266 Royal Irish Academy. 



LL.D. from Cam'bridge, LL.D. from Edinburgh, and M.D. from 

 Bologna. He was for twenty years Secretary of the Zoological 

 Society of Ireland, and did much by his energy and tact to bring 

 the Society into its present state of comparative prosperity. He had 

 been a member of this Academy since 1845, had been on the Council 

 for many years, and was President from 1886 to 1891. He received 

 the Cunningham Medal for his Memoir on the " Equilibrium and 

 Motion of Solid and Eluid Bodies." He was elected a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society of London in 1858. His energy appears to have 

 remained with him almost to the last, and quite recently on our 

 Council, he took an active interest in the proceedings. He was 

 looked on by all who had the advantage of his acquaintance as a 

 most pleasant and genial friend. 



One cannot but be struck with the wide range of the branches of 

 Science treated of in our Proceedings and Transactions, embracing 

 nearly all branches of l^atural knowledge, and it would be out of 

 place here to give more than a cursory glance at them. In fact, the 

 recent numbers include Astronomy, Chemistry and Molecular Physics, 

 Geology, Paleontology, Mathematics, Physics, Physiology and Biology. 

 Still the total amount of matter, though as much as might be ex- 

 pected under the circumstances, is comparatively small. 



In Astronomy we are much hampered by our climate. In com- 

 mon, more or less, with observers in other parts of the British 

 Isles, we are often disheartened by the cloudiness of the sky, and, 

 above all, by the uncertainty of the weather, so that effective 

 work is altogether incompatible with any other fixed occupation. 

 We have not the immense extent of country and variety of climate, 

 nor the far greater range of elevation possessed by our friends on the 

 continent of America, where, through the expenditure of large sums of 

 money upon instruments superior to anything of their kind hitherto 

 existing, and specially suited for the pui-pose, the two satellites of 

 Mars and the fifth of Jupiter have been for the first time detected ; 

 but the quality of recent photographic work on astronomical objects 

 from European observatories — from England, Erance, and Germany — 

 in recent years, shows that there is still room for successful rivalry in 

 the Old World. 



In recent years the Academy has, I thiak, done its part in 

 bringing out astronomical work. I might particularise Dr. Dreyer's 



