244 Memoir of the Life of Dr. Thomas Young. 
measures customarily in use, attached to the three reports laid by 
them before Parliament. It appears to have been Dr. Young’s opin- 
ion that, ‘though theoretically it might be desirable that all weights © 
and measures should be reducible to a common standard of scientific 
accuracy, yet that practically the least possible disturbance of that 
to which people had been long habituated was the point to be looked 
to, and on this ground he was extremely averse to unnecessary 
changes.’ 
Towards the end of the same year, Dr. Young was appointed 
Secretary to the Board of Longitude, with the charge of the super- 
vision of the Nautical Almanack, having been before named one of 
the Commissioners without his previous knowledge. This appoint- 
ment was to him a very desirable one, though the labor in which it 
involved him was great. His anxiety to increase his medical prac- 
tice henceforth ceased, and it made that the business of his life which 
had always been congenial to his inclination. 
For the first sixteen years after his marriage, Dr. Young had been 
accustomed to pass his summers at Worthing, with a view to the 
practice of his profession. He now discontinued his visits, and de- 
voted the summer of 1819 to a hasty tour into Italy. In about five 
months he visited the most remarkable places, and examined the 
Egyptian monuments preserved in the museums of that country, re- 
turning to England by Switzerland and the Rhine. 
From the year 1820 to the close of his life, Dr. Young continued 
to furnish a variety of astronomical and nautical collections to Mr. 
Brande’s ‘Journal of Science,’ together with some philological 
papers. : 
‘In 1821 he published anonymously an ‘“ Elementary Illustration 
of the Celestial Mechanics of La Place, with some additions rela- 
ting to the motion of Waves and of Sound, and to the Cohesion of 
Fluids.” This volume, and the article “Tides” in the Supplement 
to the Encyclopedia, Dr. Young considered as containing the most 
fortunate results of his mathematical labors.’ ‘He proceeds (says 
his biographer) in his own course and manner of investigation, and 
uses his own processes, and the great reach of mind displayed in 
these works seems universally acknowledged ; but whether he has 
sufficiently established all the points which he considered himself to 
have proved, remains. matter of dispute among those most qualified 
to judge. ‘They were spoken of in the highest terms of praise by 
Mr. Davies Gilbert from the chair of the Royal Society ; but there 
