president's address. 19 



submitting each, remarkable paper to two qualified referees, 

 eminent in their several departments of study." In congratulating 

 our first Henwood Gold Medallist, I am certain that we shall 

 still find him taking an unceasing interest in his favourite 

 investigations, and that Cornish archaeology will long continue 

 to receive the benefit of his antiquarian talents, which I have 

 no doubt in the future will be the means of giving us much 

 additional information concerning the habits of our forefathers. 

 Meanwhile, a second gold medal will be awarded in 1893, a 

 knowledge of which, it is hoped, will again awaken sufficient 

 interest among authors to contribute a series of papers on the 

 natural history and antiquities of Cornwall, excelling, if possible, 

 the first-class memoirs which competed for the medal in 1890. 



It is pleasing to mention here that Dr. C. Le Neve Foster, 

 a former secretary of this Institution, has been appointed to fill 

 the chair of " The Principals of Mining" in the Eoyal College 

 of Science, South Kensington, so long and ably occupied by our 

 late Vice-President, Sir Warington W. Smyth. I feel sure 

 that the Cornish friends of Dr. Poster and every member of the 

 Institution are gratified to know that the Government has in this 

 manner shown its appreciation of the eminent abilities exhibited 

 by him as one of its Inspectors of metalliferous mines. 



In my address at the last spring meeting, I expressed a 

 desire to deviate, in some measure, from the strictly local 

 character of the addresses of most of my predecessors in this 

 chair, and to devote my remarks generally to the science of 

 astronomy, a subject that has been my daily thought during a 

 somewhat long professional career. In adopting this course, I 

 considered that I was only following the custom of most scientific 

 men, such as the Presidents of the British Association, who 

 invariably choose the subject of their discourses from their own 

 special branches of study. I therefore take for granted that, 

 on occasions like the present, it is far more satisfactory, in a 

 formal address, that the speaker should devote his attention, for 

 the most part, to those scientific or literary subjects with which 

 his usual habits have made him familiar, than to attempt a theme 

 with which he is only imperfectly acquainted. In a general as 

 well as in a scientific point of view, the principal interest attache d 

 to a Presidential address consists not to much in the multitude 



