182 . Royal Irish Academy. 



"This beautiful instrument, which excited the admiration of 

 foreign astronomers at the Paris Exhibition in 1876, prepared the way 

 for Mr. Howard Grubb being entrusted with the greatest work of the 

 present day in the department of telescope construction, the 27-inch 

 refractor to be erected in the new Observatory at Yienna, and which 

 important work Mr. Grubb has lately brought to completion. 



" I must refer for the detailed account of this great instrument to 

 the full description of it which has been published in the scientific 

 journals, the Engineer and Nature. It could only serve to embarrass 

 the Academy were I to enter upon a description of the numerous 

 original and ingenious contrivances by which the various complicated 

 adjustments of all parts of that great mechanism have been rendered 

 the most complete and perfect of any as yet devised. A Commission of 

 eminent astronomers, appointed by the Austrian Government, and of 

 which our colleague Dr. Eobert Ball is a member, have examined its 

 construction and performance ; and although impeded in their observa- 

 tions by our variable climate and by what Humboldt called ' Der 

 ewige I^ebelschleier Irlands,' have reported their complete satisfac- 

 tion with its results. 



" Of this triumph of mechanical and optical ability, all who are 

 interested in the scientific and industrial character of our country may 

 well be proud. It might be legitimately excused in Mr. Grubb if, 

 when the products of his workshops, diffused through both hemi- 

 spheres, constituting in each objects of the highest scientific interest and 

 practical utility, he might be led to assume the proud, but well-earned 

 motto of a society of which he is a distinguished member, Nostri plena 

 laboris ; but I would venture to remind him that in the advancement 

 of Science, applied as well as abstract, every step that is gained leads 

 but to the perception of a still higher ideal, to be sought after and ob- 

 tained only by patient and untiring exertion. I feel assured that in 

 the spirit of a sincere cultivator of Science, by which he is animated, 

 he will rather aspire to follow the humble but hopeful device of this 

 Academy — '"We will endeavour.'" 



Mr. Grubb, in receiving the Medal, thanked the Academy for the 

 honour they had conferred upon him. 



The Eev. Francis Le Poer M'Clintock, m.a. (Cantab.), The Parson- 

 age, Castlebellingham, was elected a Member of the Academy. 



