, produced with the 
fifteen-inch Harvard refractor, a very successful photograph of the 
moon, which was exhibited at the great Exhibition in London, in 
1851. Another of your illustrious countrymen, Dr. J. W. Draper, 
of New York, had, as early as the year 1840, taken photographs of 
the moon, and in the subsequent year he succeeded in the appli- 
cation of the photographic method to the delineation of the solar 
spectrum. Bond also, in 1850, photographed, with the fifteen-inch 
Harvard refractor, the bright stars Castor and Vega, and, in 1857, 
initiated the photography of double stars. 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXxII. 148. M. PRINTED DEC. 14, 1893. 
