234 



affording another instance of our imperfect knowledge of the geo- 

 graphy of Spitzbergen. In conclusion, the author stated that he left 

 Spitzbergen on the 21st of August, the sun having set a night or two 

 previously for the first time, and the salt water begun to freeze ; 

 and he warmly urged his audience to support the further circumpolar 

 exploration which has been lately proposed by Captain Sherard 

 Osborne ; and said that, as a zoologist, he could declare there were 

 many questions of the very highest interest which could only be 

 solved by a new Arctic expedition. 



Professor Cardale Babington and Mr. Harry Seeley made commu- 

 nications respectively on the plants and on the fossils brought by 

 Mr. Newton from Spitzbergen. 



March 13, 1865. 



A communication was made by Professor Liveing " On Gun- 

 cotton." 



March 27, 1865. 



A communication was made by Professor Miller " On the Crystal- 

 lographic Methods of Grassman, Hessel, Frankenheim, and Uhde, 

 and on their employment in the investigation of the general geo- 

 metrical properties of Crystals." 



May 1, 1865. 

 Communications were made by Mr. Harry Seeley — 



1. "On the Cambridge Greensand. — Part I. The Rock and its 

 Origin." 



2. " On the Gravel and Drift of the Fenland.— Part II. Theory." 



May 15, 1865. 



A communication was made by Professor Churchill Babington 

 " On the Coinage of England before the Norman Conquest." 



May 29, 1865. 



A paper was read by Mr. Todhunter " On the Method of Least 

 Squares." 



The object of this communication is principally to demonstrate a 

 very remarkable result which Laplace enunciated, without demon- 

 stration, in the first Supplement to his work on ' Probabilities.' An 

 exposition is also given of the process adopted by Laplace for inves- 

 tigating the method of least squares. Laplace's process is genera- 

 lized and extended ; and results which he obtained for the case of 

 two elements are shown to hold for any number of elements. The 

 mathematical part of the investigation consists chiefly in the evolu- 

 tion of certain definite multiple integrals. 



